Dion

Yes. His whole point was to blame Fabregas the most he could but if you look behind that, there is some useful information. Still I wonder if that's the widespread feeling towards Cesc from most Barca fans and the board.

Maybe he tried to convey it in that way but to me he's blaming the coaches nevertheless. Unless we're assuming that he owned Barca and gave orders to their coaches, no one in their right mind can blame Cesc because the managers were trying to accommodate him - assuming it to be true. And it was still acknowledged that Barca had problems with their centre-backs, Xavi's aging, tiki-taka vs directness approach, so I don't think it was all that bad - every fan is biased in what concerns his own team. But my main reason to post that article was to give insight on Barca's perspective on Fabregas (or their fans view at least). I was genuinely curious to know why they were getting rid of Fabregas and I thought that maybe others were too. It just occurred at the same time that he seemed to be convinced that Fabregas is terrible at defending beyond normal fan bias or fan hatred, so I brought that up because I don't particularly agree with. And I think he mentioned what you said about Cesc being played everywhere and never being given the chance to really adapt to the role, even if he didn't give it enough emphasis - of course, because it didn't suit his argument.

That wasn't the understanding I've got from reading it. The article seems to split the blame between multiple people (Guardiola, Barca's board, Tito, Martino, the way Barca's midfield used to work and Fabregas himself). What it blames Fabregas for is he alleged inability to adapt himself to the tactical needs of the team (positioning to play as a sucessor to Xavi or awareness to swap positions with Iniesta on the left) and to play Messi's role as false 9 (which isn't really his fault, it's just about who he is or isn't as a player, he simply doesn't possess the pace or dribbling of Messi, nor is as clinical in his finishing). It also says he builds up his numbers against shitty sides amongst a few other unfair criticisms but I guess it should be expected coming from a Barca fan about Cesc.In addition, when anyone suggests him in the pivot, they suggests it as a deep-lying playmaker. The point about that role is that you don't need to excel in any defensive aspect but positioning. As long as you can limit passing options and slow down attacking players you're already good to go being average at all the rest. The defensive side of a DLP is mostly tactical. That's why it got me concerned, the article criticizes his tactical awareness heavily. If he displays erratic behaviour and lack of positioning as the text suggests, he must be played as a #10 only. However, from what I've seen from Fabregas and considering the type of player Mourinho tends to praise and look for, I'd say it shouldn't be the case. All in all, it only makes me even more eager to see how he's going to be deployed.

Somehow I've managed to interpret that as the quickest a stranger has convinced him to get into a car Like some stranger driving by, noticing him on the sidewalk and then inviting him for some sexy time.

I SWEAR on my life that I had never visited that site before :ph34r2:

While looking for an answer to why Barcelona let Fabregas go, I stumbled upon this: http://neymarketing.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/requiem-for-a-dream-how-barcelonas-prodigal-son-became-their-most-damaging-signing-in-a-generation/ Haven't finished reading yet but it seems like an interesting read. Edit: If the article can be any trusted, maybe we should be more concerned about his defensive capabilities than previously thought. I must confess I never saw Fabregas as this massive defensive liability that the article portrays. Yet I hope the author is right about this at least: "he will probably win more there (Chelsea) than he ever did".

I have mixed feelings about this. I don't see exactly where Drogba fits or what he brings to the table. Of course he's good in the air. But so is Costa, even if not as good as Didier. Maybe we could use him in the last minutes of a game to improve our chances in set pieces and to defend better, but aside from that he doesn't really improve us. And having Didier also means less chances for Lukaku and Ba (fuck Torres who cares about him). I'll always be happy to see Drogba on the pitch but I'm also afraid that if he plays too poorly or something bad happens (like missing some important sitter) it may stain his legacy.

Click on the photo and it should work. I don't know why but direct linking doesn't work.

@Rmpr, have you seen this? http://portavozisrael.tumblr.com HAHAHAHAHAHA

Met a palestinian guy today at university and he gave me a book about the Israel vs. Palestine conflict to read :woo: He also gave me his number to call so he can lend me other books.

I agree with you but at the same time I'm afraid about how Costa is going to perform. Strikers usually struggle a bit playing for us and the fact that Costa is a player who relies massively on others to create chances for him makes me uneasy. My head says he will do really good because our midfield is looking bright this season but I just have this gut feeling that everything seems too good to be true. Hazard will surely enjoy someone to overlap with him and to do one-twos.

He hasn't played Brazilian Serie A. Chelsea bought him directly from São Paulo FC youth ranks.

Some people also call it cacetinho in the RS apparently. I've lived there and can't recall anyone calling it cacetinho though. I also think whenever brazilians use cacetinho, they say "pão cacetinho" whereas in Portugal it is only "cacetinho" or "baguette" from what I understood.

Summarizing and adding a bit of information to what @Barbara has said: the difference between european portuguese and brazilian portuguese is slightly bigger than between british english and american english. But the difference between portuguese and spanish is smaller than between english and dutch or english and german. Portuguese and spanish are similar enough that you are usually able to make yourself understood to each other. European portuguese stands somewhere between brazilian portuguese and spanish. The speed and accent they speak in Portugal resembles a lot the way spanish is spoken whereas brazilian portuguese is much slower paced - however, vocabulary and phrasal structure between both are quite similar. There are funny differences though. Like @Barb said the way they call girls in Portugal means bitch/hooker/prostitute in brazilian portuguese. And when portuguese people ask for bread they're actually asking for a small dick in brazilian portuguese. @Ainsley Harriott, já provaste um cacetinho brasileiro, ora pois?

And the information spread by western media has no vested interest whatsoever? That's big news to me. Of course I know there are religious aspects to the conflict. If there wasn't, probably the Isreali state wouldn't even have be founded where it has been founded. Holy land and all that. Let's imagine another scenario. UN decides half of Mexico now belongs to the US. No Mexican will put up with that bullshit, they'll fire rockets into the US. Let's not ignore the reason that started the conflict.

All the problem with what you're saying is that collateral damage implies unintended murder of civilians, which doesn't seem to be the case according to the information brought onto this thread. What it looks like to be occurring is Israel using Hamas as an excuse to indiscriminately kill palestinians. Their actions doesn't match their words. If they were truly concerned about Hamas only, this wouldn't be their course of action. What appears to be happening is that they want to wipe palestinians from the face of the planet and Hamas is giving them "justification" to do so.

There are very fair and reasonable arguments against both. IIRC, and summarizing, it has been proved by biochemists making use of other complex biochemical systems that the former's premise isn't necessarily right and the latter doesn't contradict evolution because the Earth is not a closed system. The universe as a whole is (or should be, supposing it is a closed system) following the laws of entropy, but it isn't necessarily true for every smaller part that compounds the universe in every given moment. In our case, we're being bombarded by solar energy amongst other factors which interferes with the natural course of entropy. And in the end everything seems to be headed towards chaos anyways. Our galaxy is going to collide with Andromeda. Even if our planet survive that (which isn't all that unlikely), there are still asteroids and other external threats. Or we may end up killing each other and every living being on the planet with nuclear weapons or by any other means. Or our existance may end with the Sun exhausting its hydrogen reserves which we can take for granted, the other living beings that may still survive the red giant Sun will eventually cease to exist a bit more into the future as the Sun goes cooling down and emitting less energy. It's not like our "complex" existence is going to last much longer in the big scheme of things. Considering everything that the universe represents as a system - all this period Earth has been hosting life and all our organized complexity means absolutely nothing. We're less than dust in the wind as long as the universe is concerned. Chaos will eventually prevail, entropy doesn't contradict it.

In fact I did try google translate but as you said it sucks and you miss a lot of details and nuances.

If only those were the only things they did. They have dirtied their hands everywhere around the globe. They even helped overthrowing democracy here in Brazil in favor of a dictatorship that was aligned with their interests in 1964. And they have the audacity to pose as defenders of democracy. There are series of secret documents revealing how they supported the occurrence of one of the worst periods in our history. Sovereignty of a country? The US have never heard about that. And with "Bush doctrine" they even feel they are in their right to attack other countries before a threat is even formed. Now all it takes is that they claim they feel threatened by alleged hidden weapons and they can already invade. Next we see we will be living in the movie "Minority Report", with The US attacking other countries because americans psychics saw those countries attacking them in the future.

Have just come across this, not sure about its veracity: http://palestinder.tumblr.com/ It seems palestinians haven't got a lot of sympathizers in Israel. Not even the dating apps are spared. This conversation was particularly frightening if true:

You realize I was kidding, right? There are funny and non sensical questions in every hotseat.

I thought the purpose of hotseat was to make people uncomfortable?

Reasoning behind?

Would you rather be fucked in the ass every day for one year, be fucked one day and rest the other repeatedly for two years or have all your family be killed? (A friend of mine has asked me this at university with a serious face before).

I'm a rebel. Arrest me but leave my post alone! I told you, it exists dude. You may visit me while I'm here if you want :blue scalf: