FC Barcelona fleece blanket review

A few weeks on from Christmas (but with decorations still part of the family) a package arrived via the old UPS delivery guy - the latest box of goodies from soccerpro.com. We received three different items this time around and we'll try space the reviews out into three installments over the next few months. Just to keep you on your toes!

First on the agenda, and so appropriate for the season, is an FC Barcelona fleece blanket. It's a twin size blanket and is split verically into blue and dark red halves - or blau and grana for you Catalan speakers. At the center is the distinctive club emblem and then, for those still confused, we've got "FCBarcelona" in white text at the bottom.

It's actually a simple and stylish display, considering so much of the overdone razzmatazz you see out there today. It's soft and smooth, as anything fleece would be. Our Kit Aesthetics correspondent Chris gave it a short trial the other night and described it as "warm".

Actually Chris, since we don't hear so much from you these days on the Kit Aesthetics front, can you give us a bit more detail?

CHRIS:  Do you like Barça A LOT and get cold? Dedicated Barcelona fans in areas where there are winter temperatures rejoice: there is a nice warm blanket out there for you! It shows the world that you know how to kill two birds with one stone. It’s a plenty warm blanket, and it tells everyone who sees it the same thing: I like Barcelona tons. This is a good time to sport the blanket, because unless there is a total meltdown and Lionel Messi’s foot falls off, Barça is marching away with the La Liga title this year. If Barça does manage to win it all, one can use this blanket to wave around outside in celebration. Even if you don’t like Barcelona that much, it also works for Real Madrid haters. I’d also imagine for the lucky guy or gal who knows a Catalan exchange student from the right side of town this would surely impress them, and with it being on a bed and all, well… put two and two together.

Well that's wonderful. Maybe this will give Chris some inspiration to write a Kit Aesthetics article in 2009?

Let's go back to the subject of gifts. (Way back at the beginning of the article. I was talking about Christmas. A package arrived, box of gifts. Anyway...) Just about the time this package arrived we had a little soiree to celebrate the birthday of the lovely fiancee of albionroad.com. Seeing as how the gifts are going around I thought, maybe we can consider the blanket a gift from soccerpro.com and put it in the bedroom?

SARAH:  Ergh. The blanket itself is beautiful but I'm afraid its colors clash horribly with those of the He-Man pillow that normally cushions your noggin during the resting hours. I now see that you've managed to successfully remove said pillow from the camera's purview. Interesting. The pillow stays. The beautifully colored blanket will find another bed to sprawl atop of soon enough.

I should have seen that coming.

Well nonetheless I think it would make a great gift for a budding FC Barcelona fan. I go back to the days of my youth as a huge Houston Oilers fan (and Rockets and Astros but especially the Oilers) and I would have LOVED something like this in the old Columbia blue. So picturing myself as a little Barça fan, with this blanket? All my friends would have been jealous and at the end of the day that's what matters.

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