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The Guardian interviews Xavi, whose jersey I am wearing today in anticipation of the Arsenal-Barcelona Champions League match.

It’s good that the reference point for world football right now is Barcelona, that it’s Spain. Not because it’s ours but because of what it is. Because it’s an attacking football, it’s not speculative, we don’t wait. You pressure, you want possession, you want to attack. Some teams can’t or don’t pass the ball. What are you playing for? What’s the point? That’s not football. Combine, pass, play. That’s football – for me, at least. For coaches, like, I don’t know, [Javier] Clemente or [Fabio] Capello, there’s another type of football. But it’s good that Barcelona’s style is now a model, not that.

Viva Barça!

Grant Wahl crunches the numbers on MLS player salaries.

The MLS Players Union released its updated list of salaries for every MLS player on Thursday, providing the first clear look at the earnings of newly-added stars like New York’s Thierry Henry and Rafael Márquez, who instantly became the league’s second- and third-highest-paid players. When I posted the link on my Twitter page, a lot of my non-U.S. readers were startled that so much detailed salary information was available, considering it’s unheard of in the world’s other leagues. This is sensitive information, after all, and you certainly don’t see most people (me included) publicizing their salaries for the world to see.

Why would the MLS Players Union release this information? Because the transparency helps the collective, allowing players on the lower end of the pay scale to negotiate higher salaries than they would otherwise. And in MLS the lower end of the scale, as we know, can be awfully low. Still, the minimum salary for a senior player has risen to $40,000, which is better than it used to be.

I fed the latest MLS salary numbers into my spreadsheet and came up with some useful stats. Keep in mind, the salaries below reflect a player’s guaranteed annual income over 12 months.

Google analyzes search queries during World Cup matches:

Throughout the world, real life also slowed during World Cup matches. Which teams had the most loyal fans? Which game captured the attention of world the most? To answer these questions, we looked at counts of queries using Google. People search using Google day and night—except for football fans when a game is on.

Click through for graphs showing the volume of search queries during the big games. When a soccer-mad country like Brazil is playing, the volume of queries drops during the game. There is a small spike during halftime.