Continue reading this post »

It's been almost two full days since our beloved FC Barcelona won its fourth Champions League (FOURTH! Can you believe it?). But it's not too late to continue celebrating this amazing success. That's why I'm sharing with you a few videos and pictures from a night we'll all never forget. The quality of the videos and the pics might not be perfect but consider the following: 1)I'm not  a photographer nor a cameraman, 2)I used my cellphone or my small digital camera, not exactly pro gear and 3)I might have or might have not been (it's not been confirmed nor I'm allowed to do so) drunk when I was filming or shooting. So, please, forgive me. Without further ado, after the jump, behold!

Continue reading this post »

I'll be totally honest with you. I didn't think we'd win last night. I consider myself a mildly pessimistic person, I've always been like that. Every time, I just assume the worst is gonna happen. In part, that's what made me think we'd lose the final yesterday. Also I thought we were due for a stinker, I thought ManU was poised to avenge yesteryear's final loss. I also thought that if we lost, it wouldn't matter much becase this Barça is so great, it can actually afford to lose a Champions League Final without anybody doubting its place in history.

Other than being a pessimist, having italian blood in my veins, I'm also a very supersticious person. Two years ago, during the final stretch of the La Liga and Champions League I used to dress exactly the same way (including underwear) for each important game: the 2-6 in the Bernabeu, Iniesta's miracle in London game an obviously Roma's Final.

It shouldn't surprise you, then, that as soon as we sealed the victory against Madrid, me and my friends decided we had to watch the game in our lucky bar. That is, the bar were we witnessed Belletti improbably score the winning goal in Paris, the same bar where we saw Barça manhandle Manchester United in the Eternal City. It was a no-brainer, even if we never go to that bar anymore, we couldn't risk messing -no pun intended- with karma on such an important night.

Continue reading this post »

As I promised myself, yesterday, with my beloved Luis Enrique jersey, I went to "Les Corts", the neighborhood where Camp Nou is located, to take a look at the parade and see what was going on around the stadium. The parade was set to begin at 7.30 pm, Barcelona time. Given the time I didn't expect a huge turnout, after all, at that time many offices, and all shops, are still open in Barcelona. Needless to say, my assumption couldn't have been more wrong.

I approached Camp Nou at 7.10pm and there were already bunches of people skipping the parade to enter the stadium, where the team would arrive around 9pm to salute the fans and give a few speeches. The crowd was composed mostly of young people, teenagers as well as kids accompanied by their parents. Overall, as I said, I was very impressed by the turnout. Evidently not everybody felt so lukewarm about winning "La Liga" as I did. There was a great atmosphere and you could feel everybody was happy and excited. 

I tried to cover the event as well as I could. Unfortunately, my friend who's a good photographer coulnd't make it so forgive me if the pics aren't of great quality. Let's just say I've always been better with paper and pen than with a camera in my hands. Also, I tried to live-tweet the event. Considering it was the first time I did something like this, I think the results were pretty good, but I'll let you judge. 

After the jump, I'll tell you about the parade and you will also see a few pictures and videos. If you want to check out my tweets from yesterday, just visit my twitter feed. To see all the pictures I took yesterday, visit BarcaBlaugranes' official Facebook page, there's an album there.

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

It's been more than nine years. Precisely, it's been three thousand two hundred eighty-five days since that fateful night.

It was April 23rd, 2002, a calm evening full of hope in Barcelona. It was the day FC Barcelona and Real Madrid collided in the Champions League for the first time in history. It was the first ever "European Clásico", here in Spain it was dubbed "the game of the century". As chance would have it, April 23rd is also Sant Jordi, the holiday that celebrates Saint George, Catalunya's  patron saint. Destiny seemed to be winking at the "blaugranes", it seemed like the perfect setting for a victory against the hated historical rival, Real Madrid.

Continue reading this post »

It's been more than nine years. Precisely, it's been three thousand two hundred eighty-five days since that fateful night.

It was April 23rd, 2002, a calm evening full of hope in Barcelona. It was the day FC Barcelona and Real Madrid collided in the Champions League for the first time in history. It was the first ever “European Clásico”, here in Spain it was dubbed “the game of the century”. As chance would have it, April 23rd is also Sant Jordi, the holiday that celebrates Saint George, Catalunya's  patron saint. Destiny seemed to be winking at the “blaugranes”, tt seemed like the perfect setting for a victory against the hated historical rival, Real Madrid.

Continue reading this post »

Disclaimer: I wrote this flurry of thoughts on my cellphone while I was on a plane coming back from the holidays. I was mad because of what's happened in the last few months and it just came out naturally. I thought about editing it, correcting it and trying to make it more coherent upon return but you know what? Maybe it's better this way. Nevertheless, I apologize in case it doesn't make too much sense. Oh and if you're wondering what the hell is that cluster of letters at the beginning of the post title, it's just the acronym for “The View From the Other Side (of the Ocean)”, the title I chose for the first post of my casual rants about the Suns. In case you are wondering, back in October I wrote an extraordinarily upbeat and, with hindsight, awfully wrong post. Anyway, without further ado, here goes the rant.

Continue reading this post »

Boy it's been a long summer eh? It looks like it's been years since the Spurs took down our beloved Suns, a slight disappointment that capped off what was still an exceptional season. After just a few months everybody is doubting us, saying we can't win without Stoudemire, injured for the rest of the season. Looks like everybody forgot what we just did the last May...oh wait, sorry, I got confused. It's not 2005, yet, somehow, they are still doubting a successful Suns team that lost it's primary offensive option. And you thought people learn from their mistakes.

Look I'm not saying we're gonna make it to the Western Conference Finals like the underdog '05-'06 Suns team did. I'm just saying people might want to be a little cautious when discounting a team that still has The Amazing Steve Nash, Jason Richardson at his best, has acquired a clutch guy like Turkoglu and a dynamic sixth man kinda guy like Childress. All of that while maintaining their core of young rising players (Fropez and Goran the Dragon).

Continue reading this post »

I'll give you a warning: this is not exactly a basketball piece. It's about the Suns, but it's more about life in general. It's something that it needs to be written, and you probably need to read. I must write this now because in a few hours it will be too late. Hell, maybe it's already too late. Even before the end of game 6 some people were already thinking ahead. Soon a Suns-Spurs preview will be posted, and everybody will put their mind into figuring out how we can beat our old enemies. Well, I'll tell you something: it doesn't and, most importantly, it shouldn't matter.

You ask me why? It's simple.

Because we should be savoring this moment, we should be enjoying this victory, we should be appreciating our beloved Suns outplaying a very good and proud team to advance to the second round. We should not take this success for granted. That would be a huge mistake. Remember this: nobody, and I mean no columnist, no "expert", no "talking head",  no one at all predicted us to go this far. Think about it, do you remember the season previews? On ESPN nobody expected the Suns to finish higher than 7th in the West, some were even predicting us to finish 3rd in the Pacific Division behind both LA teams (by the way, this gives me some hope, I could get paid to write that kind of nonsense someday too!).

Continue reading this post »

Even after 14 seasons playing in the NBA, even after a series of seemingly career-ending injuries that denied him and us the chance to enjoy the career of a player destined to be one of the greatest, Grant Hill is still playing a significant role as a starter for the Phoenix Suns. Yet, amidst the Suns recent struggles there hasn't been much time to focus on him, even though the veteran's performance is probably the best representation of the Suns season: a sparkling start followed by a dire descent into reality.

During the first stretch of the year, after his excellent '07-'08, Hill continued to inspire Suns fans. His stellar play left us wondering how in the world a 37 year old with an history of grueling injuries could play so well. In fact, he was arguably playing like an All-Star. He scored in double digits in eight of his first nine games and the only game with less than 10 points was his scoreless game in Orlando, on the tail end of a back-to-back. As impressive as his scoring was, the real incredible part of Hill's game was his ability to rebound, something reminiscent of his golden years in Detroit, when he was a triple-double threat day in and day out. In what was the biggest statistical surprise of the season, he grabbed more than 10 rebounds in four out of the first seven games.

Continue reading this post »

There was a time when the Phoenix Suns bench featured Barbosa plus Diaw and, if it was really needed, a random towel-waver who could check in and play a few minutes replacing someone in foul trouble. Mike D'Antoni has always been a believer of the short rotation, something he's been criticized for (and probably rightly so) over the years. His Phoenix Suns never had more than an eight man rotation by design, not because of the actual quality of the roster. D'Antoni just didn't want to play more than eight guys. Alvin Gentry, his top assistant back then, has a completely different approach. He likes going ten or even eleven deep, he likes to give bench warmers a chance and he's not shy to keep a guy like Jarron Collins on the court during crunch time if he's playing well.

This new philosophy has given the Suns a reliable bench that can spell the starters and often outplay the opponent's bench players with energy and hustle. Players like Jared Dudley and Lou Amundson have become fan favorites and their solid performance has translated to the win column. Around the league, everybody admits the Suns bench has really improved and become a real asset. But, how good are they really playing? How do the Suns reserves rank among the other 29 teams in the league?

If you are obsessed by these questions just as much as we are here at "Bright Side of the Sun" (there are two ways of seeing it: our lives are that boring or we care too much about the Suns. Where's the truth? Where it always lies: in the middle), this is you lucky day. We have the answers!

Before we start I want to personally thank George Vardopoulos, from HoopsStats.com, for his inestimable job of keeping track of the stats we'll use in this article.

Continue reading this post »

Even though I consider myself a great Suns fan, so much that I'm pretty sure I bleed purple and orange (seriously, I just cut myself and that surely doesn't look red to me. Well, at least it's not purple and gold. That much I'm sure about), my first really vivid memory of the Suns is a highlight reel of a Phoenix-Memphis game of the 2005 NBA playoffs. The upbeat notes of "Winter in the Hamptons" by Josh Rouse were blaring in the background, as Steve Nash was sending a perfect pass down court for an easy Shawn Marion dunk in transition.

Continue reading this post »