Happy 400th, Capitan!
By: Isaiah | September 18th, 2008
Carles Puyol turned 400 on Tuesday against Sporting CP. That’s right, 400. Over the last nine years, the man known alternately as El Capitan, Puyi, and Captain Fantastic has appeared for his club 400 freaking times. Wow.
Few people make it to that lofty height, especially nowadays where transfers are common for the better players. You can read all about how this came to pass here at the Barcelona official site. It seems like a million years since October 2, 1999, the same season I started watching our glorious FCB as a naive high schooler.
May you reach 500 with us, Capitan!
Update!
Thanks to a post by 3M, I have a bit more to add to this post. For those of you who are interested in statistics and trends (me), here’s a breakdown of Puyol’s numbers versus those of the legendary Paolo Maldini (872 total appearances, all for Milan).
If Puyol continues to play for Barcelona until he is Maldini’s current age (40!), Puyi will have almost as many appearances as Paolo. It’s those Barça B appearances (83) that are keeping Puyol’s numbers down!
Puyol made 43.889 appearances per year leading up to now (395 appearances to the end of last season). His lowest single-season total was 24 appearances in 2000/2001 while his highest was 55 in 2006/2007. For comparison, Maldini averages 37.783 appearances per year. His lowest (other than the first year where he appeared once) was 19 in 2001/2002 and his highest was 50 in 1992/1993.
To equal Maldini’s current total, using his current rate, Puyol would need to play for another 11 seasons, including this one. That’s a long time. That would give him a grand total of 20 seasons (4 fewer than Maldini, who has been playing since the age of 16).
And cause no one can get enough Puyol Smackdown:
Category: Team News
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Congrats Carlos, you are an outstanding player even though you play for the wrong team…
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United States
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CarlEs, Corey, CarlEs.
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United States -
500 or so more and he’ll catch up to maldini. haha, puyol’s a great player.
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Excellent, El Capitan. And he celebrated that milestone with a killer performance. Has it been 400 already?
It’s funny, BarcaTV was showing some older matches, from when Puyol had first gotten into the side. Pretty cool.In other news, this is one of the many reasons I love Yaya. His thoughts on not being in the automatic starting XI recently:
“We cannot play with twelve. I am physically fit, but one must respect the coach’s decision. “I am a professional and if I am not playing then I must be patient for the good of the team.
“When you pull on a Barca shirt you are representing one of the biggest clubs in the world and you have to win every game.”
There are few players on the side who can boast such an attitude.
Guardiola is really implementing his diet program as part of the side’s overall fitness program. Apparently, the meals together is helping with camraderie and helping the young’uns become part of the group. You can see it on the pitch and on the bench, too. We have a team again.
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Bravo Carles.
The very definition of an emblematic player.
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Italy -
Congratulations El Capitan– a true legend.
Nice to hear about the improved comraderie with the team. They looked miserable there last year and appear to be having more fun on the field– always a good thing.
BTW, Kevin, where did you find the Henry quotes (e.g. jabs at Sport, etc) from yesterday?
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I have to admit never in my wildest dreams did I expect Puyol to last this long and have this continued level of success. He’s emblematic not only of the team, but “representative” of the Catalan people; feisty, rugged, not afraid to stick his nose in to the fray, and loyal to the core. That’s why out of all the Catalan players on the squad he is the most adored by the fans. Sure, we love Xavi too, but Puyol will always remain foremost in our hearts.
Thanks Kxevin for the tidbit on Toure. Just one more reason not to sell him. But then again his willingness to play through his hernia pain last season pretty much sealed it for me. Now that’s commitment to the cause!
I think it’s still too early to gauge the overall fitness of the squad, (I’m interested to see how “strong” they look against Gijon this weekend.) Gijon gave Sevilla all they could handle this past weekend, but if “we” play our game, “we” should come out of it with a ‘W’, of course the same was said about our opening match at Numancia, so I’m not taking anything for granted.
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Goal.com, RtUpperV. When I’m nosing around the Sport.es site, I have Babelfish up for loose translations. My second language is French, not Spanish.
We’ll see which team shows up. If the team that showed against Sporting hits the pitch, we’re golden. I know that Sporting tends to make offenses look good, but still. And Messi wasn’t even close to his best during that match. So I’m confident. And with a stretch of 5 matches in two weeks coming up, getting off to a good start will be critical.
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By the way, next gametime: Sunday 3pmEST @Sporting Gijon on GolTV here in the US.
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Congrats Capitan! Impressive number.
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Hello again everyone. I’m back from my three day excursion to the beautiful city of Barcelona. AMAZING. The city is magnificent. The stadium is awesome and the match was very entertaining.
Let’s get down to it so. The starting line up had me thinking anyway. Pique is definitely the business, commanded the back line like a captain. He and Marquez were a good partnership and Puyol did enough at left back. Dani was very adventurous and was consistently bombing up and down the wing with only one mistake in focussing on Yannick instead of clearing one ball.
Keita started over Yaya in midfield and did a very solid job. I still prefer Yaya but I can’t argue with the result. Xavi’s passing was perfect as usual; even in warm up he didn’t miss a teammate. Iniesta has great mobility in dribbling even better than on TV.
Messi was good but kinda selfish. He starts too far out and sometimes he has blinkers. He’s still the best talent on the planet but he is still young. Henry was very impressive, dribbling passing and was unlucky not to score. Eto’o worked like a mad man and the truth is that his substitution was where the few problems started.
Guardiola’s starting 11 was spot on. Puyol at left back allowed Alves to bomb forward without worry. Pique had the pace and reading of the game to cover easily and Marquez filled in the gaps. When Pep subbed in Yaya for Eto’o and pushed Keita forward it changed us to a 4-4-2 as Iniesta pushed wide rather than forward. Then off came Henry and Pedro replaced him leaving us without a striker. Bojan was sitting on the bench twiddling his talented thumbs. Meanwhile Veloso had come on for Sporting and both teams shifted 10 or 15 yards closer to Valdes’ goal. Then Sporting’s manager undid his previous good work and moved Veloso to left back and the game was over.
3-1 as I predicted, even if the scorers were wrong. Pique was man of the match with 9. Everyone else gets a 7 except Eto’o who gets 8 for workrate.By the way, Genis, if you would like to swap cities with me feel free. I left Barcelona at 28 degrees for 12 degree Ireland.
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welcome back Ciaran! Isaiah, that’s a lot of decimal places you got there!
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Awesome! Welcome “back,” Ciaran. Glad you had a great time. I think that except for Genis, who will no doubt be utilizing his season ducats, I’m the next person in line, with a December visit and matches with Valencia and Shaktar. It won’t be 28 degrees when I’m there, however. Well, it will probably be 28 degrees F in Chicago, but not Barcelona.
Funny story: A number of years ago we were having a cold snap in Chicago. On our return flight from Paris, the pilot came on and cheerily announced that the temperature was 10 degrees. The European eyes lit up, thinking “Hey, 50 degrees ain’t bad.” Then the pilot came back on and said “Um, we should have said that was not Celsius, but Fahrenheit.” The gasps were audible. A North Face shop in O’Hare would have done great business.
Isn’t it interesting how different the match looks live? It’s much easier to focus on a player than it is on the telly, where you’re a slave to the director’s chosen shot. Did you get good seats?
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I like decimals! Back off!
I like 4.528482 more decimals than the average soccer fan!
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Wait, Kevin…10 degrees in Chicago is not a “cold snap”…it sounds freaking balmy compared to the -30 wind chill I experienced last time I was there (Bears v Colts Super Bowl weekend)…
That’s a freaking cold snap!
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Not bad at all. 2nd level, right at the half way line. It was very very cool. Went over there with 2 x 2gb memory cards and ended up buying a 4gb to go with it. My missus caught all of our goals as they went in to the net. When I was looking through the pics I noticed that the Sporting goalwas not there “you don’t need to remember that” was the response. That’s why we are engaged. She knows me well.
Live you do notice quite a bit more than on tv. Movement being the main thing. Xavi and Iniesta never stop finding space. Get the ball, pick a good pass, a bit of movement and they are free to receive it again. Messi was a little static for the first half. Henry was nearly always able to receive it and after maybe 25mins, he and Eto’o started interchanging and were far more dangerous.Half time was interesting… the scoreboards showed the goals from the other matches. Kun Aguero’s two goals for Atletico got a very good reception, more claps than most of our plays, from the Barca crowd. It is easy to see why the media are linking the little man with us.
Not that I could understand the Spanish fans around me but I heard the name Bojan very regularly even though he didn’t come on. The boy is a very popular player with the locals. I’m guessing if things don’t go well then a lot of pressure will be put on Pep to play him. No one can argue that Pedro is a better player than Bojan.
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and I thought the hair was impressive.
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Well said, ajani. Do they sell Puyol wigs in Barcelona I wonder? Halloween is coming up after all.
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i saw the boys got some driving lessons and some free cars. bojan looked happy. his first car is a lot nicer than mine was.
oh man… the idea of aguero and messi up front makes me drool but i dont think we will see it.
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Speakin’ of Carles vs Carlos. I’d like to do one of those CP-esque smackdowns on the English announcers who pronounce his name Pwee-ul…drives me freakin’ nuts. I just wanna say it’s “poo y’all”…well close …poo-yol or poo-jol would be better… Must drive you Isaiah, the ever magisterial, nuts too…at least 50.001 percent of time.
Ciaran glad you picked the game-of-the-season-so-far.
Hope to go one of these days 
…did you go to the little temple under ground at the center circle?..or is that a myth my Euro friend pulled on my 3.525 soccer year self?Posted from
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IceMel, nicely done, with the stats. I might take it out to the fourth decimal if you guys don’t watch out! I’ll do it, you know!
There is a little chapel in the Camp Nou, but it’s under the stands, not the field itself. Unless there’s another one, which would be ridiculous.
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is anybody going to nevada smiths for the gijon game?
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A Class Act! So glad that he is a key part of La Furia Roja as well!
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United States
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