FC Barcelona lifting another cup. Image credits: Reuters Pictures

It’s gone a couple of hours since David Fernández Borbalán blew his whistle to end this years edition of the Spanish Supercup between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. An intensive, and very entertaining battle between the two Spanish giants which gave the home team FC Barcelona their first title of the season. Sad but true, the game didn’t end in the same nice fashion as it began. The thriller ended by Marcelo, chopping the debuting Cesc’s (Francesc Fábregas) legs from behind, receiving a straight sending-off. This started a brawl between the teams, which was followed by two additional red cards for Mesut Özil and David Villa who at the point rushed from the bench. Özil tripping the already fallen down Fábregas, and Villa taking a shot for his teammate.

José Mourinho was after the game as usual living in his own bubble of denial, can’t blame anyone else than himself for this chaos I guess. He didn’t have anything to tell us about the eye-picking of Tito Vilanova, Josep Guardiola’s assistant coach, and instead wanted to call him Pito (please do your own research for the meaning) instead.

These two games has shown, as I earlier stated, that the rivalry is growing even more, reviving the deep hate that has been between these clubs for decades. Apart from the physical assaults on the field, the game has also gained something from this. The El Clásicos has been so intense after the Manita (Barças 5-0 win at Camp Nou 2010), that I can’t find another game amongst the over hundred ones I’ve watched that could even match these match-up’s. I really think that other football fans have been enjoying the games as well. Quite unfortunately though, something has to happen so that the players won’t get injured on the field. I’d have to point out that most fouls have been made by Real Madrid, Pepe and Sergio Ramos sticking their heads up, or shall I say legs and arms out.

Even though we have time to wait until the next Classic (10-11 December in Madrid), it also gives us time to reflect. I’m worried about many Merengue-fans are proud of their team, especially when their trying to injure the opponent’s players. This thing has gotten out of hands of today’s football fans, why would you hope that a clearly excellent player would be injured for a long time with a serious injury? This doesn’t really help the development of football, that I am pretty sure about. And meanwhile we couldn’t be able to enjoy the brilliance of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi, Nani, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wesley Sneijder or any other key player. Keep this in mind next time you curse someone.

Although I mostly concentrated on the negative aspects of tonight’s game, I will also like to welcome Cesc. When I followed his movement on the field for his 10-15 minutes, he really seemed like he hadn’t ever been playing for Arsenal. I hope and bet his gonna do an excellent work at Barça, and I wish all the best of luck for the Gunners.

Edit: Have to say Karim Benzema is glowing confidence. Think he will have a good season, finally getting back on track.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi shaking hands. (Credit to the one who took this pic, couldn't find an author)

Today marked the start of the competitive season for FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Last season of football in Europe was greatly dominated by the fierce rivalry between these two clubs who entered the same pitch at the same time for the first time since Barcelona made their way through to the Champions League final at the Camp Nou on May 3rd 2011. A game between these two are generally known as an El Clásico, and today was the first Classic of the season that will contain a minimum of four.

Today’s first leg of the Spanish Supercup was a very intense game. Before the game it was hard to tell which way it was going, Real Madrid impressed during the pre-season (note: pre-season) and scored 27 goals in seven games, with only five slipping into their own net. Meanwhile, Barcelona scored ten while picking up the ball from their own net a total of nine times. For Barcelona the record was 4W-1T-3L while the white antagonists lined up a clean 7W sweep.

Regarding summer signings, one of the always so hot topics in football, Real Madrid ousted Barcelona by bringing in Nuri Sahin, Hamit Altintop, Raphaël Varane, José Callejón and Fábio Coentrão for a total of 55 million euros. Barcelona had before the game only acquired Alexis Sánchez from Udinese for approximately 30 million euros, but during halftime it was announced that Francesc Fábregas will move from Arsenal back to his roots in Catalonia adding another 30 million to the spent money. So, basically Barcelona passed Los Blancos in money spent this summer tonight. First time this as happened in a couple of years if I remember correctly.

The whites started the game with an intense too strong for a sleepy Barcelona. In the first ten minutes the home team had a handful of corners, and looked a lot sharper than the Catalans. Mesut Özil‘s 1-0 goal didn’t come as a surprise, when he walked onto a one-on-one situation against Victor Valdés after a brilliant pass by Karim Benzema who drew all the attention from the Barça-defenders before he passed the ball to the German international. The red and blue players looked like boys in defense at this moment. But as the clock ticked, Barcelona gained more and more possession. Even if Barcelona both tied the game by a magnificent lob shot by David Villa, and a solo run by Lionel Messi to make it 1-2, there was still a lot of lag in the blaugrana machinery.

In recent years, I don’t think I’ve seen the Catalan side lose as much possession as they did today. Simple passes going to the wrong team. But on the other hand, I don’t worry.  Then again, on the other side of the pitch stood, or ran, a Real Madrid doing everything to achieve victory, doing everything right that is. In the second half the home team got a small piece of justice when Xabi Alonso equalized after one of their many corners. The game ended at 2-2 which, if you ask me, is a better result for Barça than Madrid. Mourinho is probably not so pleased, while Josep Guardiola probably got a bit more satisfaction from the game even if Barcelona didn’t show their best. At the post-game press conference he hoped for more attacks on Wednesday at the Camp Nou, a wish that needs to be filled by the blaugranas if they want to achieve their first trophy of the 2011/12 season.

Also, a thing I noted. The El Clásico is a fierce rivalry again. The games are more intense than before, and the crowd at the Santiago Bernabéu was hellish. Feelings that we’ve lacked since the Luís Figo-transfer are awakened again. This is what makes this very football game the best football game on the planet. Not to forget, this game must be one of the hardest ones for a referee as well. But tonight’s first-timer Fernando Teixeira Vitienes did a decent job.

Second leg: Wednesday 17 August, 23.00 CEST at the Camp Nou.

Edit: Added pic. Sorry, but I don’t know whom’s it is. And just a side note: Felt funny that Özil now wears number 10, and not Lassana Diarra..

Great video from a recently (at the time of recording) paved Russian road between Chita and Khabarovsk. Just came across my way when I was reading the  Skyscrapercity forums as usual.

Training Day is a police drama film written by David Ayer, and directed by Antoine Fuqua in 2001. The two main characters of the movie, LAPD cop Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) and Detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington). Training Day is set in Compton, South Los Angeles, a city known particularly for its gang activities, and is one of few movies shot here. Fuqua got access to shoot the movie in many infamous places which haven’t been on tape earlier, like the Imperial Courts. The street gangs of Los Angeles had never before let anyone access this area with cameras.

Fuqua went even deeper down, getting the cast to meet various real cops, drug dealers, and some gang members so that their acting would fit to the plot perfectly. In the beginning Hoyt and Harris meet at a coffee shop called Quality Café, which has appeared in several movies before. Hoyt has a dream of becoming a real drug fighter, and Harris, as his new boss, will get Jake to know the street life.

Later on Harris and Hoyt go and meet up with a guy named Roger at his house. Asking about some problems with ‘the Russians’, Harris quickly changes subject. Later in the movie the Russians, and their part in Harris affairs are revealed. Also Roger has a destiny related with both Harris and the Russian Mafia.

A special moment in the movie, is every time they arrive at the Jungles (nowadays Baldwin Village). Since Training Day is set in gang hoods, the surroundings and scenes all feel very authentic. In one scene, members of a Bloods* set (Black P. Stones-gang) surround Harris and Hoyt. Other street gang divisions of both Bloods and Crips are seen in the background through the movie. These small things impressed me big time, since it’s usually out of question to get real life gang members on screen.

When watching the movie, you develop feelings to both the main characters. Even if you also meet side characters like Alonzo’s wife Sara Harris (played by the always so gorgeous Eva Mendes), Roger, Paul and Blue (played by rap-legends Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg) you don’t feel so much about them since the plot mainly focuses on Washington and Hawke’s characters. In the beginning I thought that Alonzo Harris was a real cool and good guy, but when the movie came towards the end I really wanted to see him disappear. On the other hand I thought Jake Hoyt was somehow wrong for the job, but in the end he seemed to manage with things well.

Both actors really made perfect roles, especially Denzel Washington who also got an Oscar for Best Actor. Added to that, Ethan Hawke also got the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor making it clear that both guys made a phenomenal work on the movie.

Because the movie contains a lot of violence, guns, harsh language, drugs and so on MPAA has rated it R, which means under 17 year-olds should be watching it with a guardian. Even though this rating, I don’t think that it is so disgusting that a sensitive couldn’t watch it, it’s probably more because of the drugs.

I liked this movie a lot, since I’ve always been interested in street gangs. Since I’ve always heard a lot of this movie I decided to at last watch it since I had always been too lazy to do it. However, I wasn’t let down by Training Day. It was a brilliant movie describing the life in Compton, and Los Angeles. Bringing the story all the way down to South Los Angeles was a great move by Antoine Fuqua. Every piece in the movie just seem to fall in place along the plot.

However it is sad that they circle the movie, since then there’s no chance to make a second part. The movie starts early morning, and finishes at late night. I think that this is an ideal structure of a film, since it makes it so complex and realistic in some way even if it only lasts for two hours of your life.

I recommend this movie for everyone who can stand some violence and drug trafficking, and especially for those who are scientifically interested in the street life. You will learn a lot of street smartness from Denzel Washington’s character Alonzo Harris along the story.

But anyway, why would you don’t like a movie with a narcotics officer driving around in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo from 1979?

 

In the summer I’ve done quite a few things. First of all I started a website (in Swedish) called Onsidemagazine.com. Onside is a place for football enthusiasts to read about opinions, analytics etc. about soccer today.

Also, I went to Oslo this summer, and I attended Vålerenga IF – FC Barcelona and IFK Göteborg – Kalmar FF (in Gothenburg, Sweden, on the same trip when I went to Sweden for a few days). Vålerenga earned a place in my heart, and I was even more convinced that Allsvenskan is miles better than Veikkausliiga, both on the pitch and in the stands.

Nothing more for now, I’m hopefully getting at least one other project “on the road” still this fall so stay tuned!

A little sneak peak for you.

At startup, it still had the same old interface as before, something reminding me of iTunes that I primarily use. But now you can find a, let’s call it Facebook-tab, to the right in Spotify (picture), where you can “connect with your friends”, unfortunately none of my FB-friends have updated yet so I haven’t tried out to watch their profiles via Spotify. But if I click mine, my playlists appear on the profile, along with most played artists and songs. A nice feature, at least with the playlists (you’re able to hide a few if you think they’re embarrasing too, and only show those playlists you want to show) but the top artists are a great way to see what your friends like if you haven’t got last.fm already?

To the left is the new section on the left tab, containing your own library, the purchases has been there before I think, but at least local files and starred songs were new to me. But the local files, how nice is it to be able to listen to your ‘own’ music (it says you are not allowed to use illegally downloaded music but something tells me that you’re able to add this music too) in Spotify, without commercials? Very nice. Just download it and experience the future!

List of new features (copypaste from spotify blog):

Social

• Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
• Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
• Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
• Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
• Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
• Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
• Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.

Library

• Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
  • Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
  • Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
• Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
• Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
• Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).

Additional features

• Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
• New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
• A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.

Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.

- 10 is Leo’s number

- March 10th: Lyon eliminated Madrid from the Champions

- November 10th: Alcorcón kicked off Madrid from Copa del Rey.

- April 10th: Barça plays against Madrid in Bernabéu.

from El Mundo Deportivo.

El Clásico this Saturday.

Alexander Ovechkin’s red Capitals shirt incoming from N.Y. in eight days!