Wake up! Wake up, I say! La Liga is not won yet. ‘But Ade,’ you say, ‘maybe Espanyol will take points from Real Madrid tonight and…” And I can’t hear you over how loud I’m scoffing. Even if Espanyol managed to score a manita over RM tonight, they would proceed to score six own goals in injury time, just to spite us. No, we can’t rely on our perico neighbours for an easy way to La Liga. We’ll have to do it the hard way.
ETA: they did! Espanyol held Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw! BARÇA ARE 2012/2013 LIGA CHAMPIONS!!!
If the league were about hugging instead of football... we'd be in the same position. Huh.
And you can trust it’s going to be difficult. Playing Atleti is always difficult for Barça. Even when Atleti have not had their best season in years and Barça aren’t hobbling to the season’s finish line, they always manage to put Barça through the grinder.
Tito has decided to take the whole squad to Madrid, in case Barça do manage to carry it off and win La Liga tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we actually have enough players. We heard that Abidal was training with the team this morning, only to be disappointed two hours later when we were informed that he’s out with a small muscle tear. Valdés, he of the Mysterious Left-Foot Discomfort, is out not only due to discomfort in his left-foot, but also a muscle spam on his left calf. The Barça medical staff have neglected their duties so much that players are getting injured twice over now!
Seriously, it’s getting ridiculous. A few seasons ago, there was a marked improvement in how players trained and were treated for injuries; Messi was the best example for this, as having Juanjo Brau follow him around the world resulted in a drastic decrease in how often he got injured. But whatever it was, it isn’t anymore. The current Barça medical staff thinks our players are so amazing that they can be relied on to manage their injuries themselves. Messi wants to play on one leg? Let him! Xavi wants to shred his tendons on meaningless matches? Full steam ahead! Puyol puts his knees through a blender, then decides to have a not-tomorrow-but-tonight surgery? Ah, good old Puyi, you know him, he’ll be back when he sees fit, probably sooner than he should.
Abidal, seconds before a Barça physio stepped on him and injured him.
Obviously the medical staff must listen to the players, who know better than anyone where and how much it hurts, but some authority wouldn’t come amiss. Or, at least, something more reliable than throwing a set of dice when asked about recovery times; “discomforts” these days can see a player return after two days or disappear for months and months (has anyone heard anything about Puyol?). Some things, like Adriano and His Amazingly Fragile Hamstrings, are out of the read of all medical expertise, but surely things can be done better than they have been this season.
In any case, we have enough players. Cesc is back from suspension, Thiago needs to be given more minutes, Messi is ‘almost’ back to full fitness, and the few matches left this season are the perfect opportunity to showcase those players we hope to get rid of during this summer’s transfer window (*insert your own unrealistic list of names here*). Which, of course, may backfire on us, like Villa’s performance against Betis, which likely shaved five millions off his asking price.
A reasonable starting XI is:
————–Pintocalypse————–
Alves——Piqué—–Bartra—–Adriano
————-Busquets—————-
——–Xavi——-Iniesta————
—–Pedro—–Villa—–Alexis——–
With Messi to come in in the second half, when it’s evident that Barça can’t tie their shoes without him. Adriano can erase, with a good fullback performance, the memory of how bad he is as a CB and help us sell him this summer. Bartra can do what he did against Bayern, except hopefully without the awful result. At least one of Thiago and Cesc should start, but knowing Tito, they won’t. This should be enough to have a good match against Atleti. Hopefully Simeone (unlike everyone else) will have some hopes of his team winning the Copa Del Rey final and will rest some players, to make our job easier.
It's Iniesta's birthday! The future is bright, and pale, and going bald!
