Easter weekend had been watching two local youth teams battling it out on the outskirts of a very typical English provincial town. I have deliberately resisted naming the teams or the town as I would not want their reputations unfairly tarnished. Suffice it to say that I was shocked by the poor quality of football played compared to similar level games I have seen played in villages and towns across Spain, and I blame this on poor coaching and facilities rather than the lack of any potential talent- although it …
When thugs meet poets
There is something sadly somewhat predictable about some English sports page headlines this morning focusing on Lampard’s apparent statement that Chelsea has “some unfinished business” to take care of when it meets FC Barcelona in two weeks time. In fact my recollection is that Lampard was interviewed by an English TV journalist after the match against Benfica last night who used the phrase in his question, prompting an even less literate response. But the phrase stands as a necessary myth capable of fuelling the base instinct each previously humiliated …
Ibra, Messi, and the art of bullfighting
As I savoured the memory of last night’s Barca Champions League victory over AC Milan this morning’s surf landed me by pure chance on the Italian club’s supporters’ website Forza Rosseneri. It was an old page, now slightly dated but which nonetheless gave one an insight into the shortcomings of a club that once claimed, not without justification, to be the best in Europe. Alongside flashing advertisements showing semi-naked models promising that more would be revealed, the club’s CEO Adriano Galliani paid tribute to club owner Silvio Berlusconi- “These 26 …
Guardiola, Bielsa, and Maradona
Two images stand out from from last night’s game between FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao whose final score failed to undermine Real Madrid’s increasingly unassailable leadership at the top of La Liga. The first has the two ‘misters’ Pep Guardiola and Marcelo Bielsa, like the philosophers of football that they are , directing their pupils as if the nature of existence itself was being defined there and then . It is a study in contrasts- Guardiola intense and ephemeral as an El Greco saint, Bielsa ‘El Loco’ , a cross …
La Roja enters Amazon UK’s top 100 sports books
New video of La Roja Book launch: Jimmy Burns with Guillem Balague at the NH Hotel Book Launch: La Roja. A Journey Through Spanish Football by Jimmy Burns from Visuad Studio on Vimeo.
Cristina Fernández picks a fight
Argentina’s president never appears in public without a heavy layer of make-up. “I put it on like I am painting a door,” she told her authorised biographer, Sandra Russo. Indeed, Russo’s book dedicates a whole chapter to the subject that many believe holds the key to who Cristina Fernández really is. One western diplomat in Buenos Aires – a woman – told me: “She really is beautiful when you meet her close up, and she is intelligent.” Her critics question her political credentials behind the mask. “Cristina uses her femininity, …
Herrera, Guardiola, & the catenaccio
During his time as manager of FC Barcelona, Helenio Herrera made a name for himself for a number of reasons. I would like to name just two. The first was as a very good psychologist. He was disdainful of other managers who failed to engage with their players and to bring about a real change in their attitude to the game. Herrera claimed to be able to look into the heads and heart of each of his players, and to be able to turn this to the team’s best advantage. …
Football notes, courtesy of Unamumo
In his excellent sports column in Tuesday’s El Pais, the incisive Martin Girard draws on the latest book by Alfredo Relaño to remind us how the divergent histories of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have forged the identity of both clubs. It a subject close to my heart and I expand on it at some length in my new book La Roja: A Journey through Spanish Football which is due out very soon . Relaño notes that Carlos Padros, the founder of Real Madrid, was abandoned by his club during the …
Is the sun setting on the Spanish Church?
Catholicism in Spain It was announced this week that the Pope will visit Spain in November. The news comes during a tense phase in Church-State relations after the Spanish Senate approved a new abortion law on 25 February. It is the latest round in a battle that the secularising government seems to be winning Last year an estimated one million people demonstrated in Madrid when the proposals to liberalise the abortion law became public. Now that it looks set to become law, the Spanish bishops’ conference has approved a new …
Clemente at the Camp Nou
In the Spring of 1984, one of the ugliest encounters in Spanish football history, the King’s Cup final between FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao was held at the Bernabeu. The clubs had, respectively, Cesar Menotti and Javier Clemente as managers. Barca still had Maradona as a star player. The season had been characterised by a growing debate between Menotti and Clemente about how football should be played. Menotti claimed to be an admirer of free creative football which he contrasted with the defensive ‘brutal’ play favoured by Clemente. Brutality had …
