Daily Schmankerl: Xavi wants Gnabry at Barca, Rummenigge calls for finishing the season — even in September

Xavi dreams of Gnabry at Barca (kicker)

Barca legend Xavi is talking lately as if he will be coaching FC Barcelona sooner rather than later. “I will come back, and I’m very excited,” he told La Vanguardia in a recent interview. “I made it clear to them [at Barca] that I see myself in a project that starts from scratch and in which I make the decisions.”

As for Xavi’s dream team, besides Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué, and Marc-André ter Stegen, whom he praised world-class, he would be delighted to bring Neymar back to Barcelona. He “would be a spectacular signing.” Ah, but Xavi doesn’t “know whether he would fit in from a social perspective.” Imagine that!

Otherwise, Barca does not need “many new players: maybe Jadon Sancho or Serge Gnabry.” Good luck with that, Xavi.

Rummenigge supports finishing the season even in the fall (kicker)

Bayern Munich’s CEO discussed the quandary of when to finish the current Bundesliga season a recent interview in FAZ, coming out strongly in support of finishing the season, even if it extends into the fall months, when the 2020/21 season would normally start. Rummenigge said,

We absolutely should play out the season — for reasons of competitive fairness, but also to keep the economic damage as small as possible.

If it’s not possible otherwise for reasons of health and political assessment, we will potentially have to explore this scenario.

Such a protracted delay to the current season would shift the commencement of the 2020/21 season to the winter, but Rummenigge argues that the season must be finished to reduce the financial losses to the clubs, assessed at approximately €770 million:

To simply say now if we can’t play by June it has to be called off creates uncertainty in the football market.

As for the club’s future transfer plans, Rummenigge reiterated that the club is on hold:

We are currently waiting, for now just to keep our powder dry and to see how things develop. None of us knows today how long this coronavirus ghost will haunt us.

Rummenigge suggested a relaxation of financial fair play rules could help clubs recover from financial harm caused by the current crisis, within reason:

Investors might potentially need to be permitted to bring fresh money to the clubs to provide for their survival, so they can pay their employees and players, but please not so that in the end people can profit from deep discounts on the transfer market and manipulate it.

Interestingly, Rummenigge outright dismissed the idea of a European Super League, when asked about it. In Rummenigge’s view, such a league “will not exist in the next ten years, no matter what people resort to.” The idea of maximizing income with a Super League has “been reduced ad absurdum by the crisis for now.”

Cyber-training with the Frauen

K.-P. Boateng wins the stay-at-home Champions League

BFW talks coffee

LBSU sophmore makes ESPNFC’s highlight reel again

LBSU’s no. 10 Angie Morales was featured yet again by ESPNFC. The last time they shared a clip of her (as a redshirt freshman — check it out!), it annoyed me to no end that they didn’t bother to name her. Well, they did it again, but this time I think folks know. Here she is doing her thing:

Yeah, there’s a reason why she’s their no. 10.

Benzema isn’t bitter at all about not playing for France (BBC)

During a Q&A on Instagram, French striker in exile Karim Benzema revealed how he is perfectly content not to have played for France since 2015 and to have watched Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud run around while Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé and friends scored all of France’s goals in the 2018 World Cup campaign.

Benzema used an analogy to express his thoughts on Giroud:

You can’t confuse an F1 car with a go-kart and I’m being kind. I know I’m a Formula 1 car. It works because he’s there, that’s it. It’s not going to be spectacular.

”[Antoine] Griezmann and [Kylian] Mbappé get seen more while he rolls his sleeves up and does the dirty work. But does everyone like his game? I don’t know.

Benzema has scored 19 goals in 32 games for Real Madrid this season.

Jerome shows off his jersey collection

Leon shows off his, uh, muscle collection

Holy hell, Leon: intellectual, big-hearted, and ripped.

Be world-class like Bob: stay safe