I think we’re going to do the business this weekend, and the Evil Empire has some amazing record of futility at Deportivo.

Does anyone know what Marquez’s injury is? This is one I haven’t figured out yet. I also read somewhere that Milito pulled a muscle in training. Is this true?

Schalke is a good draw, but I’m still worried. The injury woes could make it difficult for the team to concentrate on the task at hand, specifically Almeria. I know this may sound terribly pessimistic, but we could be fighting to retain second on the table after this weekend. Who is Villareal playing tomorrow?

The thing is, Ronaldinho looks like he’ll play anyway. Hopefully I don’t have to amend my preview. If he’s out, we’ll start Eto’o, Henry, Bojan, which will just be disastrous. Remember that Iniesta is suspended because of yellow cards.

“Toure joins the already-existing list of injured first-team players. The african, after receiving infiltration, is experiencing daily clinical improvements and is doing muscular stabilization work in the gym. Even so, the Ivory Coast heart-throb will be out for Sunday’s match. He joins Deco, Messi, Jorquera, Marquez and Ezquerro on the injured list.”

“Ronaldhino, who thursday did not practice with pain in his right aductor, was among the players at practice. The brasilian, nonetheless, has withdrawn from practice before his teammates.”

Giovani was also absent from practice.

a first crack at a starting 11:

eto’o and henry and bojan (unless ronnie is fit)
iniesta, xavi, edmilson
abidal, puyol, milito, zambrotta
valdes

Comprehensive beauteousness.

And watch out for Roma. They could surprise, especially if Mancini is on. Nobody shuts down teams from scoring like Serie A sides, and if they can score an away goal or two, Man U could have complexities.

Now, for other business, and this is going to go on a bit, so apologies in advance. But Kyle, Messi is NOT using HGH, for so many reasons.

1. It leads to long-term liver damage, and all sorts of other badness.

2. It doesn’t lead to any performance gain that is really needed by a professional footballer.

3. Long-term HGH usage leads to facial and joint deformities. Look at some bodybuilders (male and female) and how their faces have changed over the years, as an example. Lantern jaws, protruding brows, bigger feet and hands, etc.

4. HGH users evince muscular changes that are unavoidable, as HGH packs on the muscle like crazy, particularly on a thick-muscled guy such as Messi. We would see him getting bigger and stronger over the course of a season, and he would NOT be getting injured. This is another of the many benefits of HGH, also described as “youth in a bottle.”

HGH can help you heal. It can also help you train longer and stronger if you’re a strength athlete. As an aerobic/anaerobic athlete, you’d get better effects from simple uppers, or, longer-term, things such as EPO, as long as you don’t mind potentially dying in your sleep as your blood becomes the consitency of mucilage.

Bicycle racing is leading the way in finding new juice to make aerobic/anaerobic athletes better, but football, land of the “magic water,” isn’t that far advanced yet. Rare is the rider that you find doing HGH, although some climbers like testosterone but again, for the short-term strength gains.

Now, a medically supervised regimen of performance enhancing drugs can be done with almost complete safety. An athlete is analyzed, the doctor learns the correct dosage that will provide effect without deleterious side effects, and off we go.

For Messi to be on that kind of a program would be so comprehensively dishonest, both on the part of the player and the team medicos, as to boggle the mind. And they would have other people on the same program. And our guys would run faster, longer, stronger than the other teams, and never get injured or tired. And we would be 20 points ahead in the league standings, and eyebrows would be raised so high, they would look like hairpieces.

If Messi were doing it on his own, he would have been busted eons ago by the team and given the complexities of having a tainted athlete on the side, even one as talented as Messi, would be too much for any team to want to deal with.

Are pro footballers doing stuff? Without question. Drug use is something that sport is going to have to contend with at every level. And it isn’t going away. But you can rest easy on Messi and HGH.