Tierra Unica

World Cup, South Africa 2010 - Spain vs Germany (1-0) Carlos Puyol's Goal!

Individual Battles:

Today's Germany vs. Spain match will be defined by some key individual matchups: Schweinsteiger vs. Xavi and Lahm vs. Villa to name a couple.  Goal.com goes in depth to take a look at four key individual encounters that will go a long way towards determining who will face The Netherlands on Sunday.

   

 

M & C Sport's wrote ~ "Spain's Carles Puyol (R) heads the ball in for a goal during the FIFA World Cup 2010 semi final match between Germany and Spain at the Durban stadium in Durban, South Africa, 07 July 2010. EPA/HALDEN KROG"

 

Lifesize Chocolate Sculpture Of Argentina's Lionel Messi!

via sports.yahoo.com

In all the years I've played, coached, and watched competitive football; I've never seen a sculpture of a global sports athlete like this one in Catalonia, Spain. There have been bronze sculptures of football legends like Maradona, Pele, Bobby Moore, Di Stefano, and Batistuta over the decades but never one made of chocolate!

Brooks Peck wrote:

"In Catalonia, children are given a chocolate cake called a "Mona" as a gift at Easter. And whichever kid got this one better like diabetes because that's what you'll get if you eat a lifesize chocolate Lionel Messi complete with Ballon d'Or. Given how tiny the real Leo is, this sucker looks like it has to be bigger than him, though. It certainly weighs more. At 115 kilos (253 lbs.), it could probably crush the little Argentine with its head alone." 

Here is the head close-up of the dead-eye stare.

  

I wonder if people are going to eat the "Chocolate Messi"?

Lionel Messi The 2009 FIFA World Player Of The Year!

via www.zimbio.com

2009 FIFA World Player of the Year Argentina's Lionel Andres Messi - Best Footballer On Planet Earth Today!

The World's top players of the current generation like Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Rooney, Iniesta, Xavi, Higuain, Aguero, & Samuel are all world-class; but 22 year old LIONEL MESSI is from a different planet!  He is closer to Maradona, Pele, and Di Stefano.  For a few years now, we have seen the emergence and now the reality of the young MESSI becoming one of the all-time greatest players!

What are your thoughts footballers?  

F.C. Barcelona vs Real Madrid Full Highlights & Goal 11/29/09!

A summary of the biggest club rivalry in Europe, El Clasico - Futbol Club Barcelona vs Real Madrid Club de Futbol on Sunday, November 29, 2009.

Along with the huge Super Clasico rivalry between Club Atletico Boca Juniors vs Club Atletico River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Real Madrid vs Barcelona match is the greatest club rivalry in world sports.  And it is just a regularly scheduled league match, not a championship or play-off game!

Both clubs are enormously successful, especially Real Madrid, but there are a few key differentiators between the clubs:

- Real Madrid:  The establishment

- Barca: The anti-establishment

- Real Madrid: Royalty, the Spanish Crown and the Spanish Empire & all its subjects in Latin America

- Barca: Separatist  

- Real Madrid: $$$$$ MONEY $$$$$

- Barca:  Lots of $$$$$, but not as much

- Real Madrid: Corporate, big business

- Barca: By the people, for the people

- Real Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo, world's most expensive & highest paid team athlete in sports history.

- Barca: Lionel Messi, the best player in the world today

- Real Madrid: Europe (via Portugal's C. Ronaldo)

- Barca: South America (via Argentina's Messi)

But by far the most apparent difference between the two clubs is, of course, their ideologies.  The contrast has been highlighted even more glaringly over the past year as the Camp Nou (Barca) outfit go from strength to strength and more and more prodigious young talents emerge from their cantera, while over at the Santiago Bernabeu (Real), the capital giants can barely get a single promising youth player to surface from the shadows of the superstars.   

The BBC of London, England wrote the following excerpt of the world-wide importance of this twice-a-year Spanish league (La Liga) match:

"...Forget the Barcelona 1-0 Real Madrid scoreline for just a moment - this was a game of exquisite, irresistible quality between two teams who are equally desperate to dominate the game for the next half a decade.

It was billed as the richest contest in the sport's history: Real, bolstered by the subjects of their summer spending spree, sent out a starting XI that cost £256m with a further £70m and Raul on the bench; Barca's team - with record £60m signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic among the substitutes - cost a more modest £61m, but was ably bolstered by youth products Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Victor Valdes.

For the first time ever they showed it in 51 cinemas across Spain, such was the appetite for this fiesta del futbol, and a global audience of one billion awaited in salivating awe. Madrid's daily sports paper AS dubbed the fixture 'Cantera contra Galacticos', as Barca's brilliant batch of homegrown stars took on the costliest team ever assembled..."

Here is the rest of the BBC Sports article.

Recap of the 1st Real vs Barca match of La Liga in the 2009 - 2010 season.

Argentina's & Barcelona's Lionel Messi, world's best player versus Spain's & Real Madrid's Raul.

 

Messi escaping from fellow Argentine National Team teammate Gago (left) and Brazilian National Team member Marcelo in the Real vs Barca match.