Copa del Qué?

Have you ever been sitting in a restaurant, chatting with your woman, family, friend etc only for your pleasant evening to be constantly interrupted by a screaming child? If you have then you know how aggravating it is when all you want to do is concentrate on the conversation in hand. The Copa del Rei is a screaming child, one with dribble pouring out of its mouth and nothing in particular to scream about. International football meanwhile is an even bigger screaming child which is liable to throw something across the room and knock out the person you're speaking to, ruining your evening altogether.

The meaning of this metaphor? We are in a week where having faced the ignominy of the Getafe defeat all we really want to do is settle down to watch the next round of la liga and hope Frank and the boys can turn things around. Instead we are confronted with very annoying distractions in the shape of a cup competition whose worth is questionable and is devalued by a ludicrous format which sees the likes of ourselves and madrid have to play two matches to knock out semi-professional cloggers from the Segunda B and another chance for the FIFA virus to strike down one of our players as they go jetting round the world once more to play for their countries.

In last night's Copa del Rei match Barça held off a spirited CD Alcoyano side scoring an early goal through Thierry Henry in a first half where the Catalans failed to dispel any of the doubts surrounding their away displays. The second half was an improvement after Bojan Krkic replaced Henry and Barça created far more chances with shots hitting the woodwork three times. The goals, however, didn't arrive until Alcoyano started to lose their discipline. A foul on Bojan saw a 2nd yellow for Alcoyano's Bauxali and gave Eidur Gudjohnsen the opportunity to score from the penalty spot which he duly did at the second attempt. Carrion was then sent off for a very poor challenge on Bojan after he had earlier taken out Barça's other starlet Giovani who left the field on a stretcher. Bojan himself added a third in injury time to put a gloss on the scoreline for Barça which they probably didn't deserve.

With a meaningless 2nd leg to come which will be played out in front of a near empty Camp Nou Barça can now start to think ahead to the round of 16 of the Copa and a possible tie with a bigger side. There are many larger fish to fry before that stage which will arrive in mid-January with Frank set to face the music in crunch ties away at Lyon in the Champions League and away to Barcelona's second side in the league at the start of December.

Bon voyage to all of our travelling stars and fingers crossed that they all return in one piece before we can get back to some form of normality a week on Saturday against Recreativo.