The Blond Ambition Tour: The 2016-17 Season Thread

My favorite Barcastuff tweets of past few days:

Piqué (ankle), Alba (hamstring) and Mathieu (calf) have been recovering well and will receive the green light for the Malaga game. (SPORT)
Thiago Alcantara: "It was great to form part of Barca academy and 1st team and if 1 day I have to take decision to return, I will take it."
Barca have expressed interest in singing Liverpool player Coutinho (24) whom club have made their number 1 priority for next summer. [sport]
Maybe a bit flattering as he did start our big non-Liga loss at City:

Ter Stegen: "Early days at Barca? Rakitic helped me a lot. When I didn’t understand things I’d ask him, he helped a lot with my adaptation." "Rafinha and Sergi Roberto (helped in adaption) too, because they speak good English. That made it all so much easier"

Luis Enrique and his staff are delighted with what Marlon has shown so far. They like his attitude, his strength and anticipation. [sport]

 

So ESPN is not the best source for football news but this was interesting. It purports to rate the 100 best footballers in the world but does so in weird categories, 10 each in the following categories: GK, RB, CB (but only 10), LB, CM (not DM), AM, Winger, Forward, & Striker. Plus Manager. So only 90 players and 10 managers. And CBs and AMs get shortchanged vs. our 4-3-3. http://www.espnfc.us/blog/espn-fc-u...he-top-players-and-managers-in-world-football

Barca centric results:
GK MAtS #10 (Bravo #9);
RB none but rumored targets Srna 10, Lichsteiner 7, Bellerin 2 (ha); former Alves 4
CB Pique #1
LB Alba 2, Digne 8
CM Busquets 2, Rakitic 4, former Thiago 9
AM Iniesta 2
Winger Turan 7 (Nolito 6)
Forward Messi #1, Neymar 3, former Sanchez 5
Striker Suarez #1, former Zlatan 5
Manager Lucho 5, former Pep 1

So we landed 12 on the list out of 100. Surprise inclusion Arda. Biggest omission Mascherano (but only 10 CBs made it, and the CM position included both DMs and non-DMs). Other omission Umtiti, but maybe he'll be on next year's list.

----------------
Totally unrelated but in 2015 on FCB's US Tour in my city (San Francisco) Pique and Shakira introduced Barca brass to Rakuten's CEO Mikitani, now Rakuten will be paying us a total of 220-246M over the next four years. Pique for future Barca President that much more now. http://www.sport-english.com/en/new...cas-new-sponsorship-deal-with-rakuten-5632558

 

More top tweets of late:
Messi has scored the most goals (52) and provided the most opta assists (31) in year 2016 for club and country. [via @BarcaStat]
Pique cleared to play; Iniesta working towards green light by Clasico; Clasico ref has done 4 other Clasicos, all wins for BARCA;

Onto the sponsorship announcement, we're #2:

No Messi clause (fee remains even in unlikely event Messi left); 1.5 more for each Liga title; 5 more for each CL title. No "commission" for Pique for introduction CEO Mikitani: "Rakuten has a digital TV business called Waki and the man who runs it lives in BCN and introduced me to Piqué." [g14] & Bartomeu: "The deal began at a dinner hosted by Gerard Piqué at Hiroshi Mikitani's house in San Francisco in 2015" # :

Beko on sleeve, Intel inside for even more ad revenue. Qatar likely to have some relationship but that's to be determined and not likely on jersey. Unicef still on bottom of back and we still pay them.
Celebration dinner:

 

This article asks what is wrong with Busquets, so far this season, and 3 people give 3 different answers. All kind of interesting. No one speculates, as I have, that he has actually been playing through some injury knocks at times this season.

http://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2016/11/22/583422f9e5fdea476f8b45d0.html

 

I haven't seen any discussion of this anywhere, which is quite surprising to me. Not sure if this belongs here or in its own thread.

The Spanish legal proceedings with respect to Neymar's transfer from Santos are not at all over. FCB itself may no longer be under the gun; but Neymar is. Yesterday the Spanish Public Prosecutor asked for a two-year prison term for Neymar.

He also asked for a five-year prison term for Rosell; I'm so frustrated about how all of this has played out that I find it hard to have sympathy for Rosell.

 

It is a shakedown before El Clasico. Madrid did it last season also with Messi. And that's why Messi probably won't be in Barcelona next season.

It would be funny though - Neymar has always been a Perez target. And Neymar knows if he moves to Real Madrid, his troubles should go away. If Barcelona can get a Neymar for Modric deal, that would literally be the best thing that can happen to this team. Of course, that's all fantasy.

 

The most important and crucial transfer period is coming, who would you like to see boosting the messed up midfield? Certainly Andre Gomez, Rafinha and Deniz Suarez aren't cutting it or Lucho is taking the wrong decisions. Andre Gomez should def never play in Liga or CL, he's abysmal.

 

I'm more interested in a RB , Craperto isn't one , slow as hell and get passed very easily on that side , have wrong positioning as a defender , doesn't have the Stamina to play the entire freaking season and we have no replacements because Lucho thinks Vidal isn't an option because he refuses to tickle his asshole like Gomes does , if we don't get a RB in the winter Transfers then there is no way we would win anything this season even Copa

when it comes to the midfield i don't think they will get another player because we already have 4 players gomes,arda,rafinha,denis as subs for the iniesta/raki mid and we won't have enough budget for a RB AND a midfielder because the idiots spent our entire budget on gomes and freaking alcacer ...

 

Are we playing against Borussia M with the B team tonight ( the same one which played in Copa ) since we are sure to be placed first regardless of the result ?

 

Why? There are records to be beaten surely he won't rest team and play B team.

 

Last season Barca entered matchday 6 having already secured first place in the group.
This was the lineup away to Leverkusen:
-------------- ter Stegen ---------------
Adriano .. Bartra .. Vermaelen .. Alba
---- Rakitic .. Samper .. Kaptoum ----
------- Messi .. Sandro .. Munir -------
Subs bench:
Bravo, Masip, Mascherano, Busquets, Gumbau, Camara, Suarez

Messi missed the M'gladbach away tie on Matchday 2 because of injury so I'm betting he'll play this one. I just feel the club will feel obligated to play him for the benefit of the Gladbach players and supporters. Strictly my thoughts.
But I agree that all the regulars should take no part in this one. I likely will be watching Benfica-Napoli live while recording this for later.

 

New stripes not quite symmetrical, a mirror image instead (assuming this leak is real):

 

So what's the meaning of the Al Ahli friendly? Money? Tire players out for little money that they can spend of useless depth. I hope Barca breaks all ties with Qatar soon.

 

any idea if there is a minimum number of starting players required to play in this game ? or can we just throw our reserves to play it ? but yeah the flying there and tiring the players like this is really annoying.

this was delayed from 24/5/2016 by the way

 

I don't know but I'm super excited! Will be my first ever time seeing Barcelona play (despite having visited the Nou Camp on a non-match day). I can understand your frustration, but everyone here in Doha is stoked about this.

Are you going to have a separate match-day thread?

 

Calendario update...

FEBRUARY 2017
midweek 31-2: Copa-Sf1
weekend 4-5: Liga J21 (H) Athletic Bilbao
midweek 7-9: Copa-Sf2
Sat 11: Liga J22 (A) Alavés / (Sun 12: CAF Cup of Nations Final)
Tue 14: UCL-2R1 (A) Paris St. Germain
weekend 18-19: Liga J23 (H) Leganés
midweek 21-23: --
weekend 25-26: Liga J24 (A) Atlético Madrid
midweek 28-2: Liga J25 (H) Sporting Gijón

MARCH 2017
Sat 4: Liga J26 (H) Celta
Wed 8: UCL-2R2 (H) Paris St. Germain
weekend 11-12: Liga J27 (A) Deportivo La Coruña
midweek 14-16: --
weekend 18-19: Liga J28 (H) Valencia
midweek 21-23:
weekend 24-25: FIFA calendar
midweek 26-28: FIFA calendar

 

Everyone flew out to Doha today save for injured Mathieu, plus youngsters Aleñá and Borja López

The full squad is: Ter Stegen, Cillessen, Masip, Piqué, Rakitic, Sergio, Denis Suárez, Arda, A. Iniesta, Suárez, Messi, Neymar Jr, Rafinha, Mascherano, Paco Alcácer, Jordi Alba, Digne, Sergi Roberto, André Gomes, Aleix Vidal, Umtiti, Aleñá and Borja López. http://www.sport-english.com/en/new...squad-qatar-for-friendly-against-ahli-5684547

Weird time for a friendly but at least they are not doing it later in the month which would interfere with what little holiday time off the players get.

 

Awesome... hmmm... I wonder which airlines they're taking... Emirates maybe?

 

Quoting from here, which also has a 1 minute video of the players arriving at the airport: http://www.sport-english.com/en/new...wn-doha-ahead-tuesdays-qatar-friendly-5685910

With the exception of the injured Jeremy Mathieu, all of Barça's first team players, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar, have made the trip for a game against Al-Ahli, which kicks off at 17.00h CET on Tuesday. The friendly has been arranged as part of the deal with Qatar Airways.

In fact, even Neymar has travelled, even though he's unlikely to play due to a knock he picked up in the Clasico last weekend. However, his presence is very important on an economic level.

In this sense, Barcelona and Qatar Airways are negotiating ways in which they can continue their relationship, despite the Catalan club announcing a new sponsorship deal with Rakuten beginning next season.

Despite this not being the best moment for the trip to Qatar, with the derby against Espanyol to come on Sunday, the atmosphere among the players and staff is good following the win over Osasuna on Saturday.

Luis Enrique is likely to give minutes to players who have not featured regularly this season, with Messi and suarez likely to each play 45 minutes.

 

Friendly v Al Ahli five minutes in. (ESPN Deportes in U.S.)

.......... Neymar ..... Suarez..... Messi ..........
......... Rafinha ..... Gomes..... Rakitic .........
Digne ..... Mascherano ..... Pique ..... Vidal
...........................Cillessen ...........................

Neymar already hit a post.