Monthly Archives: February 2014
Paco de Lucia: The Death of a Musical Wizard
World music is in mourning following the unexpected death , aged 66, on a Mexican beach, of Paco de Lucia, one of the greatest guitarists of modern times, a truly musical wizard. Born Francisco Sanchez Gomez, to a Portuguese mother and an Andalucian father, de Lucia (a name he adopted professionally) spent his childhood in a poor neighbourhood of Algeciras where his talent for playing guitar better than his father flourished amidst the sounds, and legends of the gypsies. Paco –who was not of pure gypsy blood but carried …
The night Barca recovered its self-esteem at The Etihad
As someone who lived through FC Barcelona’s drubbing last season at the hands of Bayern Munich, one thought above all dominated my expectations of last night’s match against Man City at the Etihad stadium: Would Barca get beaten by Pellegrini ‘s Premier League Galacticos, thus losing not to a team of star players but also more important boasting of a style that, encouraged by the ex-Barca executives, on a good day, evokes the glory days of Guardiola under Laporta. As things turned out, Barca’s 2-0 victory was achieved in …
Luis Aragones: The Wise Man from Hortaleza
Former Spanish national football coach Luis Aragones has died at the age of 75. Eulogies have poured in from football enthusiasts around the world for the man who ended La Roja’s 44-year wait for a major international trophy by winning Euro 2008 with exciting style of play.At the weekend FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid fans and players were among those who paid tribute to the tough but wise Castilian . This is an abridged extract from my book on Spanish football La Roja (published in the UK by Simon …
Pedro J. : Story of a resignation foretold
The influential founding editor of Spain’s second-biggest newspaper, El Mundo, stepped down last Thursday after a decline in circulation and a series of revelations of alleged corruption in Spain’s Partido Popular governing party. Love him or hate him-and, as a former colleague, I fall into no-man’s land- the Spanish journalist Pedro.J Ramirez has earned a deserving place as a significant figure not just of the Spanish political and cultural scene, but as a notable member of the international media fraternity. His resignation from El Mundo, the newspaper he has …
The competing claims on Barca
Watching FC Barcelona these days certain things seem evident to me. Firstly, the circumstances surrounding the resignation of club president Sandro Rosell (see earlier blog)have fuelled a sense of political and administrative uncertainty, despite the remaining governing junta trying to carry on as if nothing had really happened. The fact is that it is unusual for the president of any major corporation or government to resign without giving more of an explanation that one suggesting an unspecified conspiracy against him. Meanwhile the fiscal and judicial investigation into the Neymar …
