Guardiola: The 'face of' the Central Midfielder in the Modern Game

I was born in the early nineties. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to watch the Barcelona 'Dream Team' led by a certain Johan Cruyff. which dominated European football at the time and brought back home the first European Cup (now the Champions League) won by FC Barcelona in 1992. While stars like Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Romario and Hristo Stoichkov stole the limelight, it was Josep Guardiola which kept the clock ticking. His presence was profound and it was a delight watching him spray passes all over the pitch from his deep-lying position from in front of the back four. He was, arguably The central midfielder of his decade. But, upon all that significance, Josep Guardiola was forced into early retirement from the elite clubs in Europe, only to finally stop playing football at the age of 35, with arguable some magic still present in his feet.

Fabregas, a Barcelona player again (UPDATED!!)

Finally, one of the worse transfer sagas of the modern football game has come to end. I'm sure no one wants to read anymore about this, so all I'm saying is: Rumor has it, Fabregas will be on a flight to Barcelona later today to sign, and will be presented by the club tomorrow.

De Gea's Dilemma

As commented by Greg Stobart in his article about the ‘The five things we learned from the Community Shield’ on Goal.com, De Gea is simply not yet ready to play in the English top flight.

Not too long ago, I remember having a large argument with a group of football enthusiasts as to how Spain could replicate their World Cup performance and their current world dominance in professional football for many more years to come. For every position, we seemed to argue about who would rightfully own their position in Russia 2018, except in between the sticks. De Gea, to us, owned that position. After all, he was the greatest Spanish youth prospect, AND he was getting a lot of play time with Athletico Madrid at the time. But Manchester United is different.