I find the controversy about "parking the bus" to be interesting. It's a legitimate, and can be brilliant, strategy whose advent has changed the dynamic of the sport between bigger and smaller teams. I mean, holy crap, Iran vs. Argentina this summer? Can you believe it? Iran held that team 0-0 until literally the last minute of the match by parking the bus and doing it amazingly well. The thing is, if you're the big team in this equation, the non-bus team, it's frustrating. I am looking forward to the next development in this arms race of strategies to see what people come up with to beat the bus.

I don't know about Mardid folks, but for Barcelona fans I feel like the whiners fall into two categories. The relatively new folks who were spoiled by the dominance of the club under Guardiola. Now other teams can plan just as well, pouting intensifies. The others are just the general old guard who love to complain, it's part of the character. Sometimes I can believe the commentaries from the fans I read. Especially at the beginning of the season, people were writing article after article comment after comment about how Messi was being "invisible" or something was wrong with him because he wasn't scoring more than one goal with one assist a match, and he was too busy set-up all the plays. Sometimes I feel nothing will ever be enough for them.

And then there are the Ronaldo-vs-Messi folks, and this I really hate. I don't know about Ronaldo, but Messi has made it pretty clear in the last couple of years that he is pretty much over the whole record-breaking, Ballon D'Or winning thing for himself and his motivations are to win trophies for his teams. (Ronaldo-vs-Messi folks always call bullshit at this moment, like they know Messi on some deep personal level and he MUST BE LYING because how could be bear to walk on this planet and not be #1 at everything at every moment. I just take Messi at his word and move on.) So the rivalry is not among the players, but the fans who are just using the players to try and make them feel superior to other people. It's just weird.