Wesley Schneijder is that abrasive guy who kinda shadows you at social events. You show up to a protest, a rally, a meeting, and guess who is there, standing just behind you. Oh, what a coincidence. Hello subtly abrasive guy who makes believe he is your shadow. Yes, of course the two of you will exchange brief pleasantries while your mind hums along, searching for exit strategies. Oh, you forgot to take your nonexistent son to the emergency room for heart cancer? Gotta run. Oh. His son has the same problem. Sure. A carpool would be great. Shit. Subtle.

Martin Demichelis is that guy who always starts fights and ends up in a hospital. The local sports franchise is playing an important game. As such, you and a few of the crew head to a local pub, sipping away on some fruit flavored beer when the pony-tailed prince of paupers arrives. Within minutes, he is chest to chest with a guy twice his side. The bigger man tries to avoid trouble and backs off, but le pony follows him outside, where he soon finds his nose broken and himself lying in a pool of blood. But when you hear his side of the story, he at least landed a few punches before the guys’ friends intervened. Friends. What a novel concept. Delusional.

Jose Mourinho sits at the front of class and won’t stop raising his fricking hand. Congratulations on having done all the reading last night and now, at 8am, sharing every detail of every paragraph plus your thoughts. Why let anyone else speak? Why let anyone else take credit? Dialogue? But monologues make for such potent stage work. Dramatic.

Diego Milito you start to hate but then you laugh out loud. Who is this guy? He just kinda walks in, and then, bam, he gets one or two passes and spins gold out of hay. What the……oh, you can’t stay mad. Look at that sheepish grin. You fool nobody. Go ahead. Pat Diego on the back. Give him a high five. Slap him on ye olde buns if it suits your unusual manifestations of masculine bonding. Lovable.

Mark Von Bommel is the driver who never checks his blind spot or uses his turn signals before changing lanes. What’s that? There are….there are other people on the highway? You may…you can hit them if you run around recklessly with no regard for their well being? No way. Total shocker. I thought you could just hop on the expressway and it was Lord of the Flies meets law of the jungle meets an R rated version of Lost. Sorry about the fender. And the shin. And the foot. And the thigh. Dick.

We could resurrect the Mourinho as “dark lord,” a tactician who will win at all costs. But that leads to the next question – where will Mourinho be next summer?

If Perez signed Kaka & Ronaldo in part because their namesake sold jerseys, then what attire would Mourinho promote upon arrival? A dark and long coat? A Russian journalist offered Jose a crown, but the Portuguese astutely refused the obvious photo shoot setup. Still, how would the sly and sarcastic boy from Iberia fare in Madrid?

Well, the negative tactics…the negative tactics just do not fly in Spain. While the Italian media may dissect his every substitution and grant a standing ovation to a 1-0 victory, the cerebral fades into the aesthetic exterior in Spain. To win in Madrid is not enough – just ask Del Bosque and Fabio Capello.

Pellegrini led Madrid to a record breaking season in La Liga. Still, in a sense, his positive football undid the blanquillos in the Champions League. A compact and counterattacking Lyon took advantage of the galloping fullbacks, nicking a counter and then absorbing pressure. The Pellegrini approach can be described as Sven-lite: calm, composed, and always in control. At least of himself.

How would the Madrid press react to a 1-0 loss in the Camp Nou when Barcelona had over 70% of possession? Would Marca and AS take kindly to parking an airplane in front of Casillas? Mourinho’s defensiveness in press conferences belies his disdain for positive futbol purists. But can his ethos of “success at any cost” coexist on the same plan as Perez’s flashy “high costs equal success”?

And then there is the game, of course. Many Azulgrana faithful and PSV fans will recall Mark Van Bommel. The Dutchman is capable of a brilliant through ball spells of sharp possession, and totally disappearing for spells. Schweinsteger, to his credit, has adapted well to playing centrally. But can these two go toe-to-toe with Real rejects Cambiasso and Scheijder?

Robben, of course, has shown why he holds the label as World’s Best Player Made of Paper – when the injections reduce the swelling in his tendinitis ravaged knees, the Dutchman is unstoppable. But if Maicon diligently marked the elusive Messi, one has to wonder if Robben’s bags of tricks can fool the Brazilian.

So as you watch the game and count the players sold by Real Madrid at bargain prices, as you sweat alongside Pellegrini while Mourinho works his magic, just remember…the two teams playing one another are Bayern Munich and Inter. The merengues will have to wait another year.

That little take taking on a, oh, let’s say, 80% Clarence Seedorf, is none other than Daniel Maldini, of the illustrious Maldini heritage. He is also Junito’s mortal enemy in European Cup finals. In 2024, that is.

A lot of Americans head to Europe with the attitude that by sheer talent and determination they can take down the millennial-established aristocracy. After a year of hustling for work and no cent to their name, the weak-willed inevitably track back to the States, tail tucked firmly between their legs. The problem is brash arrogance. The solution is quiet confidence.

I can appreciate a little trash-talking among players, but, ultimately, Junito’s feet must do the talking. He must also learn to use his body in the offensive and defensive halves with cynical aggression. Case in point: this pickup game between the Zidane family.

The most surprising part of the video is not the obvious technical gifts of Zidane’s sons, but rather that he waited a whole two minutes to commit a cynical yellow card foul on his own five year old son. And by the fourth minute, only staring session into a solar eclipse could blind the average joe to the inevitable red card. And the trash talking…I wonder who Enzo learned that from?

Still, despite the potty mouth, I am glad that Junito will have  true Diez in Enzo Zidane to feed him delicious thru-balls. If the two of them are going to defeat the well-drilled AC Milan back line captained by Daniel Maldini, the combination play must be instinctive, rhythmic, and without hesitation.

Will Pellegrini still be Madrid’s manager at that time? I’m not quite sure. But I do have a good faith belief that Carlos Ancellotti will be back coaching at Milan by then, and, of course, the gentleman Berlusconi will still be owner and probably prime minister of Italy.

Everybody, including me, wants to paint Mourinho as the Dark Lord, the scheming scientist locked in a dungeon in a castle atop a mountain. Due to his playful and sarcastic media mind games, his personality gets depicted in a negative light. Accordingly, we transpose this “abrasive” personality onto his team – if Mourinho is such a downer in press conferences, then surely his Inter play negative catenaccio. Right? Wrong.

Mourinho tried hard to instill a 4-3-3 counterattacking ethos at Inter. He purchased Ricardo Quaresma. He purchased Mancini of Roma fame. Both flopped miserably. So instead, Mourinho offloaded the Swedish and moody winger baggage in favor of Schneijder, Diego Milito, and Samuel E’too. The result? Mourinho, the scheming master of the negative, plays a conventional 4-4-2. Does his team hemorrhage early goals? Yes. Both Chelsea and Barcelona scored at the San Siro. But the spirited remontadas have been a feast of attacking menace.

Both Mourinho’s Chelsea and Inter feasted on the high Barcelona back line, springing the off-sides trap with devastating success. They also refused to get sucked into the Barcelona half, collapsing on the midfield maestros near the halfway line, but never a shade sooner. In summation, the game plan was France v. Spain at the the 2006 World Cup, NOT Italy v. Spain at the 2008 European championships.

I have already criticized the monopoly of the Cule, their stranglehold on the soccer media’s collective imagination. Since when did we place such weighty emphasis on total passes? On passes completed? Should the rules of the game be amended to a timed “monkey in the middle”, whereby goals are a secondary consideration to total passes completed times pass completion percentage? I vote an enthusiastic no, in part because I witnessed with horror the pre-shotclock era of basketball. Shudders.

A dictatorship starts with a shot to the adversary, but establishes power by monopolizing the imaginative realm. Journalists must disappear, editors must flee the country, a watchdog media must be converted into a lapdog. The Cule dynasty has fastened its grip on the press and this realm subtly, twisting the sporting values from goals & athleticism to ten foot passes. When the opposition raises its voice, they are painted as the enemy as the pueblo screams in terror. We must be protected from such infidels! Still, one fundamental doubt arises to the guidance of Barcelona’s Kantian moral compass…

While the success of last season in a sense justified the Cruyff-Dutch-Ideal, on the other hand, doesn’t commitment to an ideal entail sacrifice? Wouldn’t Barcelona’s dedication to the principles of Cruyff be more impressive if they continued to play this way with no success? Many a patriot has sacrificed his own life for the abstract concept of liberty – is patient passing more important than winning?

But why concern yourself with such thoughts? Keep things simple, Buy the Hype. Barcelona =’s pretty, Mourinho =’s negative mad scientist. Every time the Cules complete a pass, set your latte down for a brief round of applause. Every time an Inter defender sticks a tackle or lands a block, hiss in derision or nod in disapproval.

In a way, at the Nou Camp, Barcelona cannot lose. Granted, the result depends upon them and is entirely manageable – they have beat Inter 2-0 before. This time, there will be no travel nor dry pitch to subtly blame.

But win or lose, they will nobly carry the torch of the ten-foot-pass to either ecstasy or oblivion….

The temptation after a 3-1 victory is to overreact. For the record, I believe that Barcelona could have tied this match with slightly better finishing, and can win 2-0 at home. However, the nuts & bolts & predictions seldom interest me – rather, my problem is philosophical. How can I describe the etymology of this game? Here’s a few stabs…

First, the prisoner of the ideal. I could paint Mourinho as the shifting tactician – everyone, including me, expected catenaccio, but his Inter side came out in a 4-4-2 with guns blazing. Guardiola, however, is handcuffed by the weight of a 4-3-3 dogmatic system. He cannot make changes because change is the antithesis of everlasting & eternal beauty. To not play the Dutch way is not to play at all in Barcelona. Thus, while Ibrahimovic may scream for a mobile striker partner like Bojan, Guardiola’s hands are tied to the mast. He had to field the winger formation for the sake of fielding the winger formation.

Second, the land of chance & happenstance. This game was the product and end result of cosmic luck, a joke of the universe, a random series of events with no purpose or meta-narrative (aside from this one). Had Samuel missed an early tackle on Messi, Barcelona would have cruised to a demoralizing 2-0 victory. And that actually happened in an alternative universe that is only slightly less random and more weird than this one. Trust me.

Third, the price of beauty. Twice, Barcelona has taken the lead in away matches in Europe. Thus, the beauty and positiveness of their patient passing approach requires the exertion of energy – energy which trades off with the latter stages of games and the art of defense. To paint a picture, one must utilize resources such as an easel, a canvass, etc. To play beautiful football, Barcelona must use their physical energy. And they have played so beautifully so early on in these European encounters, that the energy sapped trades off with defending and the latter stages of matches. Sale vi!

Fourth, the failure of the individual. Samuel E’too was “traded” for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Zlatan played a poor game, which hindered the Barcelona attack. Thus, rather than being a failure of a system, tactics, or an ideal, the crushing weight of the defeat must fall upon the Swede’s broad shoulders. E’too played a decent game, creating chances and pressing in the midfield. He also has scored in two different European Cup finals. Zlatan has yet to shine on the biggest stage.

Fifth, a group of 11 men played another group of 11 men for 90 minutes and scored more goals than the other. For the record, this is the meta-narrative I am most comfortable with.

There once was one who desired “to make his throne higher than the clouds over the earth and resemble ‘My power’ on high.” This one, who called himself special, built a throne as high as the eye could see, yet his grasp never reached his vision. Frustrated. Troubled. His hubris weighed him down, tumbling to the Earth on broken wings. And landing in the Serie A.

Yet an ideal can also fall.

Ideals. Principles. Morals. Values. The desire to speak for an eternity of echelons, to convert the material into the ideal. Yet what happens when the carefully constructed mental image meets the harsh confines of reality? When happens when the painter’s loft is bombed by German warplanes? Guernica inspires introspection but wouldn’t stop a bullet. Ideals meet deaths. Often of their own making.

Temptation. Why be a stick in the mud? Why be so stubborn? Why try to fly a flag in a hurricane? The alternative is easier. Hoof the ball forty yards up field. Bypass the midfield with a switch to Messi. Ibrahimovic is so much taller than the central defenders. Alves whips in such dangerous crosses. Is it really that different? A slight tactical adjustment never hurt anybody. Just this once.

Adversary. Enemy. Accuser. Beelzebub. Belial. What Raphael will stand up to the Great Dragon? We’ve seen this battle enacted and re-enacted a thousand times before our very eyes. The lightbearer becomes archdeceiver. The risen falls.

Humming along on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, everybody is cordial and nobody doubts the abundances of life and goodness of man. But what happens on a lifeboat in open sea, when the sky blurs into the ocean, the sun beats down like a club, and you only feel the ripples of the waves and the pangs of hunger?

Now comes the true trials, temptations, and tribulations. The Cules will blink and swear they see twelve men huddled in the box. The lurking Swede’s head will appear tallest and easiest to hit. But for all the talk of rebellion, betrayal, and darkness, this time last year a flashing, blinding beam of hope shot through the Chelsea net like the first rays of dawn. Will we see another?

I have a theory – search engines prove that machines will never ever be able to supplant human beings, only replacing the flesh & bone eventually with cold steel. Leo Messi has boldly left the cocoon behind, never again to caterpillar up or down a leaf. Is he secretly the lovechild of a Maradonna mariposa? How far can his golden wings take him? Only the wind knows….

And, of course, we are to blame for not seeing them.

For those who take the “assumptive equation” at face value, Arsenal vs. Barcelona pits pretty vs. gorgeous. So why wasn’t the first leg a beauty pageant of universal proportions? High on drama? Yes. But the first 45 minutes pitted Barcelona against Manuel Almunia, as Arsenal marked Messi out of the game but let the remaining Cules run rampant. Then came ten minutes of brute Ibrahimovic, and then 20 minutes of direct Walcott running.

Is it a practical reality that the size of Zlatan and the dribble-first pace of Theo made the difference? Should we paint these players as the evil necessity of the modern game? I’m not so sure. Rather, I have doubts that either club lives up to the Beautiful Game Myth. In fact, I have doubts about said “Myth.”

For starters, for all the talk of patient and pretty passing, the Gunners primarily attack with overlapping wing backs. In fact, a stunning array of their offensive forays end with corner flag-cross Do the two or three extra 10 foot passes in midfield break the bank? In the revancha, keep track of how many times a wingback runs to the touchline and crosses. Is that really beautiful? Also, for the talk of elegance, let’s not forget that one of the biggest goals of their EPL campaign came from Nicklas Bendtner…..

Yet the Myth pervades our past as well. People nostalgically paint the 2004 undefeated side as a collection of starving artists with barely enough pounds to purchase an easel. But cafe-lingerers they were not. The Invincibles were led by the venomous tackles of Patrick Vieira and a younger Sol Campbell. On a micro-level, these players point to a false dichotomy – some artists can also “take out the trash.” While Arsene Wenger may cloud his signings and mis-signings in the Kantian rhetoric of “playing the right way,” can we look beyond the smoke & mirrors to identify a hole in scouting & development. Namely, a Yaya Toure or Gilberto worthy of feeding Cesc the ball?

Barcelona, for their part, continue to sit back and watch in amazement as Leo Messi tears through defenses with ease. But is giving the ball to one wily & crafty winger the epitome of collective passing we have been spoonfed to expect? Or did the Cules of Ronaldinho, Deco, and Javier Saviola produce first-touch football more worthy of the term “fantasy?”

We can easily regress into the utilitarian compromise, the need to play Diego Milito, Yaya Toure, and sign a target forward like Zlatan to “get in his head to balls in the box.” But such rhetoric to my ears rings empty. The current Barcelona relies heavily on the lungs of Dani Alves, especially when savvy opposition keys in on the wunderkind from Argentina.

Still…..

Nobody can deny the pleasure of listening to a crescendo. Both Arsenal and Barcelona have defenses that prefer to pass backwards to a goalie or sideways to a teammate rather than boot the ball forwards 40 yards. Whether this tactic sets them on a majestic plain beyond the reach of mortals, whether I look at them with the eyes of a cynical distant cousin & not a loving father, the conclusions we are spoon-fed require reflection.

But let’s not paint the past in such simple shades of black and white either. Many point to the Brazil side of 74 as the greatest team of all time. Let’s look at their famous 4-1 final victory over Italy…

A header. A shot from distance. A free kick. The very last goal, considered one of the greatest goals in World Cup history, exemplifies the beautiful game ideals of collective passing and movement. But Brazil already held a 3-1 lead. Against capitulated opposition, park soccer plays are easier to pull off.

While the fourth goal left a sweet taste in the mouth, the shadow of the “beautiful game” continues to cloud contemporary perspectives. I really did not mean for this article to come off as me railing on Arsenal & Barcelona, two fantastic clubs, but rather to incite reflection on those funny little boxes in which we place teams and plays.

Arsenal & Barcelona, upon close inspection, fail to live up to the Beautiful Game Myth inspired by 74 Brazil precisely because it is a Myth.

Well, the future is a terrifying place. I saw my own death, and, as expected, it sucks. I also saw a few other deaths – which likewise suck. You would never think that carrying a spoon while running down a flight of 12th century stairs in a Buddhist temple in Nepal would be dangerous, but then some careless monk tosses his banana peel and…You get the picture.

On the other hand, the future is amorphous. Too many writers toss out hypotheticals such as “If Madrid gets the first goal early, then…” or “If Lyon can survive the first 20 minutes, then…”.

Thus, in the interest of justice and reality and my journalistic integrity, I present my preview of the Madrid game with painstaking precision.

First, the game will take place at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium. I absolutely positively guarantee that this game will not be played at the Nou Camp, the Vicente Calderon stadium, or even the Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Sevilla. Not a chance.

Second, I predict that despite a 1:30 game time, the actual start time will be at least ten minutes later. Not five minutes. Not six minutes. Not even seven minutes. TEN MINUTES. Why? Heineken commercials. Plus, Bank CEOs want to pay thousands of Euros for their kids to be on TV and hold players’ hands. And who am I to stop them?

Third, I predict that the first half will not last longer than 55 game time minutes. Not 56 minutes. Not even 55 and a half minutes. Not even 55 minutes and one second. 55 minutes and ya! Why? Because Sir Alex Ferguson is not the manager of Real Madrid and thus his magical capacity to extend matches while down one goal will be absent.

Fourth, I predict that the second half will not last longer than 55 game time minutes. Not 56 minutes. Not even 55 and a half minutes. Not even 55 minutes and one second. 55 minutes and ya! Why? Because Sir Alex Ferguson is not the manager of Real Madrid and thus his magical capacity to extend matches while down one goal will be absent.

Fifth, I predict that Real Madrid manager Manuel Pellegrini will wear a tie and suit. No t-shirt. No athletic shirt. No tennis shoes. Nike and Reebok emblems will be curiously absent. Not even a black cut-off with “Twisted Sister.” Suit. SUIT.  Suit pants. Suit jacket. Tie. Manuel will not even try to pull off white athletic socks with his dapper pants and dress shoes, like that time you were late to work but forgot to do the laundry the night before. No. If Manuel has to put on a stanky pair of shoes, it’s fine. After all, his co-workers run around and sweat and smell ten times worse. Okay, maybe only 5 times worse.

Sixth, the Real Madrid players will wear jerseys with their last name on the back and a gambling website on the front. The gambling website will be Bwin. Not BetUS. Not BetFair. Bwin. In the case of a repetitive last name or a last name of great length, a nickname will be used.

And as for the game? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. I do predict that if no goals are scored, Madrid will not advance. However, if some goals are scored, then Madrid may advance. MAY.

And you can count on it.

As an American, I will merely note that the concept of “deficit spending” started with FDR’s New Deal and, in the 80s, reached fever pitch with the Reaganomics solution to dismantling the Soviet Union: outspend it. The result was a crushing blow for democracy or the free market, perhaps both, which left the world a sole “superpower” and lots of happiness. However, the US was not content to reign in contract plus military spending and settle into a new age of economic soft power – too many military towns, pawnshops, and payday loans depended on trashing the American Treasury’s credit score!

Now onto soccer.

Unfortunately, soccer clubs cannot print money. They can jack up ticket prices, they can covet corporate sponsors, they can pull favors from banker friends, but they cannot print money. For now.

In the meantime, the credit car wreck has hit the middle and upper echelon teams hard. American owners did not do their due diligence – they saw total gross, but overlooked player’s wages. Perhaps they thought that a salary cap was feasible; if so, they overestimated the power of labor in Europe and also the disjointed and intra-country competition. Regardless, neither the Glazers nor the Gilletes have the billions of a sheik. They are business man, not aristocracy. And like the American middle class, they tried to get ahead by playing the credit game.

Yet FIFA’s stuttering response, the “Champions League” license, has practical problems. At the best, it set a ticking time bomb for Manchester United and Real Madrid – both clubs must be solvent to participate in a few years time to get a “license.” Of course, this is preposterous – a Champions League without Real Madrid, the most successful team in the history of the tournament? FIFA overestimates its own power – discerning fans will merely switch channels.

Let’s assume the best, err, the worst. United and Madrid cannot get licenses – all of a sudden Perez has free reign to start his own European showcase, and what team wouldn’t want to play in a four team round robin or knockout with those teams? Also, if AC Milan’s finances are really in such dire straights, they would be a quite strong addition.

The quality of play would trump most Champions League matches, especially the tedious group stages, and the number of matches played would decrease considerably. Of course, there is one other distinct possibility.

The FIFA push for economic justice, whatever that means, will merely squeeze out the middle class owners. The rules on credit will force United and Madrid to obtain billionaire sheik owners with the attention span of a four year old and the soccer knowledge of, well, a billionaire sheik. And this is what gets my goat…

For these billionaires, the soccer club is a loss. When dealing with the tax man every April, too high a return or taxation sets off red flags. Thus, to avoid suspicions and an audit, billionaires comb the planet for moderately amusing losses. And what is more entertaining than a global brand with passionate supporters and TV coverage galore?

But is that what we want? If so, then Abramovitch is the ideal owner at Chelsea – he has kept interest, wants to win, and puts his money where his mouth is.

My fundamental question: why are we so opposed to a degree of deficit spending? Credit markets freeze and thaw, tightening middle class belts, but will stamping out the strategic use of debt really shackle the top clubs? I doubt it – I think they will poach sheiks. But the middle class clubs, trying to make a push up the ladder, the teams who may need a short-term loan to make a splash signing or reinforce the squad for two fronts – adios mi amor.

I know that such exorbitant wage spending at the top trickles down – increasing the price of players for smaller and mid-sized clubs. But the eliminate debt approach has three possible outcomes – pervasive sheik ownership, a new league rival, or, most likely, FIFA will back down.

This post is not an apology from an American blogger for what American owners have done to your beloved clubs. The lack of due diligence, the quickgrab for credit, the optimist over wage reform, we can attribute these to individuals with a neat rhetorical twist – but a crackdown on such middle class naivete will put clubs at the whims of billionaire playboys, not businessman. One will sweat over payroll and bonuses…the other will only break your heart.