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Today would have been Tito's birthday. Rest In Peace. You are always in our hearts.

From what I've heard from various sources, Robert had it all done as he did with Jean Seri at Nice and Iñigo Martínez from Real Sociedad. He also had all the relevant paperwork done with lawyers for the contracts that had been drawn up and the president had put the cogs into motion. In the final hour Robert backed out of all three deals and both for the same reason which apparently was down to technical decisions... How that can occur (technical decisions) which are decisions made months in advance when you've identified players, I have no idea. It's a shambles! Nobody knows why those players never made it to Barcelona and the Marco Verratti situation is quite similar although the apparent issue there is that Robert apparently lied to the club that he had contacted PSG about him and instead spoke directly to the player which is why the player made all those public moves to try and go to Barcelona and in so doing pissed PSG off.

As far as I know all that is true and how it occurred which is why Robert's head is on the chopping block and he knows he's gonna be ousted.

Busquets, Iniesta, Piqué or Alba... Take your pick from any of those four!

People always speak about Guardiola(justifiable of course) and what he did for Barcelona when he was promoted to coach of the first team, but not everyone speak about his number 2 and closest mate, Tito Vilanova, who was equally as important as without a great playing staff, a manager can only do so much. Guardiola had a fantastic group surrounding him and Tito was his right hand man. What happened was tragic and just shows that even the more wealthy people aren't prone to nasty illnesses and life problems. R.I.P Tito, a figure who will always be remembered fondly among anybody associated with Barcelona, in fact Spanish football in general.

'Those crazy little ones...' It was Johan Cruyff who when he put everything into La Masia he said this: "I'm gonna change this. Call me mad, but those crazy little players will one day be the focus of attention. It's harder for a smaller player to rise above his contemporaries in the youth categories because physical prowess is more evident then. What a smaller player must provide at youth level should be harnessed and should have more emphasis put on it. I will change the way footballers are seen! I promise you one day it will all be seen differently." La Masia Johan Cruyff wasn't wrong... Was he ever? Yeah, he had his ways of saying things that at times was taken as arrogance or even like he was just trying to go against the natural wave on purpose. But he was always right, sooner or later, he'd be given the credit for his foresight. Today in Barça's youth football there are various examples that demonstrate all of this but none better than in the Infant 'A' (2017-2018) category. At this precise moment it's the most promising of all the categories because of the amount of extremely talented individuals at La Masia. But there are three infants... A triangle of midfielders that if nothing gets twisted, they've got it all to become something special. The three protagonists are: Adrià Capdevila (1.46cm) Aleix Garrido (1.47cm) Pablo Páez "Gavi" (1.52cm) It all started to gestate in the 2012-2013 season. In that year FC Barcelona added the boys Capdevila and Garrido to their ranks. The first born in Gurb, he came from the town setup of Vic Riuprimer REFO. From a non football family but always with a smile on his face Adrià united himself to the Benjamin 'D' setup. Aleix on the other hand went into the Benjamin 'C' formation. Right from the outset he was different, very timid but with an exceptional technical ability and a character change when playing. In the following year it was the technicians at La Masia that united them both into the Benjamin 'A' setup which was a sign of something that was occurring. The technicians wanted to see if they could gel together without informing them that there was a plan at hand... From there a special relationship and friendship has been formed between the two of them which is another method the staff at La Masia do with these kids that they initially keep separated in different categories although in the same age group. They call them Zipi & Zape which are two Spanish comic characters that cause all sorts of mischief. This is exactly how the relationship between the famous duo Xavi and Iniesta was formed many years back although nobody is saying that this will occur again and every situation is different. Adrià is organiser, the one that takes home all the MVPs and Aleix Garrido is the dribbler, the fantasy player that makes the ball look like it's being commanded via remote control. If that wasn't enough, there was another kid a year younger and in another infant category called Pablo Páez, known as "Gavi". He was brought at a very very early age (as Iniesta was from Albacete) from Andalucía, Real Betis. The reason they call him "Gavi" is from his second surname (in Spain people carry both surnames, father's and mother's second) which is Gavira. He is a player with a lot of character on the field of play, he is very vocal and very attractive to the spectator due to his extraordinary natural ability to read the game from midfield, arrive late and score goals. Also with great vision, but mainly in the short quick pass he excels. This year he's been moved up an age level and added to the duo of Capdevila and Garrido to form the triangle in midfield that is so important at FC Barcelona. Capdevila is the 6, Garrido the 8 and Gavi the 10. Early on this season the work the team at La Masia has been doing for a few years seems to be coming to fruition and European wide scouts are attending every one of the games this trio are playing in. This is the bible on how La Masia's mechanics work... This is the essence of the club and what needs to once again be put to the forefront as the most important factor at FC Barcelona. Keep you eyes open if you're into following young talented footballers of the future with the trio of Capdevila, Garrido and Gavi.

After his goal yesterday, Joaquin has now scored in each one of the 15 seasons he has played in top flight Spanish football. He's playing well this season as well. He's not the same speedy winger he once was but his tremendous technical ability and footballing intelligence has been very useful for Betis this season so far. On another note, Messi has scored in 14 seasons now and Pique(interestingly) has scored in each of the 11 seasons he has played in Spain, 10 for Barcelona and one for Real Zaragoza. (I've just realised now, this is Pique's 10th season? What the fuck? Where has the last decade gone?) As for other players, Aduriz has scored in 13 of the 14, Sergio Garica in 10 of 12, Prieto in 11 of 12 and Ramos in 13 of 15.

An emotional embrace between Quíque Costas and Andrés Iniesta Who is Quíque Costas? Born in Vigo (Galicia) in 1947 and played 169 times for Celta Vigo, 170 for FC Barcelona and 13 times a full international for Spain. He played at centre-back and coincided with Johan Cruyff as a player. For many that moment was one of the turning points in the fortunes of FC Barcelona and their transition in the "Cruyff Project". Both Quíque Costas and Johan Cruyff hit it off straight away becoming great friends forever and even when the defender decided to call it a day in his football career, Cruyff persuaded him to stay on at Barcelona and not return home to Galicia. Cruyff had a plan, a big plan for the future of the club and Costas was a major player in that plan. At the petition of Cruyff who was still playing for Barça, Quíque Costas wasn't permitted to leave the club and kept on as part of the training staff. Many evenings did both Johan and Quíque stay on after training where they began to plot something special... What was it? The plan was to resurrect the meaning and emphasis, to make La Masia the corner stone of the club. Quíque Costas admitted in an interview years ago that even while Johan was still playing for the club, he kept on telling him that he (Johan) would one day become head coach of Barça and that God had told him in a dream that I (Quíque Costas) would become the general caretaker and controller of FC Barcelona's youth system from top to bottom... La Masia. Quíque Costas deserves a whole post on his career as the head of La Masia but this isn't the moment because the reason I'm writing about it is due to an emotional reunion between one of his many pupils on a curious day which seemed pre-ordained as destiny. Quíque Costas worked in total for 43 years for FC Barcelona, but some years back he decided to call it a day and return to his homeland of Galicia where he lives in peace and quiet in a rural area near the city of Vigo. But he was asked to return to the club to lay the first stone of where the new Ministadi will be built... It will be called The Johan Cruyff Ministadi and is where the youth teams including Barcelona 'B' (incidentally Costas coached Barça 'B' for 20 years) play their games. Quíque Costas didn't refuse and travelled to Barcelona to do his duty, his final duty for something that he was told to do four decades ago by a very special man... So the tides turn, so the world revolves in circles because the circle in all its forms rules everything on our beloved planet. Andrés Iniesta didn't know that Quíque Costas would be there and tears of emotion soon ran down both their faces as they spotted each other and embraced. There's an anecdote Quíque Costas once told about "Andresito" (Iniesta) on Jose Ramón de la Morena's late night radio show, El Larguero years back; "I've had many kids under my wing while l was the guardian at La Masia but Andresito was something special. He gave me many headaches as an infant player but one particular moment sticks out. Andrés was known to miss his parents so much that he would somehow manage to escape La Masia where he would then be caught by the staff roaming the streets close by crying. But one particular evening I overheard the kids talking about a particular movie which I think was Indiana Jones or something like that. Knowing what Andresito was like, I hung around the office at La Masia a couple of hours more. How he managed it I don't know because my office is right above the main entrance of La Masia and he somehow managed to escape (laughter). I never got to find out his escape route but it certainly wasn't via the main entrance! He was 9 at the time I think, he was sneaky (laughter). Anyway... One of the boys knocked on my office door and said that Andrés had once again gone missing... We searched everywhere and just as I was about to call the Mossos (regional police) I remembered the conversation about the movie so I went to the local cinema where we would take them from time to time and there he was inside watching the movie with a bucket of popcorn that was bigger than him". The last time both Iniesta and Quíque Costa met was at Johan Cruyff's funeral, and here we have an emotive meeting where emotions ran high and possibly many many memories.

@Tsubasa is literally crying right now.