In Another Universe, I Make The Choices That I Regret Not Making In This Universe,

The Modern History of FC Barcelona: Masterpost

Barca is a club of extremes. The good moments are like nothing else - playing football of the gods, sweeping up every possible trophy, ticker-tape raining down from the sky and a million people partying on the streets. The bad moments are mindbogglingly moronic and self-destructive. Players will tell you it’s like nowhere else on earth.

Through my posts on the recent history of the club I have attempted to put its present into some sort of context. History tells us why things happen the way they do. But really, these ups and downs also make for some bloody amazing stories, and I wanted to share them.

The current installments are as follows:

Part 1 - The Dream Team and the Bad Break-up (1988-2001)

Part 2 - The Little Genius and His Brazilian Bros (2001-2008)

Part 3 - We Wanted to Eat the World and We Did (2008-2012)

Appendix A: A Presidential Break-up that Defined a Decade

Appendix B: The Betrayal of Eric Abidal 

Leo Messi: the story so far (written on his 21st birthday)

An Eulogy for Tito Vilanova

Winter Has Arrived (a post on the January 2015 crisis)

On reaping what we sow (the February 2020 crisis)

Defining Matches

FC Barcelona 3 Gothenburg 0 (3-3 agg, 5-4 (pens)), European Cup semi-final [1986]

FC Barcelona 1 Sampdoria 0, European Cup final [1992]

AC Milan 4 FC Barcelona 0, European Cup final [1994]

[to be continued]

Here are a few other primer posts for topics I haven’t covered in depth:

a general primer, covering among other things the Baby Dream Team/Class of 87 and the BroT3 (Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol) [also has fic recs at the bottom if you like that sort of thing];

Xavi and Iniesta, footballing soulmates;

the brief but amazing reign of the Messi/Villa partnership;

a discursus on the epic, pure and true love of Victor Valdes and Andres Iniesta;

the brothers Alcantara;

Bojan, Ibra, David Villa and Victor Valdes;

my own Pep Guardiola picspam/primer, covering his playing days, pre-season 2008 and some of 2008/09.

Much of the above list is the work of the wonderful meretricula.  If you know of other relevant primers, please drop me a message with a link.

Read on for footnotes and such.

Keep reading

No but you all don't understand there were times I kept going through the day on the basis of the sole reminder that I would watch Lionel Messi play at night. That guy saved my life.

I'M DOING AN EXPERIMENT

To prove something to a friend, please

REBLOG IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES

LIKE IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS DON’T BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES

Growing up in a dysfunctional joint family really f*cks you up in ways that leave you scarred forever.

I wish I could describe how this book made me feel. It’s almost astronomical, the array of emotions and feelings that emerged straight from the soul as I flipped each page. The detail, the love, the uncertainty - to describe it with the fewest words, it’s magnificently unpredictable.

The characters, each one of them, inscribed something deep within my spirit. The love and bonding between Marie-Laure and her father, Etienne and his demons, and Werner and his sister, Frederick and his birds, and his powerful resentment towards something wrong - his power. Madam Manec with her peach jams and the big pot where she carried all the love. The big museum with its exhibits, all those herbarium sheets and fossils, and the curse of a diamond that was equivalent to eight Eiffel Towers that should've been thrown out into the deep trenches of the oceans long ago, but only an insane would throw eight Eiffel Towers into the unknown. Papa, with his crafty hands, built the whole of Paris with his bare hands. Marie-Laure is so unaware of what everything around her looks like, yet she hears the very minor details. Jutta, the little girl who had a mind of her own, who had words of her own, and her elder brother, who was nothing by himself, who really lived under the shadows of others, had a heart so weak to resent, too weak to fight, that the heart decided to do what everyone else was doing - a heart scared of rebellion. Frau Elena served the abandoned children till her very last breath, showering those nameless breathing corpses with so much love. Von Rumpel and his war - his war with the world, his quest to find the cursed diamond, his greed, his unfathomable hatred, his desire and passion for war and victory, his dying body, his quest for immortality that the diamond is rumored to confer on anyone who possesses it, his selfish greed, his undying fear of the unknown,and, his trembling fear of death.

The depths that this particular book touched are unmatchable. It feels like loose sand slipping through your fingers, and the helplessness that comes with it - the haunting beauty of the magnificent pain of separation, of lost identities, and of lost people. It’s remarkable. Anthony Doerr, you are a genius.

“How are you?” Oh I’m fine just thinking about Don McLean’s American Pie. And Don McLean’s Vincent. And Don McLean’s Sister Fatima. And Don McLean’s Winterwood. And Don McLean’s Wonderful Baby. And Don McLean’s Crying in the Chapel. And Do

When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on" 

When the Good Place said "Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.” 

When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also 'Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“

I sometimes wonder if my mom would’ve had a better life had she ended up with a different man,I know that would cease my existence,but I hope she knows that I would give up every fickle of my existence to make sure she has the life she deserved.

Pain's Like Cold Water Your Brain Just Gets Used To It

No Complaints - Noah Kahan/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/Ask Polly: Help I'm The Loneliest Person In The World - Heather Havrilesky/Ladybird (2017)/Tennessee Williams/unknown/No Complaints - Noah Kahan/Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)/Ask Polly: Help I'm The Loneliest Person In The World - Heather Havrilesky/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/No Complaints - Noah Kahan/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/Unknown/Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)/'Ectesy' - Georges Bataille/Warsan Shire/Ladybird (2017)/How to Cure a Ghost - Fariha Róisín/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/No Complaints - Noah Kahan