Allas creates surprisingly novel highlight clips of FC Barcelona, perhaps the most talented football/soccer team of the moment. This fifteen minute video illustrates Barcelona’s tactics, and serves as an introduction to aspects of the beautiful game that were previously invisible to novices like me. [more inside]
posted by ferdydurke on Nov 8, 2011 - 35 comments

There is one argument that has taken the soccer world by storm: Can Barcelona win on a cold, windy, night at The Britannia Stadium, home of Stoke City? Conceived by Andy Gray (talked about on the Blue before) when he said: “I don’t know if Barcelona have ever gone to a place like the Britannia Stadium and suffered the kind of onslaught from Tony Pulis’ team of long throws and free-kicks or been up to a place like Blackburn and been beaten up by their long ball into the box.” There has certainly been analysis of this thorny question. Of course, Stoke is in the Europa league this year. If they were to win the competition and advance to a Champions league spot, we might actually see this fixture.
posted by josher71 on Oct 17, 2011 - 42 comments

The 2010-11 Champions League Finals. In two and a half hours, the biggest game in club football will commence (bbc text stream). The Champions League final is likely to be watched by 300 million viewers and features Manchester United (England's best team this year) against FC Barcelona, now sometimes claimed to be the best team of all time (although the Barca coach plays that down). Lineker thinks that Barca just have to 'turn up to win'. [more inside]
posted by jaduncan on May 28, 2011 - 147 comments

Barcelona may or may not be the greatest soccer team of all time, as some now claim, but watching them is one of the prime viewing pleasures of our sports era. Can it get any better?. SLYT.
posted by ecourbanist on May 4, 2011 - 36 comments

At the beginning of the '09 season a young rookie coach named Pep Guardiola was appointed manager of FC Barcelona, one of the top teams in European football. One year later, the team plays 19th December in Abu Dhabi against Estudiantes for the Club World Cup, the cusp of association football season. Guardiola had taken a talented but stagnating team to the top, a prometean figure that brought the philosophy he had inherited playing for historical player Johann Cruyff almost 20 years before. [more inside]
posted by valdesm on Dec 17, 2009 - 18 comments