we lost.......thank goodness we still have the BETTER city of Barcelona,no?
visca la Barca!!!!!!!!!!!

To continue the soccer-talk, tonight's match between Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen should be pretty good too. Probably not as good as last night's game, but it'll be fun to watch if we get a chance. I've got Canal+ so I'll be able to watch it from here. I've yet to catch a ManU game in my life...

Lizziee, Edinburgh is a pretty great city. I watched the Scots lose to Brazil in 1998 from a pub in Ediburgh... didn't stop anyone from celebrating, really. God, the Scottish are fun. That's a city waaaaaay North though... I was there in June and I remember the sun set at like 11:00 p.m. and rose at like 5 a.m. (Not that we could actually SEE the sun through the clouds, rain, mist, fog, etc...)

Toddy! Don't be a sore loser, now! Barça still has a chance... ;-) Did you read that article from the Guardian? I think the writer agrees with you about Barcelona:

"Madrid is a bourgeois, grand, rather suffocating sort of city on first acquaintance. The surrounding countryside is bleak and bare, - suggestive of some harshness in the citizens. To an outsider it is not a welcoming city - its taxi drivers grumpy and sullen, its waiters coldly efficient, its shops too self-consciously trendy. Madrid was built on and is sustained by the notion of centralisation - in this century exemplified by Franco's obsessive opposition to regional nationalism, which he regarded as one of the principal reasons for the turmoil of Spain's ill-fated second republic.

Madrid was symbolically in the geographical centre of the country, put there by Felipe II in the mid-sixteenth century. It is part and parcel of the Madrid-Barcelona morbo that the latter seems to inhabit a different planet. Despite the fact that Madrid has the Prado, the seat of government and the royal family, according to John Hopper's book The New Spaniards almost all the ideas that have shaped Spain's modern history - republicanism, federalism, anarchism, syndicalism and communism - have found their way into Spain by way of Catalonia.

Fashions, whether in clothing, philosophy or art, have tended to take root in Barcelona's more welcoming soil years before they gained acceptance in Madrid. The whole city seems to be up to something and it seems to like itself, not in a narcissistic way but rather in a confident, breezy manner that conveys a sense of ease with itself. [...] The whole place seems so taken up with its own socio-cultural significance. No wonder Madrileños hate it so much."

-Russ

Woo-hoo! In the end we managed to find a pub which had the (possibly moribund) ITV Digital Sports channel (after a tip-off from a patron of another bar). Barca had the run of the play, particularly in the first half, but couldn't score. But Real clearly have the superior defence and better goal keeper (Cesar was excellent). And to cap it all, Liverpool lad McManaman scored the second! I think Barca are finished. Man. U. v. Real Madrid for the final!

Ala Madrid!

Let's go to the final!

Okay, question time:

How the heck does the Champions League points system work? Lizziee and Ignacio and I have traded a few emails trying to work it out.

How many goals does Barça need to beat Madrid? 2 or 3? Why?

So if Madrid scores 0 and Barcelona scores 2, then Madrid goes to Glasgow (tie in points goes to Madrid?). But if Barcelona scores 3, then they win (2-3)? But if Madrid scores 1 and Barça scores 3, who wins (3-3), Barça?

I'm confused. Help me out.

And hey, what's that offside rule again? From my GBA ISS game it seems that any pass made past the halfway mark needs to be to a man that is behind the last defender, but if the pass is made from behind the halfway mark, then it's a forward pass and not offsides?

And hey, I'm American, I'm surprised I've gotten this far. ;-)

-Russ

GREAT article, LIM! I remember my first introduction to the RM-FCB "animosity" was a keychain I purchased in Segovia. It had two pigs "makin' bacon" piggy-style and the catchy slogan below read:

"Ahora con Felipe y antes con Franco, siempre te estaré dando"

Then you flicked a little lever and "stoked the porcine passion" with a little "movement". Yikes.

And Russ, I think that in a tie, the winner is he who scored more goals (or is it differential) in their opponent's crib...(for example, the two scores are, say 2-2 and 3-3. The team that scored three in the away leg of the match would advance). LIM can you verify that?

The guys in the office (always a good cop-out phrase ) say whatever RM score now, Barca has to score three more than them. So 0-3, 1-4, 2-5 etc to get through to final.

And well done on offside rule, Russ. Except you're right - it gets soooo confusing. One of our best footballers, Ian Wright, was once caught on one of those "lets make a star look foolish" programmes trying to explain it and even he got it wrong. Basically (say the guys), if team A are attacking and are past the half-way line, then their last striker/player (ie. closest to team B's goal) has to be behind the last defender/player on team B when the ball is first played. So long as he's behind team B when his man kicks the ball, then he's onside. If he's ahead of a team B player, then he's offside. Which means, if a team B player moves so the team A man is in front of him (ie. the team B man goes backwards) then he's "played the offside rule" and any goal doesn't count.

And just to clarify further my pal has sent me this from the Fifa website about offside

Law 11 - Offside

Does a referee penalise a player who is in an offside position and moves off the field of play to show the referee that he is not involved in active play?
No. It is not an offence in itself to be in an offside position and there is no need for the player to leave the field of play.

However, if the referee considers that he has left the field for tactical reasons and has gained an unfair advantage by re-entering the field of play the player should be cautioned.

Is a teammate allowed to stand in an offside position when a penalty kick is being taken?
No. Players must be behind the penalty mark.

A defending player moves beyond his own goal line in order to place an opponent in an offside position. What action does the referee take?
The referee allows play to continue and cautions the defender when the ball is next out of play.

A player's movement takes him between the goal posts into the goal net and at the same time a teammate kicks the ball into the goal. What action does the referee take if:

the player who is between the goal posts remains stationary as the ball enters?
No action should be taken. A goal is awarded.

the actions of the player distract an opponent?
The goal is disallowed and the player is cautioned for unsporting behaviour. Since the offence was committed off the field of play, play is restarted by a dropped ball at the place where it was located when play was stopped.*

A player moving quickly towards his opponent's goal is penalised for an offside offence. From what position is the resulting indirect free kick taken?
The kick is taken from his position when the ball was last played to him by one of his teammates.

A player plays a corner to a teammate. The teammate touches the ball and the player who took the corner kick runs from an offside position and plays the ball once again. Should this player be penalised?
Yes. He is penalised for offside. When the player who took the kick, kicks it a second time, he is in an offside position and has gained an advantage by being in that position.


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Copyright © 1994-2002 FIFA. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1994-2002 En-Linea, Inc. All rights reserved.

Altogether now - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

A little clarification about the score:
Real Madrid won 0-2 in Barcelona's stadium. As visitors, their goals have double value in case of tying (The same thing would happen with Barcas' goals in Bernabeu). So Barca could clasify with a 0-3, 1-3 and so on.
Of course, we know this is just an hypothesis because Real Madrid will win!

Let me clarify the clarification of offsides a little more clearly. All that FIFA mumbo-jumbo is great, but they left out the "practical application" of rule 11 which states:

Rule 11 shall apply in its entirety unless Team A is really successful, and has a history of being so.

In the following situation: In the event that a clearly onside situation occurs in the wake of Team A's best efforts to draw Team B offside, usually by way of the "let's all run towards the other goal" method, and Team B is headed to the goal untouched, if a player on Team A raises his hand with conviction so that the side judge sees said hand, then offside shall be called and any resultant play and or goal shall be nullified. In the case of Team A and Team B being equals in success, the home team shall have the advantage.

If the player who raises his hand waves it as would a beauty queen in a public parade, he shall be ignored and play shall continue without stoppage.

If, at any time during Team B's attack, a player on Team A, in the act of attempting to draw a player from Team B offside, drops to the ground, grabs his calf and writhes in feigned agony, play shall be stopped and an indirect free kick shall be awarded to Team A.

This information was taken from the official FOOF website: www.foof.org

I hope this clarifies the clarity of the clarification even more clearly.

Ahhhh, Calibasco, so you've seen Manchester United's team tactics too . . .