Articles tagged with "yaya toure"
The Readers CL XI - Central Midfielders
By Rob | May 12th, 2008We're begining to get to the buisness end now. If you haven't been paying attention, at the CL Offside, we've been offering you the chance to vote for players in each position to decide who will make up the Offside.com's first annual offical Champion ...
El Clásico!
By Isaiah | May 6th, 2008I know that the rumors about who is leaving and who is arriving are flying thick and fast from all over the world (should we get Anakin Skywalker Rodrigo Palacio? How about Jozy Altidore, David Villa, or Peter Parker?), but there is something much ...
Barcelona - Valencia: Sunday 1pm
By Isaiah | May 3rd, 2008There's a Spanish word that I love both because of its meaning and the actual sound when you spit it out: venganza. Revenge, payback. You know what it means and we've got two straight weeks of it, starting with the visit from Valencia and ending with ...
Manchester United - Barcelona: Champions League, Tuesday 2:45pmEST
By Isaiah | April 28th, 2008Update: Check out the liveblog on the main page This. Is. It. There's no tomorrow, no next match. We're in it to win or we're out on the street. The whole season, all the good and all the bad, have led up to this moment, this game, these 90 minu ...
Photo of the Day: Getting the Job Done
By Laurie | April 9th, 2008Barcelona player Yaya Toure celebrates with teammate Samuel Eto'o after Toure's goal in the Champions League quarterfinals against Shalke. Barcelona won the game 1-0, finishing 2-0 on aggregate. They'll meet Manchester United in the se ...
Barcelona 1 - 0 Schalke: YAY...a Toure Edition
By Isaiah | April 9th, 2008So I just spent somewhere in the 20+ minute region writing up what wasn't too bad a post, certainly evolving into something worthwhile anyway, and then somehow the browser decided that it wanted to go to the previous page and I lost everything. That' ...
The Return of the Absentees
By Isaiah | April 2nd, 2008The big news coming out of La Masia today seems to be the return of Deco and Ronaldinho to full training. Kevin has already expressed his opinion on the matter in the comments of the previous post, but I'd like to take a moment to discuss this situat ...
Almeria - Barcelona: Preview; Sunday 2pm EST
By Isaiah | March 14th, 2008Updated version. I found out this morning that there is so much more news available that I just couldn't fail to update my "janky" preview. This is almost a complete rewrite. It's away to Almeria this weekend and it won't be a cakewalk. Yes, we beat th
Barcelona - Celtic: Champions League Second Leg!
By Isaiah | March 4th, 2008Updated version It's the second leg of the Champions League first round knockout stage and we've got a decided advantage going in. We're up 3-2 already and we're at home. That's fantastic. It's hard not to be extremely confident in a team with such an ad
Atlético de Madrid - Barcelona; Saturday 2pmEST
By Isaiah | February 29th, 2008It's back to La Liga now, with the Copa semis taking a break for a couple of weeks. It's another trip to the Calderon to face Atletico Madrid, a team sitting in 4th place, 13 points back of Barcelona and 15 points back of big brother Real Madrid, who will
Preview: Barcelona - Real Zaragoza; Saturday 4pm EST
By Isaiah | February 14th, 2008So I know it's a day early, but the preview for the first of many must-win games is here and I'm leaving town tonight on a mini-vacaton to the west coast. San Francisco and its lack of slushysnowycrap will be a welcome relief to both my immune system an
Sevilla - Barcelona: Copa del Rey preview + randomness
By Isaiah | January 8th, 2008It's January and a soccer blogger of even my stature would be remiss if he or she didn't cover a couple of the rumblings in the press about who is going where and when. There are a handful of keepers to keep an eye on, really, as Barcelona look for both a
Some thoughts before the real thoughts
By Isaiah | December 17th, 2007You'd think it'd be hard to organize your thoughts before such a huge game as the one coming up this weekend, but the reality is that it's extremely easy: derby derby derby derby derby. Think of it this way: This is your brain; this is your brain on de
Barcelona: a statistical analysis of the defense
By Isaiah | December 16th, 2007The question of Barcelona's defensive capabilities has been brought up before, in comments, and I'd like to take a moment or 10 to delve into the murky depths of statistical comparisons. Is Barcelona's defense better than it was last year? That is, in a w
Flu season!
By Isaiah | December 7th, 2007Deco, who just returned from injury (and incidentally was officially given the medical all clear today), is sick with the flu and is a "serious doubt" for this weekend's game against Depor. Toure is also being laid low by the same virus and may not be abl
Lyon 2 - 2 Barcelona: Review and Highlights (Group Winners, biotches! edition)
By Isaiah | November 30th, 2007Before we truly get going, I think it's only fair that I admit that I did not get to see this game. Obviously this detracts from my abilities to discuss the game in-depth, but I'll do my best with the information at hand. I followed the game from work on
RAWR!!! Don't Look Now But Here We Come!
By Inara | November 28th, 2007Today Lyon crawled back from behind twice to draw with Barcelona at the Gerland. While a win would have been much sweeter, at least Lyon are still in the running for a place in the knockout rounds of the Champions League (thanks to our German friends over
Barcelona 2 - 1 Sevilla: Review and Highlights (I heart Toure edition)
By Isaiah | September 25th, 2007While everyone else is lauding the brilliance of Messi during Saturday's 2-1 defeat of Sevilla at the Camp Nou, I think it would be wrong of me not to start this post by nominating Andres Iniesta as the Man-of-the-Match. Prior to Saturday I had answered a
Press Conferences, Practice, and Whatnot
By Inara | September 18th, 2007Less than 24 hours to go before what promises to be one of the most stressful 90 minutes of my life. I've already done a match overview in the last post, which you can read here. Both team practices went well, Lionel Messi having trained quite nor
Barcelona 3 - 1 Athletic Bilbao: Review and Highlights
By Isaiah | September 5th, 2007Second league game, first league win. And still no goals from open play. For those of you who have merely looked at the score sheet and saw Toure in the 72', it would be understandable if you thought it was 1) probably from open play and 2) an actual go
Barcelona - Athletic Bilbao Preview
By Isaiah | August 31st, 2007I know I didn't do a proper review of the Gamper Cup game, so here is a mini-review before the larger, more thorough preview of Sunday's home opener against Bilbao. In what amounted to a game against Inter's B squad (or was it C? whichever, their away uni
Racing de Santander 0 - 0 Barcelona: Highlights and commentary
By Isaiah | August 27th, 2007Naturally I didn't get to watch this game as it wasn't broadcast here in los estados unidos, but I did get to read some hot off-the-presses commentary in both the English and Spanish media and that was fantastic. I was planning on going to Nevada Smith's
Ronaldinho to become a Spanish citizen
By Isaiah | August 23rd, 2007Just a bit of good news for Barcelona fans: Ronaldinho will become a Spanish citizen on Monday, meaning that Gio Dos Santos will be able to officially join the first team and play in La Liga games regardless of whether or not he becomes a citizen. There a
A Brief Study of Barcelona's Formations and Happy Anagrams: MIRTH, ZAP ME
By Isaiah | July 24th, 2007There's little else Barcelona fans seem to be discussing these days and with a couple of requests to do so myself, I've decided to weigh in on the weightiest of issues: the roster. It's fat, it's probably not all that happy, and it's supposedly working ha
Gabriel Milito transfers to Barcelona!
By Isaiah | July 11th, 2007Yay! Gaby Milito is going to sign with Barcelona! If you can read Spanish, here is Real Zaragoza's official announcement of the transfer. That's great news because we needed more defensive help and so far we've brought in Eric Abidal, Yaya Toure, and now
Abidal is official; Barcelona heart spending $...er €
By Isaiah | June 29th, 2007The word is out that the Abidal transfer is legit, so that's good news. Barcelona have agreed to a 14million euro ($18.8million, or like 3, maybe 4 British pounds) transfer fee and will reportedly pay Abidal 2million euros ($2.6million) a year. I've also
Fabio Capello fired, Bent is better than Thierry
By Isaiah | June 28th, 2007The big news coming from the Spanish capital today is that Fabio Capello, who just led Real Madrid to the title, has been dismissed. This is wonderful news for everyone in La Liga and, I believe, opens the door to either Sevilla or Valencia winning the
Toure is officially presented
By Isaiah | June 26th, 2007Yaya Toure has been officially presented as a Barcelona player. He will wear the number 17 according to the club's official webpage. [Update: Toure's deal is a 4 year deal] It's a relief that we have another defensively-minded player on the books, reall
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