La Liga starts tomorrow (Saturday) for Barca . I've opened the season long match thread for La Liga games. Please post all match related commentary in that thread. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-2024-25-la-liga-match-thread.2132129/
Olmo has been registered and will be available for the Rayo match tomorrow. How did Laporta accomplish this ? He is using an injury clause to get over La Liga financial requirements. Basically if a player has an injury that will put him out for 4 months, you can break the financial requirements. That player is Christensen. Although Christensen is expected to be out 1-2 months AFAIK. I guess Laporta had a plan after all . I can't say he isn't crafty ... I also can't say this isn't shady. Football is a dirty business.
BTW ... Olmo is registered until December. After that, when Christensen is "available", the club will have to find some other financial means to keep Olmo registered. Given how often the clubs recent injury history, I am guessing that might not be that difficult.
It’s frustrating to see how poorly this club is being managed. Laporta has been a huge disappointment—he’s failed to deliver on his promises. His primary task was to lower our debts, and three years later, after numerous sales and loans, we’re still unable to register a new signing all the while making shady deals and selling off club assets for short-term success instead of thinking long-term. What’s more, the success has been very limited for what has been sold off IMO. The same empty promises keep coming: “things are looking up,” “we’re almost there,” “we can make big signings,” and now, “we’re close to the 1:1 rule to sign better players.”It’s all a joke and I’m starting to despise Laporta. The media isn’t helping, either. We went from being linked to Nico, Coman, Leao, and Chiesa, yet ended up with none. Chiesa, reportedly available for 15M, has been a target for a while, but Liverpool just swooped in and got him. The media continues to make a mockery of us by pushing unrealistic transfer rumors, knowing full well that we lack the financial means to sign any of these players. I’m not saying I wanted all of these players (except Nico), but constantly seeing us linked with top players only to be turned down is humiliating for a club of our stature. Meanwhile, Laporta seems more focused on stuffing his face at fancy restaurants and getting heavier by the day than on the club’s success. Now he’s orchestrating another mirage with the whole Nike deal. I can already see him spewing the same nonsense of the least 3 years; “With this deal we can finally sign top players”… Smh. Piss off already.
On the bright side, maybe that opens a spot to sign up another player. I hear ACL injuries are at least 4 months ...
This sucks. Baby Busquets goes down. Get well, and get back soon, Marc. Hopefully, Casado can prove to be "Baby Kimmich." I dont know which is more tiring, the neverending financial issues, or the neverending injuries. We've GOT TO get some luck on this, at least based on the law of averages.
Given the sad news on Bernal, and the disappointing developments on FDJ, [HOPEFULLY] here are some promising news on the injury front: Transfermarkt has it as Gavi returning after the international break, and Araujo on the 1st of October: https://www.transfermarkt.us/fc-barcelona/sperrenundverletzungen/verein/131 Fati as well to possibly return after the international break: https://barcauniversal.com/barcelon...e-injury-boost-after-the-international-break/
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5726025/2024/09/03/barcelona-la-masia-yamal-cubarsi-gavi/ Great story from the guys who ran La Masia.
Here we go again... Fermin out for 3 weeks, will miss 4 games if I'm not mistaken. Irony aside, this is the reason Olmo was brought in. Now he better stay fit.
Yeah, not good. Timing is ok, as it would mean he avoids playing 2 matches for Spain. Don't think he would have started any of FCB's next 2 matches anyway but would be good to have him back when the team has 3 league fixtures in a 6-day span (22, 25, 28 Sept).
I'm not [yet] concerned. As noted, of the next 3 weeks, ~10 days are the international break. Torres is available for depth. Supposedly, FDJ may be back after the break. It may be 1 or 2 matches where the MF may be a bit short staffed, hopefully.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/41118340/barcelona-unveil-2024-25-away-kit-was-worth-wait I like it, even if I also liked the senyera kits as well.
Yeah, nice! Of course, I had to Google the new kit to actually see it. The video in the above link has to be the worst presentation of a new kit I have ever seen. You can't see the kit in the video! Its as if they designed the video to intentionally annoy people. Turn the f-ing lights on!
Olmo received a knock in Spain's 1st Nations League game, didn't train and is a doubt for tomorrow's game against Switzerland. There is also some talk of Lamine suffering some fatigue.
I'm starting to hate international football, with all the stoopid oversaturation of the calendar with more and more tournaments. Especially Nations League, which are the same teams as the Euro, playing each other. Ad nauseum.
Good thing about Spain getting a red card in the 1st half against the Swiss is that Pedri was subbed out for tactical reasons shortly after and Lamine also went out at half time for the same reason.
Odegaard injured in international play, so that UEFA can stage another "Euro," but only with different branding.
Such an important competition that France just risked a game at home against Belgium after a loss by benching at least half of their starters to teach them a lesson.
I will admit I was really questioning the move for Flick ... but it has been paying off so far. Off course it's very early .. but at least it looks like the team knows what it's doing and the football is exciting. I've been watching some tactical analysis of Flick's system and we do have vulnerabilities on the wings as the wingers are doing a very high press and if the ball is switched from one side to the other, the opposing team will have an overload on our FB and the wingers have the hustle a large distance to come back. But at least we seem to be able to score goals if we are scored on.