The Rain and the Argentine

El Clasico, it's fair to say, did not disappoint. Real Madrid are a wounded animal with a new shot of brains and they were vicious, cruel and muy peligroso. They played like savages, brutally hacking at Lionel Messi's feet and legs with no regard for fair play. Sergio Ramos, always and forever a two-bit thug masquerading as a pretty-boy, wasted no time putting the sadistic strategy on display, taking a cheap shot no more than two minutes into the game. Other than a bit of beautiful retribution from Rafa Marquez (the go-to man when it comes to demonstrating that just because we play beautiful football, cabron, doesn't mean we don't hit back!) the blaugrana didn't let it get to them.

The rain set the pace for most of the match and came down ever harder. There is something about an achievement happening in the rain that, for no obvious reason outside the aesthetic, makes it so much more glorious. You don't have to think back far (I'd say the 2006 Champions League final) to see how much added character and attractiveness there is to a win in the rain. It is the great equalizer. Yes, everyone is freezing and trudging around in wet socks, kicking a slippery ball and sprinting delicately across a soggy pitch. Both clubs, both benches, both sets of fans are committed to the same misery and the one that wins is the one that has enough huevos to keep fighting, at one point fighting against the rain as though they were up against two opponents and then mercilessly teaming up with the rain against their foes when the time is right. Sorry, Royston Drenthe, but it got to you and it didn't get to Victor Valdes and that may be the only reason you lost. But what a glorious reason.

Iker Casillas is an indecent rogue but in spite of this, it is very hard to hate him, the charming bastard, and I couldn't do it even after he shoved away the penalty from Samuel Eto'o with the type of skill and precision that is at once terrifying and deeply intriguing. Hats off, Iker. I'm not too proud for that. I might have been, had it not been for the eventual showdown of wills that was won by Carlos Puyol (who, in a just world, would be credited with at least 80% of the first goal.) Lionel Messi, of course, finished everything off in a rare display of Total Justice. Hack at his feet and knees all match, send him crashing onto the cold, wet earth time and again. And the most brutal collision of the entire match was Fabio Cannavaro smashing into the post in a vain attempt to stop Leo's pitch-perfect chip in extra time. Yes, sometimes life can be so fair.

On El Clasico, Mixed Feelings and An Era of Cautious Optimism

Barcelona are three-minutes from kick-off in their last group game in the Champions League this year, a technically meaningless match against Nery Castillo's employers. All you need to know about them is that they've never had any use for Nery Castillo, the bastards, and they think the win Barcelona grabbed from them in Ukraine was unfair. It's nonsense, of course, but they seem serious about it. 

Of course, the blaugrana have been the best club in Europe this year and that's something that only the most starry-eyed optimists could have imagined before it all started. Even those comparatively dark days of losing at Numancia and drawing Racing in the first two weeks of the season are distant. I, like Pep, have never come to expect victory, though, because that's what assholes like Real Madrid do and it is beneath everybody. Juande Ramos is going to lead his boys into action at the Nou Camp with the clinical ferocity that makes him such a perfect match for, and he'll have a point to make in this Saturday's dreaded/anxiously awaited El Clasico. They may be racked with injuries, and languishing in fifth place in La Liga and unable to make a dent in Juventus either home or away but they're still Real Madrid, and it's still El Clasico. Get your game faces on, my friends, because there is sure to be a good deal of bloodshed.

One thing that's been a little bit unsettling for me is just how thoroughly Barca have been demolishing their opposition. 4-0, 5-0, 6-1. 0-3 at Sevilla and 4-0 at home against Valencia. Those aren't bad teams, man, and there's nothing to do but step aside and admire the refusal for Pep and the boys to give them any extra leverage simply because they're Top 4. The thing is, well, it's entertaining soccer I suppose, but I've long thought that people who don't like soccer because there aren't enough goals are the same sorts of people who must think the best part of sex is the orgasm, and that's a dreary way to go about life and a sure sign that someone has values that I will never relate to. So, I love the technical brilliance of a well-fought 1-0 draw where the goal comes from a late Xavi freekick (speaking of Xavi, as I am, I said some nasty things about him in this space last year and, while pride dictates I not take any of them back, I will say he's done what I always doubted he would and I would be sadly remiss not to salute him for it) or even a match where the team is down 2-0 at the half and comes back for a 2-2 draw. There's something greatly satisfying about precision and winning a fair fight. So, I relish the uncharacteristic lack of tension from watching matches this season, but at the same time hold out hope that I'll spend some amount of El Clasico thinking Barca are doomed to lose.

Well, it seems a little too good to be true that Barcelona are putting together this magic on the heels of Barack Obama's election. Yes, sure, the governor or Illinois is being strung up on corruption charges and the Rapids and Rockies continue to prove that the worst teams to support are the ones you're tied to geographically because they can count on you and so they don't have anything to prove. Sure, nothing is overwhelmingly rosy and there's, as ever, plenty of evil and corruption to contend with (Madrid, Juve and Chelsea are all through to the knockout stages, though even here we have the constantly thrilling reminder that AC Milan didn't even qualify this year) but it just seems like the good guys are winning more often than usual. I highly suggest tempering your enthusiasm, though, friends, because when things get ugly, they do it quick and without any kind of warning, and we must be on our toes. Remember El Pipila? Well, don't forget him. He's got a lot to say about times like these.

A Grisly End To A Grisly Year

Things are ugly out here as the hellish bloodbath known as 2007 winds to a close. And, who knows why? But it seems appropriate. Things started ugly this year, got uglier, and ended ugly. In a weird way, everything is as it should be. Now, I'm not into recapping so there won't be some kind of timeline of ugliness written out here, but it is truly shocking that I could react with such vitriol and angst to a year that brought me a very unlikely National League pennant. I guess that just shows how bad things have gotten.

This must be the part where we all kick back to watch Roger Clemens and his old meathead trainer duke it out in the press for several months about whether or not The Rocket got his ass injected with steroids and HGH. Hint: there is absolutely no precedent for pitchers that old to perform that well. Clemens also underwent a very similar body-mass transformation as everybody's favorite Whipping Boy, Barry Bonds, and his BFF Andy Pettitte had admitted to taking HGH in 2002. (Note: a snarky, bitchy admission is still an admission.) So, friends, I think the jury is pretty much IN on this one. The greatest pitcher of all-time has joined the greatest hitter of all-time as a circumstantially convicted juicer.

The question I guess I have is, so what? I do want to go to games next year and boo the shit out of everybody who's mentioned in the Mitchell Report, including Matt Herges and, what the hell, Glenallen Hill. But I have mentioned in this space that the steroid stuff doesn't really bother me in terms of on-the-field stuff. There was an extremely normal distribution of talent among the players who were named, so if anyone needs any proof that juicing doesn't make someone an immediate superstar, you can just ask Larry Bigbie or Ricky Bones. Admittedly, there is something weird and perverse and immensely distasteful in the idea that Major League clubhouses were central drug trafficking points. This universe where players are discreetly telling other players who to call, clubhouse attendants are stumbling upon vials of horse hormones and not telling anyone, and David Segui is, like, the kingpin coyote is very strange and difficult to completely wrap my head around. This is why I'll be booing the assholes. It is because they are shady, mafia-style criminals and not because they are cheaters. I couldn't care less about the innocence of the game, because that is a meaningless concept, but that doesn't mean the folks who are turning their lockers into criminal enterprises shouldn't be flogged publicly and regarded as traitors to the cause. They should, at least, get the Pete Rose treatment.

If this was soccer, it'd be entirely different. If a bunch of players from Juventus or AC Milan turned out be dealing drugs from the quiet of their clubhouse, I don't really think anyone would be that surprised. We expect corruption from Italian football, and we'd probably just be thankful that nobody got shot over this one. (Actually, if Berlusconi was involved, someone may well have gotten shot.) One of the charms of soccer is that you know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and nobody needs to get caught up in abstractions like "the innocence of the game" unless they mean it. If some Real Madrid or AC Milan players tells you he plays for the love of the game, you know he's lying and that's that.

Unfortunately, and you can see I've been blowing off bringing this up, the bad guys are winning more and more often. The dissolution of the Chelsea empire got stopped in its tracks when Didier Drogba started playing like himself. He's hurt now, and so is John Terry, so there's still a good chance for them to drop into midtable oblivion and at least that gives us something to hope for. I wouldn't really be happy if Man City beat them this season, since Man City also got bought out by some truly sinister forces, but I'd be thrilled if they finished behind Everton or something.

As for the mafiosos at AC Milan, they did drop one (ha-ha Dida!) to city-rivals Inter over the weekend in particularly humiliating fashion, but they also recently became the first European club to win the Club World Cup with a brutal victory over Argentine also-rans Boca Juniors. They're set for the only real good-guy/bad-guy slugfest in the knockout round of the Champions League, where they got drawn with Arsenal. A win for Milan would be a win for corruption and deceit and a very bad omen to start 2008.

And, of course, finally, Real Madrid came into Camp Nou like a well-oiled juggernaut and snuck away with an appalling, efficient, extremely effective victory against a better Barcelona team. Their defense was just disgustingly thorough in their dismantling of the attacks that the normally-beautiful Barcelona front line came with. Ronaldinho and Andres Iniesta were thrown around like plastic bags in a shitstorm and they must've thought they'd get the ball every time they threw their hands up in the air because that's what they were left with by the end of it.

Frank Rijkaard is likely to be the scapegoat for the whole mess, but that is wholly undeserved. Deco, who is a thug and a charlatan not fit to wear the Barcelona colors, spoke with glee about the possible appointment of Jose Mourinho, also a thug and a charlatan, but a sympathetic one after his glamor-free dismissal from Chelsea, as the new manager. Then he played like complete shit against Madrid in spite of being gifted a start from Rijkaard. Sounds like collusion? It does to me. I have finally come around to the credo that my best friend has been extolling since at least EURO 2002, and that is: Fuck Anderson Deco. That son of a bitch has got to go, regardless of what happens next.

A more likely scenario is Mourinho coming on board, selling Ronaldinho to AC Milan (who else??) and hedging his bets in the Champions League. This could be devastating, and it probably will be. When Edmilson said there were some black sheep in the Barca clubhouse, he should've just said there were some white sheep, because the whole lot of them save Messi, Eto'o and Marquez look a little lost to me right now. Xavi, especially, has lost almost all of my faith and will have to string together an unprecedented lot of performances to convince me he's useful as a player or a human being. Not that he's probably concerned with proving that to me, since he's probably counting his money or banging a supermodel right now, but fuck. There is a certain pride to playing for Barcelona that these cocksuckers just don't seem to have.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the Presidential Primaries are coming right around the corner. Listen up. Doomsday is coming. Start finding out how much EU and Japanese work permits cost, because you're going to want to be able to skip the Information Line when the time comes.