Now that the defense pushes up, that helps retain midfield possession. Also, Alves functions in effect as a third midfielder and pressure valve passing release, to reset the attack. So does Abidal.

—————Valdes—————-
Alves—–Caceres—–Puyol—–Abidal
————-Yaya——————-
————–Xavi——————-
Messi—–Eto’o——Henry——Iniesta

It would need Yaya, because he has the range, pace and ball skills, not to mention sheer thuggishness. I like Caceres in the back line because of his no-nonsense clearances and pace.

valdes
Alves Puyol/Caceres/Pique/Marquez Abidal/Sylvinho/Caceres

Toure/Keita/Busquets
Xavi (a little ahead of the Defensive midfielder
Messi Eto’o Henry Iniesta with bojan/pedro/hleb/+others as sub and sometimes messi as striker?

Also Ciaran Ajax has produced several players, but are never able to keep them, because of money.
Keep in mind several of your previous dutch players came from Ajax. (just in defense of ajax)
I.E
Sneijder, Van der Vaart, Seedorf, Van der Sar, Heitinga, Maduro, kluivert, just to name a few of the last decade

This season it would be even easier to play, because of how the defenders push up and where Alves plays, in effect making him the third midfielder.

–And Isaiah, we can agree to disagree on Hleb. I don’t take much comfort in this, but all four of the point-scoring sources that Pep uses to compile (yes, we’re one of them as you double-dippers know) had Hleb at either a 6 or 7. But lord, I hate agreeing with Goal.com. I must have done something wrong. Okay, he WAS crap.

–Alves is responding to the trash-talking by Casillas, who predicted a 1-0 win for them in El Clasico.

“Anyone can talk,” says our attack-minded Brazilian. “That’s why we have freedom of expression. But then one has to deliver on the pitch with their actions.”

In other words, “Whatever, ho. Talk all the smack you want, but we’re getting in that ass.”

–Isaiah has some competition in the statistics department (but no decimal places, it must be noted):

http://fcbtransfers.blogspot.com/2008/11/stigsbys-statistics-effect-of-rival.html

–In an interview with Sport (who has been very busy of late), the Icelandic Monument has credited Guardiola with “changing his life,” saying that the new coach pulled him aside and said “Look, Guddy, I believe in you, but you have to convince me and give everything during pre-season.”

I suspect the talk was more like “There are a lot of talented players here, so whatcha got, candyass? You want West Ham or Camp Nou?”

–Rumor is that Villarreal keeper Diego Lopez is on our wish list. Dunno why, but there it is. Lopez is reported as saying “Whatever, dude. I like it here at Villarreal.” Translation: “It’s gonna cost a TON if you want me.”

–Messi says that the club isn’t dependent on him, that it can win with any 12 players that Guardiola puts out there. Which might be true, but one of them had better be able to make runs to upset the defense. He’s right, as long as one of those 12 is SPF 45.

–Puyol and Yaya are back in the squad for Sevilla. Alves says that if he scores, he won’t celebrate.

I third the welcome to Richard. I think he’s got a point about “garbage” goals, but I personally agree with the other comments about killer instinct. While the ref probably shouldn’t have let the kick be taken so quickly, I don’t think it’s against the rules to do so (though I don’t know the exact wording). If you’re the defense, you have to pay attention.

I’ll bring up an example: remember when Barcelona was playing against Real Betis a couple of years ago and a foul was committed and the freekick was taken before we had a chance to set up a wall…was that unfair? No. I blamed Barcelona’s lackadaisical defending for that one and I must do the same for Sporting’s.

If you put Sporting into La Liga, I think they would be Getafe-esque in their final rankings. There’s no doubt that they’re a quality side, but Getafe doesn’t lay down for anyone, as we saw. Sure, Sporting have a good youth setup, but their end product (the team) doesn’t have the quality it should (because the big boys buy off their players) — acting as if because of its youth setup it has a better team than it does smacks of naivety.

And I’ll go on record as saying that the best youth setup in the world is FC Barcelona’s. And we have the money to retain the services of most of our players. Were it not for a couple of pesky laws concerning child labor (that England doesn’t have), we would have even more talent on our roster (Cesc, for one). Perhaps the same is true for Sporting.

I like the concept of Sporting being a good team, but they’re simply not at the level of competing week-in-week-out with teams of our quality. We deserved to win, especially given that their first goal was pure “garbage” and their second one was pure “luck”. Only once did they truly threaten on their own and Valdes’ face came to the rescue there.

The last thing I have to say is that Hleb was crap. I do think he needs more time to settle in, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t crap. I don’t have a problem with him starting when Iniesta isn’t available, but I do have a problem not saying he was crap. I disagree completely with Kevin that he was instrumental in anything except giving the ball away repeatedly. His passing is slow and not incisive enough. He had one moment of brilliance that came after I was babbling out loud about how crappy he is for us, but it came to naught because his final ball was terrible.