I think this one is pretty self-explanatory; maybe I should point out that the player to the left is Pedro (though I hope that's apparent). His sentiment here could go for others on the team though; what does it take to get a non-Messi goal?
Well, the obvious thing to start this sketch off was surprise at the fact that Messi started after having been stretchered off the pitch just a few days ago and giving us all a scare. From there it evolved into a sort of comic (reads from left to right) which is pretty self-explanatory. I added the final "buzz off" frame in hopes that people would stop making such a big deal out of things now that he's finally broken the record, but in the end that frame felt kind of prophetic as Messi and Barca did indeed seem to buzz off after that. It's like they decided that once Messi had broken the record it was mission accomplished and there was nothing more to do; the rest of the match was pretty scrappy and Barca are lucky to have scraped by with the win. So I then added Barca jetting away from the match with the "nothing more to do here" rocket from the familiar internet meme.
Under that I've got Alexis portrayed as a target because, poor kiddo, you'd think he was painted in red and white circles for the way he was continually kicked and hacked at by those Betis players, it was nothing pretty.
I couldn't let the sketch go without a reference to that nerve-wracking episode with Victor Valdes; some have been lambasting him for the awful fumble while others recognized the great save he made afterwards; my quote here, the one I agree with, is stolen from @BarcaTheOffside on twitter.
Don't ask me why Pique's first goal of the season prompted me to sketch him in a ballerina-esque pose, because I have no idea. Just, there you go. Also, the goal does nothing to convince me that he can/should attack more, but congrats to him all the same.
Elsewhere we have Adriano's goal (wherein I failed miserably at drawing any semblance of him) and a quote from Albert Ferrer, former Barca player, talking about the goal when talking about the goal - the way Cesc looked for him and timed his pass and Adriano's finish, describing that brilliant effort as "easy for them" because it's so very Barca.
Cesc, who's now adding hobo beard to his hobo hair, had a brilliant match himself complete with scoring, assisting and general awesomeness, for which I'm totally crediting the hobo look. Never lose it, Cesc. NEVER.
Also: my interpretations of Cesc are weird. Idek.
The great debate of the match was whether or not Messi's first goal was actually his or not, because it deflected off a defender before going in, but the argument is that it was going in anyway. I think people are still arguing about it until now, but Messi made sure to score another one just to quiet everyone up. You know, as he does.
Simple sketch of two player extremes on our pitch last night; Jona and Villa. Jonathan has always been one of my favorite B-teamers and it's a bit heartbreaking that he gets next to no playing time at all, not this season with Tito nor with Pep before, and yet refuses to leave, even on a loan, and remains hopeful of nailing his place at Barcelona. Tonight was only his second or third appearance this season, I think it was also his first start? In what is almost the least crucial match we may play this season and still he was the first one to get subbed off. It's quite a sad situation he's in.
On the other end of the scope is David Goalpatch Villa (now more than before as his soulpatch/goalpatch is back in prominence since he lost the beard - but I loved the beard - *sniff* ) who, when fit (go away niggling ankle injuries you're not welcome here) is an absolute goalscoring machine lately (averaging a goal every 77 minutes this seasons so far) and stole the show last night, especially in Messi's absence. You could tell how hungry he was for it from the get-go, and he followed Adriano's equalizer with a stunner of a freekick to put Barca ahead. I'm always saying Villa should take freekicks more often; you know Messi or Xavi would probably have taken it had they been playing and it's a bit of a shame that Villa doesn't get more chances at it, because on the rare occasion that he does step up to a freekick he pretty much always nails it. Can I get a "I don't always take freekicks, but when I do I score them" meme? IT'S NEEDED. The freekick goal was Villa's 300th of his career and he soon followed it up with the 301st to cement Barca's lead at 3-1 (6-1 aggregate) and lead the team into Copa Del Rey 1/8 finals.
3-1 is a lovely scoreline, but Barca spent a bit of the match trailing at 0-1 thanks to a very, very sloppily conceded goal, complete with Montoya Miscommunication and some Pintocalypse, the works. The Clumsy Goal Concession Fund is really growing (it goes towards Barca's color copying expenses you know; the club employees are very happy about it).
I have to apologize for the poor image quality for this match sketch because I couldn't manage to get to a working scanner and had to resort to taking a photo/cleaning it up in photoshop as best I could. Now, I missed the first half because I was out but all of you informed me on twitter that it was an utterly boring half anyway; the second half saw all the action and I did my best to capture what I could in those forty-five minutes.
Messi scored double to take his goal tally for the year up to 82; he just can't seem to stop finding the back of the net, it's incredible. We go on and on about him a lot with every new feat he achieves and it might seem tired at this point, but there truly doesn't seem to be any limit for him. He's just the king of the world as far as this sport is concerned, and here we have him at the top of the football mountain. Also featured, though the lettering doesn't quite show, is the wrist tape Leo was wearing with the words "Te am Thiago" (I love you Thiago) for his recently born son.
After a dry first half Barca came out with all guns firing and went from from 0-0 to 0-4 in no time, which begs the question of what might've happened during that halftime to jolt them on that way. I'm going to entertain ideas of a magic halftime talk from Tito possibly being to thank... and perhaps his note-taking is paying off as well, for him to pinpoint what changes need to be made?
With this win and Real Madrid's prior loss to Betis, Barca are vaulted to gleeful 11 points ahead of their bitter rivals, something you'll find every cule crowing about - conveniently ignoring that there is in fact another team breathing down our necks in this title race, though we may be far off from Real.
Special mention goes to Victor Valdes for having an exceptional match, with crucial saves including a double penalty save, keeping a clean sheet in the process. It's... supposed to be his initials VV "flaming" to kind of show that he was "on fire". Eh. Kind of.
There's almost always some specific context for each new match that gives me something to begin with even before the match events unfold, like Celtic's 125th anniversary or Puyol's return against Zaragoza. But I didn't feel like starting off with players bundled into gloves or the pitch/weather conditions, so I waited to find out what my starting point would be. Pedro gave it to me in the form of his close shot early into the game; I feel like recently he's been playing well but never quite finding the net and so his performances get to be be overlooked a bit. Hence we have Pedro lamenting always being just close.
Dani's golazo is next, a hell of a strike to put Barca ahead. The sketch is supposed to make it look like the ball is whizzing or zooming or something so let's just pretend that it does.
Shoot, shoot, goal, goal, went Messi and brought his goal tally to eighty for the year, six off Muller's record and at this rate surely going to break it, and here we have him just reeling the goals in, as he does.
Cesc's shot, the one-on-one with all that space that he somehow managed to screw up, quite Torres-esque-ly, we're all still having nightmares right? Cesco probably is, even if I haven't captured him any too well. But, there's hobo hair, so that's something.
The notebook. Did anyone notice Tito taking notes? Pep never did and MouMou always does so I tend to call it a Moutebook but if Tito's going to make it a thing I'll probably call it his Totebook. We have him hunched over, scowling, plotting, mumbling to himself etc etc because, well, that's kind of how I see Tito. Which I mean in a totally awesome way. Everyone questions him and many people doubt him and nobody quite understands what he's doing or why, but I feel like he just has this grand elaborate plot that is simply beyond us. The grand puppetmaster as it were, and the team, opponents, and us are his pawns. We don't understand what he's doing but, Tito's got this.
Also, clean sheet. CLEAN SHEET! We have a real, actual, clean flipping SHEET!
I spent around the first half hour of the match frantically calling my cable guy and trying to get my cable sorted out because the Jazeera channels had suddenly disappeared, and by the time he got it fixed for me we were already 2-1 up so, I missed alot of the action. Still, I did what I could with the remainder of the match, starting out with, of course, Capita!! Because Puyol's return is such an enormous relief, like, maybe we can finally have a defense again. Especially since Pique is so determined to stick to his delusion that centerback actually means center forward...
As Leo scored and scored again, the Jazeera +3 analysts could not stop going on and on about how splendiferous he is and now all eyes are watching for him to break Gerd Muller's scoring record before the year is out... which seems to be quite on the cards with the way he just keeps tallying them up.
Then of course there's Song, who scored his first Barca goal and pretty early in the season too! All the congrats to him.
The match had to be, of course, marred by a concession that was, of course, a clumsy one off a set piece much like one we conceded against Celtic. You'd think learning from mistakes would be a thing? No? Oh well then... that's another for the clumsy concession fund, as illustrated (though the text on the bowl is not quite so clear in the scan).
The match started out as a boring one, in which the only thing of interest was how I am still so utterly unused to Barca's away kits and "hey look tequila sunrise!" still pops into my head whenever I see them. So, yeah, tequila sunrise. With asparagus on the side, because that's what Victor's yellow-green kit makes him look like.
The match picked up when Barca opened the scoring with Xavi's gorgeous freekick, and let's be honest, how many of us expected/wanted Messi to take it before Xavi put it away? (I expected it to be Leo but honestly wanted Villa to give it a shot) So when Xavi stepped up and scored it felt like, that's right folks, Leo ain't the only freekicker around here. Thus, smug goalscorer illustration for Xavi.
We've all been waiting for the golazo Leo could dedicate to his son Thiago, and while he did score in the Celtic match it was meh because we lost that game and it didn't matter, so the wait was still on with this match. When he did find the net though, it was a total fluke of a goal with Aouate letting it slip right through his hands, a total are you kidding me moment. Leo got his golazo soon enough though (after one from Tello, without forgetting him) spectacularly assisted by Alexis with his chest - a bright spot from Lex that we've been missing. Also featured is Leo's new hairdo, cropped but grown out from the front, very Pique, but he actually looks good with it. And Messibeard ftw!
Busquets went and got a dumb yellow card from a handball, simultaneously waving goodbye to facing Zaragoza after the international break with it being his fifth yellow. Bravo Busi! It was fun to draw him all loopy and awkward, with the Barca ball (like the one on the crest) that's also translated more geometrically with Alexis.
And then there's Tito, who broke out the puffy jacket in this cold weather, being characteristically unimpressed at a 4-2 win from a 3-0 lead.
This being the first post I'll include with it the intro, which can otherwise be found here.
It frustrates me that university and work leave me little time to blog about Barca anymore, or to write or draw or produce much at all that isn’t related to university and work. Match nights are my breather, once or twice or thrice a week when I set everything else aside without exception and focus on Barca. Granted, this can often lead to severe distress and so probably defeats the purpose of a breather, but that’s all sweet part and parcel of being a fan. And now, with added illustration! I am - for as long as I still feel like it, which hopefully I will - going to to be live-drawing the Barca matches from now on as I watch them. What each one entails can and will vary greatly depending on the match. This will give me the time and means for expression that, when it comes to Barca, I’ve been missing, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my interpretations will develop as I progress with them.
The Celtic match is an interesting one for me to begin with, for one thing because it happened to occur in tandem with me independently flirting with Celtic mythology (which may or may not be related to an infatuation with Hellboy II's Nuada Silverlance). The patterns you see at the top are Celtic knotwork, which I've been studying a bit over this passing week. The black one represents partnership and seemed like a relevant thing to sketch in this context, particularly what with the near love affair going on between Barca and Celtic lately.
The match also coincided with Celtic's 125th birthday, so I began with the '125' over horizontal stripes to match CFC's kit and then moved on to drawing Samaras. Why Samaras? Because he's pretty Well, because even before delving into the context of a specific match I find him Celtic's most intriguing player.
You can guess what the rest is or click through to find out.
Song receiving his yellow card because the way his hair looks from behind caught my attention when it happened;
The Celtic fans in glorious uninterrupted song throughout the match;
The number '4' made to look like a question mark and a query about Cesc because I felt his absence as the match progressed;
Wanyama's goal celebration and later Watt's goal, scoring in his Champion's League debut;
'D3FENDER?' with the 3 connoting Pique, because I really wonder if he knows what centerback actually means, with 'END' also indicating the end of Barca's unbeaten streak;
SuperKeeper representation for Fraser Forster, who even has a superhero name, because he was exceptional, which seems to be becoming a thing, keepers having the match of their lives vs Barca, really, what does it take for our eleventy billion shots to find the net a little more often;
Depiction of the last-ditch scramble in which Barca had about a dozen attempts in the space of the added time, and I almost fell off my chair.
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