Hello, hello everybody and welcome to the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell.

Different type of episode today.

No Ryan, no Graham, no Joe.

But instead, it's me talking to Simon Couper, author of The Barcelona Complex,

Lino Messy and the Making and Unmaking of the World's Greatest Soccer Club.

I asked Simon a lot of questions about his new book, about the current state of Barcelona, how they got to this position, but how they sort of developed along the way from Johann Krauff.

That is an exaggerated pronunciation.

I'm trying to do my best here with that one,

but how they kind of evolved from that point to today, and then the sort of missteps that got

bigger and bigger. So hopefully you all enjoy that chat. You will also be able to find in this

week's shows our weekend review. That was the four of us. And then the Americans Abroad Review with myself

with Joel Lowry. We've got another listener questions episode coming up this week, as well as

allocation disorder on Friday. In there, as well as Soccer 101 episode, it's going to be me and

Graham talking about why Scotland isn't better at the football. So please do check out all those

different episodes at your leisure. But for now,

here's me, talking to Simon. Joining me today is Simon Kouper, author of many excellent soccer books,

many of which I'm assuming our listeners have read. His latest is no exception. Simon, thank you

for being here and for your latest work, which gives some insight into the present situation of

Barcelona, but also the historic situation of Barcelona.

Thanks for having me.

So I wanted to start off with the kind of present situation, not necessarily of Barcelona, but of your book, because I'm assuming when you decided to write this, things were not as they are now unless you started writing the book like a week

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