Author Archives: Jimmy Burns

There was no TV coverage of last night´s World Cup qualifier between Belarus and Spain. The price of TV rights was pitched too high by some greedy company and Spanish TV collectively refused to buy. So I along with thousands of other La Roja fans were left with the only option of listening to the game live on Spanish radio. I tuned in , driving back to Barcelona from Madrid, across Castile and Aragon, over terrain that held together in its diversity, like a patchwork-delighted to hear the commentary praising …

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  Whatever last night´s El  Clasico is remembered for, it won´t  necessarily be for its football. The game was not so much a battle between two teams, but a series of individual encounters focused on a duel for supremacy between players of different nationalities, neither of the two Spanish -Messi and Ronaldo. Brilliant as their goals were, each have scored better ones, and their involvement in the collective efforts of their colleagues insufficient to determine the supremacy of one side or the other. As for the teams, Tito Vilanova´s Barca …

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Deputies don’t necessary  go on to make good  bosses. Look no further than Gordon Brown and Mariano Rajoy. In football it’s a mixed picture. Carlos Queiroz went from Ferguson’s assistant to managing Real Madrid (not a happy time)to being Ferguson’s assistant again, before pursuing an unexceptional  career as national coach with Portugal, and now Iran. By contrast Mourinho laid claim to being a ‘special one’ after serving as Bobby Robson’s assistant and translator at Barca. He went on conquer more than Robson did. FC  Barcelona now have Tito  Vilanova who …

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An interesting comment from Francesc to my earlier blog on Barca and Catalan Independence prompts a follow-up . Those who follow me on twitter will know some of the specific  technical issues that concerned me about last night’s FC Barcelona match against Granada. They included worries about Villa’s limitations as a player compared to Pedro and Alexis both of whom track back and associate with the rest of the team more than him,  Valdes’s sloppy clearances , and Song’s unconvincing performance   as centre-defender.  I was also unimpressed by Messi’s prolonged …

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Some debate in Catalonia was generated earlier this month by the fact that FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell  decided to attend the march of La Diada in a personal and not institutional capacity so as not to throw the club onto the independence bandwagon- a cause  which opinion polls show just under fifty per cent of voters in Catalonia do not support. I think Rosell was right, as was his  decision that the team next season should have the Catalan colours as their third preference strip, not their first. It …

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Most of us of a certain age can probably remember where we were in July 1969, that day (or night) Neil Armstrong  walked the moon- it was that kind of defining moment in history that prompted that profound phrase, rather popular at the time of stoned heads: “Today’s the  first day of the rest of your life.” I was sixteen, at a summer camp outside Madrid, learning to sail with a group of Spanish and foreign kids. They included a girl from Paris, three years older than me, who showed …

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