This is a great commercial. I couldn’t stop laughing at “Double Mutumbo” and who shows up after the Miami Heat guy says “South Beach is king!”

Now here’s something interesting to look at. It’s a passing and touches graph for the Barcelona/Manchester United game on Saturday.

If you’re curious to what this is… The bigger the circle, the more times the individual touched the ball. The bigger the arrow, the more passes made from the origin of the arrow to the direction of the arrow. Note that the two people that touched the ball the most in the game are Iniesta and Xavi and the passing circle between Xavi, Iniesta and Messi.

As for the most passes made by Manchester United, it’s a close call between Van Der Sar and Rooney (long balls anyone?) and Rio Ferdinand and Vidic. Little passing made between the Man United midfielders, which shows the dominance of Barcelona pressing plus their midfield dominance.

Taking a break from studying and figuring out applications needed for my group’s project for class, I started watching some of the highlights from the UCL championship game between FC Barcelona and Manchester United from Saturday afternoon. After watching the game on Saturday, I was kinda disappointed that Man United got beat handily by the team from Spain. Granted, I’m an Arsenal fan and definitely no Man United fan, I figured they would have prepared a bit better for the match when in fact they didn’t. The point of this article though isn’t to criticize Man United’s approach because they had to go about their own way to try to beat Barca.

The point of this article is understanding Barcelona’s approach to the game. What people don’t realize is that this team is, for the most part, the polar opposite of what most teams are these days. Most of their team is quite small. They’re also not the fastest team, nor the most physical team out there either. Yet, they manage to win games with such ease that it’s quite unbelievable. Sure, you can account skill for some of it, but when you watch their game, it doesn’t have the kind of explosive appeal that other teams might have, like say Real Madrid, Arsenal, or Manchester United. They don’t counterattack other teams nor do they regularly take powerful shots outside of the 18 (though Saturday’s game was definitely a change of pace with two goals scored from outside of the box from both Messi and Villa).

In order to understand Barca’s game, you have to understand Tiki-Taka. Tiki-Taka is the game in which you try to promote the short passing game, possession and patience. It’s not about getting goals quickly. It’s about controlling the pace of the game to your own pace. By controlling the possession, you not only enable the opportunities that you get to score goals, but also create few chances for your opponents to score, as well as tire them out from having to chase after you. The emphasis here is on the short passing. Rarely do you see a ball go across the field in the air in an attacking position such that they head the ball in. It’s just to create space and maintain control.

If you haven’t seen them play before, this is what I mean with Tiki-Taka:

Again, the emphasis here is short-passing movement, one or two-touch passing, opponents chasing after the ball and controlling possession. The music is rather fitting, as they play against other teams as though they are like the Harlem Globetrotters of football (or soccer).

When you hear discussions of Barcelona, you hear a lot about Messi. Yes, he’s arguably the best striker in the game right now, but is he the key element to their game? Not exactly. He scores goals, yes. But the most crucial element to Barca’s game is in the midfield, that is, Iniesta, Xavi, and Busquets. Here’s a quick video (taken from AllasFCB). Keep an eye on the movement between the midfielders:

As you watch, notice the movement of the ball. It’s not exactly complex by any means. Just simple short, one or two-touch passing. There’s nothing too fancy about it, but it obviously works.

Because of the lack of size, they can’t afford to just get it quickly down field to try to score a goal. Why not? It would seem to make sense when you have the best striker in the world on your team. Well, it doesn’t work that way. By moving the ball patiently and together as an entire team, you’re making it such that if you do not score, you can regain the ball back in the attacking zones rather than chase after them in your half of the pitch. And because of their diminutive size, you usually can’t just run at opposing defenses, especially the stronger, physical ones because they’ll just overpower you the moment you get the ball. Hence, the one-two touch passing. You keep moving and avoiding the physical confrontations of the opposing team, while looking for channels to make key passes.

If they do lose the ball, they simply get it back via pressing the player with the ball. Like in the video, it shows a great example of this. Take away the space for which the person with the ball has to either pass or dribble and you’ll force them to make a mistake in their own half and put more pressure on their defense.

One of the difficult things about this strategy is that you can’t just have anyone. You need to have disciplined players, especially in the midfield, moving the ball. That is why I don’t think Messi is the keystone to their game. If I would have to choose a player that exemplifies “tiki-taka”, it’s either Xavi or Iniesta. Their passing rate is virtually unmatched. There was a fact before the game that Xavi in Champions League games had on average of 122 completed passes, according to OPTA. An average player would usually get about 25 or so. Iniesta also has a strong work rate as well with his passing and ball movement, and according to FourFourTwo, has approximately 89% passing completion. These two guys have been so crucial to their recent success. They rarely make mistakes in terms of passing. If they do, it’s usually in the attacking third of the pitch.Not only are they the ones that control the possession, but they (along with Busquets) are usually the first ones that regain it if they were to ever to lose it. It’s also their vision that allows their teammates to score so many goals. It’s their ability to keep and control the game that makes this all click properly. Again, Messi scores a ton of goals, but it’s Xavi and Iniesta that create plays and opportunities behind the scenes.

But ultimately, it’s a tactic that frustrates and emotionally, mentally, and physically demoralizes the opponent. To constantly have to chase after the ball while they’re just moving it from one player to the next in the space of five to six yards is hard work. Here’s another example:

You can see all the chasing that opposing players have to do. They can either chase or just let Barca play this game and concede possession. But in the end, it’s not going to work because Barca will eventually find that one run that allows them to score first. Then you’re behind and forced to chase the moment they regain possession. If you’re curious to as how frustrating it can be, check out Cristiano Ronaldo as he attempts to chase after the ball.

Arms flailing in frustration, he gets lost in Barca’s passing game (though it could be said that Real Madrid’s strategy was to concede possession, thus not chase). But by tiring them out, you can enable those runs later on and eventually get that goal.

It’s really the perfect strategy. Beat your opponents to death by passing around them. It’s simple, elegant, yet effective. They utilize the gifts of their players to their greatest potential and completely negating their weakness of lacking strength and size that their opponents have over them by playing this way. This not only has worked with Barcelona, but with the Spanish National team as well, as the lack of size (and the skeptical and prone backline) forces them to avoid giving their opponents possession of the ball. This epitomizes the thought of “the best defense is a good offense.” Prevent your opponents from getting the ball and you won’t get scored on.

How do you beat it? Try to press and hope you have enough stamina to pull it off. However, I think we’ve all yet to see a team that can outright pull this off consistently. Until then, Barcelona might have the most unbeatable game out there and will continue to frustrate every team (and those fans that want their team to win trophies, like myself and Arsenal).

Maybe Sergio Ramos shouldn’t be allowed to hold trophies… He drops the Copa Del Rey underneath the parade bus.

As I was working on my second step for my sociolinguistics paper about UK English, I thought I would take a break and write about something else that’s along the lines of the U.K.: Arsenal. If you’re an Arsenal fan, you probably know the ups and downs that comes with being one. This season was definitely one of the more unusual seasons though in that we actually were in it for all four competitions that we were eligible for: League Cup, FA Cup, Premier League, and UEFA Champions League. Yet in a matter of weeks, it’s pretty promising that we’ll go away without silverware yet again. So what went wrong this season? A few things come to mind:

(1) Defense. Our inability to hold leads or deal with more physical teams (like Man. United) is attested to our defense. Our defense is inconsistent. Whether it be random blunders from our goalkeeper or center-backs being unable to hold down opposing center forwards, it’s just clearly present that we’re struggling in this area. Especially in a league where there’s Wayne Rooney, Drogba, Van Der Vaart and the like, we need a pair of center backs that are just as strong and physical as those guys. Christopher Samba was basically asking to join Arsenal. Sure, he might not have as great of a passing game, but he is solid in the back. Also, our left-back in Clichy has been inconsistent as well. His mistakes in the backline have been costly at times. But things like stupid fouls and lack of discipline have been so bad in the defense that it seriously needs to be retooled. No more of this, “We’re not gonna spend money on star players.” You need it with defense because without it, you can’t protect wins.

Our goalkeeper situation is another issue that needs its own paragraph. We have three guys that are all pretty awkward. However, the best of the three right now has to be Szczesny. He is the future of the club. However, he will need some time to develop. But if he was under the guard of a stronger back four, I think he would improve greatly. He will make mistakes once in a while (see today’s game against Tottenham with the foul on Lennon), but with a better back four, he can focus on not having to come out and make such tackles in the manner that he did today.

(2) Durability. What do I mean by durability? Simply put it, it’s about not being injury prone. We’ve been struggling with this for numerous years now and it needs to be addressed. Robin Van Persie is a great player, but at the same time, is well-known for being Mr. Glass. Same with Theo Walcott and Cesc Fabregas. Maybe it’s the training and medical team that needs to reevaluate their methodology or something because it does hurt the team a lot when these players pick up these injuries.

(3) Being able to adjust tactics accordingly. Arsenal’s playing style is by far one of the most fun to watch. No question about that. Arsene has been able to equip these players with that mentality that has seen them break through even the most difficult of defenses in the game. However, sometimes, we need players that not only have this mentality, but also the physical strength or other qualities to get through physical teams. What do I mean? For example, Blackburn is known for being a very physical side. You know that every game you play against them will always be the same: Be physical, no holds barred. So choose players that can handle that kind of physicality, whether on offense and defense. Isn’t that why we picked up Chamakh? Sometimes, speed is good, but other times, matching brute force with brute force is just the answer you need to hold them off long enough to score goals and win games.

I’m sure there’s other things that come to mind as one picks apart this season. But the fact of the matter to all this is that changes need to be made. Everyone looks back to the days of the Invincibles and what they did. However, if you look at their roster, it was pretty obvious what they had. They had a side that was physical, disciplined when it needed to be (well, kinda minus some stupid things here and there), yet still played the same amazing offense that they have today. Henry was able to hold off physical defenders. Pires had pace but a strong game. Vieira was in the middle of the pitch controlling the pace of the game. The back four of Toure, Lauren, Cole, and Campbell is a testament to a strong, physical back four with people like Keown and Parlour available as well. That’s the kind of equation you need to win soccer games nowadays.

It’s still not over as Arsenal can still possibly win the EPL this season. However, if they keep losing 3-1 leads to teams like Tottenham or fail to score against others, I’m not sure if this will be even possible.

So I’ve played in the city soccer recreational leagues for about four years now. And in those four years, I’ve played against two of my old teams. It’s been pretty mixed in terms of experiences.

When I first started playing in the leagues, I had joined up with one team as a keeper with a few friends. However, we eventually left to start our own team since we’d be interested in doing so for quite a while. That summer we jumped up divisions after dominating in our first season and I played that old team. I made a number of friends on that team, so despite the competitiveness and ferocity during the games, it was relatively friendly (minus the drama in one game after I kicked off a player from the team and them joining that old team). It was overall fun during that rivalry. Heck, even some of them are on the current team today.

However, there are times where it’s a little different… Sunday night was one of them. I knew about it and another old team that I played with found out we were playing them. I have to admit, I didn’t leave their team on the greatest of terms, since I didn’t agree with their tactics or strategy and told that to the manager. I wrote a little comment on our website saying, “Calling dibs on an attacking position during the game”. When it came time to play against them, my former manager had this intensity I hadn’t seen before. She was more commanding of her defense, which I hadn’t seen before (but then again, that was my job when I was playing with them). It got a bit more physical, but then again, we definitely dished out our fair share to some of their players as well.

Halftime came around and it was pretty interesting. I went to go get a blanket for one of our teammates because she couldn’t play due to not having her card. I just gave a couple of pointers here and there about their attack and how to stifle it. Basically, I just did what I did with any other team. Just remained chill but kept in control of the situation (even though it wasn’t really needed). But I could hear my old team devising a strategy in the background, discussing pretty thoroughly.

In the end, their strategizing didn’t work out so well as we managed to win 5-2. But it was just weird to see them up their intensity like that. I hadn’t seen it before. I have a pretty strong feeling it was knowing that they were playing against me. I guess I would too if I was told by someone leaving the team that they didn’t mesh well with my tactics or fit the strategy I was trying to implement. But it happens. I think the only person in the game that I think I could knowingly goof around and joke with was my friend Erin, since she subbed for our team when we played on Saturdays.

In any case, I hope it was fun for them. I know it was for me..

… Especially when I assist a goal where my teammate traps my heading pass, then volleys in a goal from nearly 30 yards away. So sick.

This is kinda fun to watch. Some guys from the European Tour trying to see if they can hit diminutive targets using only their club and golf ball. Some of these are pretty crazy.

Here was the first one shown in August. Hitting a small gong 200 yards away by skimming it across a pond:

Here’s the most recent one. Hitting a clay pigeon with your shot (Note the guy in the blue shirt at around 1:43):

Fantasy spots. Oh boy. One moment, you love it. The next moment, you hate it.

So if you have no idea what I’m talking about… The whole idea of fantasy sports is that you’re the owner of a team of a specific sport, whether it be basketball, soccer, football, baseball, or whatever else there is out there. Before a season starts (or very early in the season), you select players to “play” for your team. Over the course of the season, they accumulate stats for your team. Depending on the format, you may face off against other teams and the team with the most points or most categories won, wins that week. Or you could try to accumulate the most stats over the course of the entire season and try to finish as high as possible. Millions and millions of people all over the U.S. and the world participate in some sort of fantasy sports. Some do it for money, others do it for pride.

When I see myself playing it, I think “Geez, this is such a roller coaster ride… Ugh.”

Here’s what I mean: I run a fantasy football league with some friends of mine (and no, it’s not for money, but a lot of pride on the line). I drafted a team that I felt was pretty strong. It might have some trouble against a couple of teams, but should win the majority of the weeks playing.

In our league, the average score is roughly around 120 point per week. So when you score 130 or more, that means your team is pretty good and you should likely win… Except when your opponent scores 176 points, thus resulting in a loss for that week. Then I play another team, beat him handily, winning 166 to 111. So I’m thinking, “Man, my team is pretty ridiculous. How can I possibly not make the playoffs this season?”

That’s when the roller coaster ride begins.

One of the things about fantasy sports, especially football, is that it’s all about individual match-ups versus various defenses (or offenses). Regardless of how amazing that player might be… they still might have an off-week, which means bad news for you. What’s even more fun is if several players on your team have a off-week… on the same week. Take this for example:

The Strike Box Score
STARTERS
SLOT	PLAYER, TEAM POS	OPP	STATUS ET	PTS
QB	Troy Smith, SF QB	TB	» L 0-21	10.2
RB	Adrian Peterson, Min RB  Q	GB	» L 3-31	12.6
RB	Jahvid Best, Det RB  P	@Dal	» L 19-35	6.3
RB/WR	Wes Welker, NE WR	Ind	» W 31-28	16.8
WR	Hakeem Nicks*, NYG WR  K  O	@Phi	» L 17-27	12.5
WR	Brandon Lloyd, Den WR	@SD	» L 14-35	19.8
TE	Dustin Keller, NYJ TE	Hou	» W 30-27	2.7
D/ST	Lions D/ST, Det D/ST	@Dal	» L 19-35	2
K	Dan Carpenter, Mia K	Chi	» L 0-16	0

BENCH
SLOT	PLAYER, TEAM POS	OPP	STATUS ET	PTS
Bench	Matt Schaub, Hou QB  P	@NYJ	» L 27-30	18.9
Bench	Sam Bradford, StL QB  K	Atl	» L 17-34	24.8
Bench	Raiders D/ST, Oak D/ST	@Pit	» L 3-35	-0.1
Bench	Michael Bush, Oak RB	@Pit	» L 3-35	7.9
Bench	Joseph Addai*, Ind RB  O	@NE	» L 28-31	0

So sometimes, you make the wrong decision and pick the wrong guy to play (i.e. playing Troy Smith over Sam Bradford or Matt Schaub, as I probably should have played Bradford since he was also on fire). However, there’s other times where even if you play the best guy (Adrian Peterson) or have a couple of the best players of that position (Nicks and Lloyd), you still can’t score that many points. Typically, AP scores in the high 20s. That week… 12.6 points. Awe… some…

I scored a total of 82.9 points that week, which is well below that average that I spoke about earlier. In any case, that’s the frustration of fantasy sports. As much research as you try to put into it, it really comes down to whether or not the player performs, whether they get hurt or a bunch of other things that are completely out of your control. But it’s just this up and down ride that you go on when you play. And sometimes, you think you’re gonna win… And then on the Monday night game, someone decides to go bonkers and score 60+ points to come back from a 59 point deficit to win. All you can say to yourself is “That’s just my luck.” Or when you play a team with an inactive owner and you think you should win because it’s a bye week, only to lose? Yeah… That’s a great feeling.

Thankfully, the reason why I play isn’t because I want to win the league though. It’s simply to create a place to get friends and sports enthusiasts together to follow sports together. For us, it’s football and it’s a blast to go text each other, chat about games when meeting up with them and do some trash-talking here and there. It doesn’t matter about the age (one of our guys playing in the past two years is still in high school and been in playoff contention each year) and it doesn’t matter about how well you know the sport. You just play and have fun. That’s all there is to it.

But fantasy sports… If you haven’t played it before and ever decide to play, take these three pieces of advice:

• Just have fun.
• Be wary of the ups and downs of the game.
• If you play fantasy football, don’t draft Seattle Seahawks players. Ever. Even if you’re a fan. You’ll thank me later.

Thanks for reading.

So I saw this on CNNSI.com, where they also forwarded a link to Yahoo! Sports. It was a game between Toronto and Montreal where the game was tied 30-30. Now be aware that there’s a few different rules for Canadian football. For example, you can score a single point (called a rouge) if the ball flies past the backline or sideline of  the endzone. Also, you can kick the ball as well to clear it (or to attempt to score a rouge). Anyway, here’s the video of Montreal attempting to score the game winning field goal but… Well, you can watch it for yourself.

All I have to say is that Canadian football is really weird…

If you haven’t heard, LeBron James is no longer a Cavalier. He jumped ship and went to South Beach to be on the Miami Heat with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, forming the new “Big Three”.  But  this Big Three wasn’t formed in the same way that the former Big Three was by the Celtics (Garnett, Pierce, and Ray Allen). No trades were made. No huge sacrifices made by the Heat, aside from being well over the salary cap. They just got commitments from LBJ and Bosh via free agency.

So who came out winning and who came out losing?

Cavs

Major loser. They lost on so many levels. From the organization to the fan base. The organization itself made a lot of sacrifices in order to get LeBron a chance at winning a NBA title. Lotsa trades, new signings, kissing his butt endlessly. All of that resulted in no real gain aside from the fact that all their work was wasted and the person that they catered to is now gone. The fans also got slapped in the face. Cleveland fans worshipped the “King” these past seven years. They supported him a lot. Then he goes. I think that they would have been more understanding if he had went to the finals several consecutive years and failed, then wanted to be traded to try to win one. Or if it was later in his career. But he still hasn’t reached either stage. Why support a guy that doesn’t keep trying to help your team? Why support a guy that you’ve been loyal to but not vice versa?

Heat

Major winner. This is pretty obvious. You now have arguably the best player in the league right now, one of the better big men in the league in Bosh, and one of the better offensive players in the league in Wade. They have hope of winning another title since the days of Shaq and Wade. The only losing part here is that everyone that follows the NBA now hates the Heat, but they don’t care. They care as much about everyone else’s opinion about their NBA team as they did when they were voting between Gore and Bush in 2000. Remember those hanging chads, Miami residents?

Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh

Winners (for now). This one is fairly self-explanatory as well. I guess there is some kind of strong relationship between Dwayne Wade, Bosh, and LeBron. It’s borderline bromance between them. But this does give them a legit shot of winning a title (or another one, as in Wade’s case). The question is how do you integrate all three players into an offense that will work? Wade needs the ball. So does LeBron. Bosh can just rebound all the outside shots that they miss and try to put them back in. How this chemistry will work has yet to be seen.

The U.S. national team doesn’t really shed any light, however, as that team was very much different than this Miami team. A lot of leaders, a different coaching staff (an extremely solid one for that matter), and a different focus and motivation after the past failings.

The NBA

Minor losers. Two have two big stars leave cities where they were the face of the team that they were on is bad. The market for the NBA in that city drops because there is less support for that team. The fan morale drops as well. Losing LBJ for the Cavs basically dropped them out of the top four and probably into the bottom five teams in the league, which as a result means the following for the NBA there will crap out a bit.

But you want teams where their arenas are sold out and people come to games. By having all stars on one team, it really hurts the rest of the market, as it’ll result in empty seats for other teams. Keeping stars spread out over various teams creates buzz in other cities, not just the major ones. It keeps rivalries strong, and not one-sided. This move doesn’t help them out one bit.

LeBron James

Minor winner, major loser. I’m going to be frank here and just say that. The way that he went about this was pretty bad. Making everyone wait, putting all the attention on him like that, having an interview to force people to have to watch to see where he was going  created a lot of publicity for him. But in the process, it wasn’t really that positive. Instead, we get an image of a guy that just wants attention. Not a humble, NBA title focused player.

The other thing is that it really damaged his legacy as a player. If he wanted to be compared to the legend that is Michael Jordan, he should have stayed. By leaving to join two other major stars, he won’t compare to that of MJ. Remember how MJ got his six titles. He did it without the need of any big stars. No Clyde Drexeler, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajawaan, or other people like that. He worked with a bunch of support players and got there. LBJ definitely had the talent to do so as well, as well as the personnel. But in the process, he chose the easy way out. Now people will assume that the only way that he can win a title is by being on the same team as other big name stars and not by himself. That right there is the key concept. We’ll now never know whether or not he could have done it by himself. He came close, but never got there. He had the potential to do so this year, but he crashed and burned.

The only thing that really came out of this for him is now he has a shot at winning a NBA title. Like I stated earlier, if he was reaching the end of his career and bolted, it might have been more understandable because it’s still hard. But still questions his legacy as to whether or not he’s up there as the best player of all time.

Last Thoughts

In the end, the game of basketball, as a whole, lost. Who was assumed as the best player in the league jumped ship and basically makes the claim that he can’t do it by himself and needs big time help in order to win a title. The publicity and energy created for the game of basketball wasn’t positive at all. Heck, the free agent signing period that’s been going on hasn’t really created any waves. It’s just more of a circus with players switching teams here and there, with this being the big act. Who’s to blame for all this? Stern? The NBA rules for signing players? The league as a whole? The Cavs? Probably a combination of all these things.

Maybe it’s a good time to jump ship from the NBA and follow something that’s more interesting, less of a circus, and worthwhile… European soccer anyone?