El Profesor

What a player Arthur is.

Róger Guedes to Saudi Arabia would be a waste. Too good.

By the way, your question to Stan made me curious. Do you eat red meat on Ash Wednesday or on Good Friday? In my case, I simply can't do it due to my catholic upbringing.

It´s a mix of maltese and poodle.

TF365, meet "Pingo".

Was Mbappé ever close to Barça? It seems to me that Mbappé was more of a Real Madrid mistake. They had everything lined up to sign him and apparently Zidane wasn´t enthusiastic about him. I believe this is something Real Madrid will regret for a decade or more. But if Barça had a chance to sign Mbappé and chose Dembélé, as much as I like Ousmane, this is a huge, huge blunder. I mean, even a brazilian peasant like me realizes that Mbappé is the most talented U-20 in the world and with his maturity, he is pretty much a certain commodity. If Griezmann comes to Barça, Dembélé leaves, I think. Either in a permanent transfer or in a loan. He is too good to be benched. I´ll probably get burned by this opinion of mine, but I´ll say it: the Coutinho signing doesn´t make sense to me. He was not the player Barça needed to replace Iniesta. Dude builds his plays to finish it himself. Why would you want such a player in a team that has Messi? Agents, Chris. Those dudes know how to put their players in the right places. Remember when Juan Figger basically controlled Real Madrid´s transfer police? They went from him to Jorge Mendes. The Henrique and Keirrison deals are some shady, shady stuff. Everyone in Brazil, even at the time, knew that they were not good enough to play for Barça. Traffic made a good profit on them. Same thing with Douglas. The only one I can understand is the Marlon one. He has potential. Arthur is different because he was scouted by almost every big european club. He chose Barcelona. He had many options. I don´t know if it´ll work for Barça, but at least this is not Douglas. He is a real talent. By the way, @SirBalon, take a look at it. Apparently this is a Whatsapp message from the Barcelona group about Dembouz:

Barcelona needs money, right? Barcelona wage bill really needs some restructuring, especially if they want to complete the Griezmann deal, for what I´ve read. On the other side, PSG also needs money to balance their books, unless Neymar goes to Real Madrid, then I think a possible Dembélé move to PSG could make sense. In his home country, working with a coach he´s familiar, maybe he can feel more at ease to play his best football. Perhaps there is a fit that could end up benefiting all involved.

Does Dembouz want to reunite with Tuchel in Paris? That´d be an interesting negotiation considering the animosity between PSG and Barcelona boards, and also for @SirBalon ´s reaction, obviously.

I´ve just seen on Twitter, a video of Marcelo´s son showing some ability. The funny thing is he passed the ball to everyone, except Keylor.

Wasn´t he the Barcelona player sang once "Madrid cabrón, saluda el campeón" ? Anyway...

That game finished 2-0 to Flamengo over Inter. Guerrero gave an assist. Lucas Paquetá is playing really well and as is the case with any Flamengo player that performs well, many are starting to ask for a Seleção call-up. Tite should at least consider because he is one of the best attacking midfielders in brazilian football. To become the Flamengo´s main player at only 20 is no easy feat. The thing that really impresses me is that it´s not easy to find players in Brazil with the skill and height (1,80m) he has. Fast, tall, strong, extremely skilled, works really hard defending as well. Quite a rare player to find in brazilian football, he plays more like an argentinian.

Guerrero is in Switzerland for his trial. He could come back against Inter on Sunday. I don´t think Flamengo should start Guerrero though if he has already an agreement with Palmeiras, as rumoured.

Full schedule for the 2nd round below. I´m intrigued about that Grêmio vs Atlético Paranaense. Atlético has eliminated São Paulo from Copa do Brasil at Morumbi yesterday and is looking like a team that could be the surprise of the year.

The loss of Jô is still felt indeed. Right now, Corinthians don´t have a reliable striker in their ranks. They´re trying to bring Róger, from Internacional. It would be a decent choice. Róger failed at Inter, but his recent spell at Botafogo was very successful. He is a good striker. Corinthians is also close to losing Maycon. According to the press here, it´s almost a done deal with Shakhtar Donetsk paying 6 million euros for the promissing midfielder. Corinthians is truly a terrible seller. The ukrainians will end up making a lot of money from this deal down the road. I also agree, Corinthians´ brand of football is effective, yet not really appealing. They´re very solid at defence, tactically sound and lose very few points at home. Still, they don´t have much in terms of attack. I´m not saying they don´t deserve to win, on the contrary, they have all the merit to establishing a style of football in their team and sticking with it. My point is that brazilian football needs different ideas, we´re stuck with a very physical and defensive style of play at domestic football. It´s not a coincidence that suddenly creative brazilian midfielders became hard to find. Pragmatism and physical strenght is preferred to technical ability. My hope is that little by little, I´m seeing a new generation of coaches studying more and trying to apply a more new approaches, such as Róger Machado, Zé Ricardo and Fernando Diniz. Also, young midfielders like Arthur, Matheus Rossetto, Evander and Maycon are starting to appear. On Flamengo, they´re a sleeping giant. I mean, they´ve managed to dramatically reduce their debts and to increase their revenue. Along with Palmeiras, Flamengo is the richest team in brazilian football but on the pitch, despite a strong squad and good finances, the results are simply not there yet. Hiring a good coach is vital and should their priority. At the present they´re being coached by an interim after the dismissal of Carpegiani.

I consider Palmeiras one of the favourites, along with Cruzeiro, Grêmio, Flamengo and Corinthians. They have the deepest squad in Série A and this could be determining to another national title. Having said that, I think most experts vastly overrate Palmeiras. Like I´ve said, they have the deepest squad, but from 1 to 11, how much better than the rest are they? In my opinion, the answer is not much. This is certainly true to central defence, where they still haven´t properly replaced the loss of Yerry Mina. Actually I think Grêmio is the best side in brazilian football. Their defence pair, Geromel and Kanemann is probably the best in the country, Renato the best coach, Luan the best forward and Arthur the best overall player in brazilian football. But they´ll probably focus on the defense of the Copa Libertadores title, like last year, when they could´ve challenged Corinthians but rested their best players in many occasions.

Copa Libertadores, as usual, will have a huge impact on determining the destiny of the championship. I fancy Cruzeiro to win this year, they´re in a tough spot in their Libertadores group, but they have a quality team that seem to be more built for that kind of competition, over 38 rounds. Hopefully, my local club, Atlético Paranaense, does well this year. The full schedule for the 1st round. Cruzeiro vs Grêmio tomorrow is definitely the highlight.

I´ve already finished it. The series got really popular in Brazil and Argentina. They should just have stuck with the original title. The english title is indeed too generic.

No, I haven´t watched it. As a self-hating brazilian, I suspect the quality of any brazilian production. The specialized critic review is what you expect from a brazilian series, shallow characters and dialogue, lots of cliché, some hot sex scenes and an average final product. Seriously though, most of those reviews on IMDB are politically driven. The series deal with the Car Wash operation and with different names, Sergio Moro, Lula and Dilma Roussef are all represented. The left hated the series and some nutjobs even called for a Netflix boycott due to the series. On the other hand, the right embraced the series and this is why you see that 9,2 rating on IMDB. I truly hate both sides at this point. Their groupthink, idiocy and radicalism are just appaling. This is just another chapter in the Cold Civil War we´re living. The whole thing could blow up any time soon. P.S. : Sorry for my SirBalon rant.

Currently watching "Babylon Berlin". Brilliant series settled in the Weimar Republic.

Currently watching "Babylon Berlin". Brilliant series settled in the Weimar Republic.

The news here is that he's coming in July. Barça is buying a very good player. I expect big things from Arthur. He' the controller Barcelona and Brazil both have needed for some time now.

The outlets reporting it are reliable. This is hardly a surprise, it seemed for quite a while now that Arthur wanted to play for Barcelona. I´m not sure about his playing time, but this is a conversation for 2019. You´re getting a really good player. Nice deal for Barça.

Arthur to Barcelona is a done deal. Finally. https://en.as.com/en/2018/02/20/football/1519147507_793808.html

I´m still in the first episodes but I´m really enjoying it. Barely started and I already liked "El Profesor".

Is anyone else watching the spanish series "La Casa de Papel"? The english title is "Money Heist" and it´s available on Netflix. Highly recommend. Plot synopsis: "Spanish television series whose plot revolves around the perfect bank robbery - in this case, not only a bank, but the National Coinage and Stamp Factory, the Royal Mint of Spain."