La Liga: FC Barcelona vs Osasuna, Reyno de Navarra, Saturday, October 31 2009, 20:00 CET

Barca's next Liga match has them facing Osasuna, as they look for another win to maintain their lead at the top of the table. Previous matches between the two teams have been pretty tight, so let's hope Barca come off with a comfortable result tonight.

Theirry Hnery is cleared to play, and has been included in the squad: Valdés, Pinto, Puyol, Piqué, Chygrynskiy, Márquez, Abidal, Maxwell, Keita, Touré, Sergio, Iniesta, Jeffren, Xavi, Messi, Ibrahimovic, Pedro, Henry and Bojan. We're excited about seeing him back in action, as well as the six who were rested for the Barca's last match!

Transfer Talk: Puyol Signs, Rafa On The Way

Barca Captain Carles Puyol has officially put pen to paper and signed his new contract with the club, until 2013. Puyol's as happy as could be, and thanked everyone for having the confidence to keep him. As if it could be any other way!

Meanwhile, Puyol's fellow centerback Rafael Marquez is very close to signing his own brand new deal with the club. He talked about his form and how he feels he's still not 100%, but he's optimistic about working to get better and reach his top playing level, and is very keen to go on with Barca: "If there are no unexpected slip ups, we should be able to sign very soon. There are a few small details to talk about, but I’m sure we’ll reach a deal.”

Congrats to Puyol, and our best hopes for Rafa!

Injury Report: Henry & Dani Back Soon

Reportedly, Thierry Henry is on the verge of total recovery and could get the greenlight for this weekend's Liga meet with Osasuna - is there anyone not excited by his return? We've been missing him on the lineup and can't wait to see him back in action!

Same goes for Dani Alves, who's return is looking to be sooner than expected. Medics initially said three weeks, but he's been doing much better than expected and returned to the pitch yesterday, training apart from the group. Dani's optimistic about regaining full fitness soon, possibly in time for the Champions League second leg opener against Rubin Kazan next week.

Barca Buzz: Dressing Room Secrets

Catalan paper Sport has recently featured secrets from inside Barca's dressing room, where Pep continually strives to instill team unity between the players and blend all their personalities and egos into harmony.

From the more withdrawn players like Abidal and Keita to pranksters Pique and Dani Alves, the players get along great and there's always a friendly atmosphere in the locker room. The players coming from similar backgrounds tend to stick together, as the team divides into three tables every day at lunch: the Catalans, the South Americans, and the French speaking. Those who don't exactly fit into any of the three categories can still find one where they're comfortable, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic for example sits with the South Americans, always with his best buddy on the team, the Brazilian Maxwell.
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Pep himself has got an office in each of Camp Nou and the Ciutat Esportiva, but the one at the Camp Nou is virtually untouched since Rijkaard had it, as Pep spends the larger majority of his time in the one at the Ciutat. Both offices have a similar location in their respective complex, set far from the players' lockers.

The map above shows the dressing room at Camp Nou and the order of the lockers - Pique and Dani were set apart to keep them from too much mischief, with Pique purposely placed in between Iniesta and Xavi so the two could keep an eye on him. We would not want to be in their place.

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The players have completely different locker position on the Ciutat Esportiva training ground, where Puyol shows up an hour before everyone else every morning and opens up the dressing room. On the other hand, Pique is always the one rushing in at the last minute while pulling on his boots.

Thierry Henry and Rafa Marquez are the dandies of the group, known to spend hours before the mirror and always the last ones to leave the Ciutat, as they like to stick around for a post-training leg massage.
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As for Barca's dressing room music, Pep has decided that last season's theme song, Coldplay's Viva La Vida, has run its course and it's time for a new tune. The team are no longer playing Viva La Vida, it having been replaced by a myriad of different songs as they search for the right one to become this season's background track. Dani Alves is trying to convince everyone it should be his Brazilian music, but no one seems to be listening to him; looks like we'll just have to wait and see what Pep and the boys come up with.

Match Report: Barcelona 2-0 Leonesa

Sure we were playing against a third division side last night, but did anyone really think that we'd tear it up like we did against Zaragoza? The way we see it, 2-0 is a great achievement for a lineup of mostly substitutes and B-teamers. Because without those six starters who were rested, there goes most of the defensive strength, the midfield dominance and the attacking creativity. You can't expect the subs to be as flowing and beautiful as the full team, with them it's more a matter of keeping things together.

And you could feel it in the way they were playing - with caution. They were being careful, too careful, focusing more on keeping the ball from the opposition or at least keeping them from scoring, than they were on actually scoring themselves. They attacked as much as they could, but they didn't put much into the attack. It was a lot of slow movement that led to losing the ball and losing chances, at which the boys just shrugged and moved on... there wasn't any hunger for goals like the team showed against Zaragoza.

Yet the kids managed to find the net twice, which is pretty good. Well, guess we should say that Pedro is the one who found the net... he was mega hot last night, played with more liveliness than most everyone else and really stood out. Pedro has been getting his share of playing time in this season's games, but when he's alongside the likes of Leo and Zlatan, he's out of the spotlight and not as involved as those others are. It's a different story when he's playing with a lineup of subs like last night; he plays a bigger part and just... shines.

The first goal came when Bojan tried to skip past a couple of defenders and ended up getting tripped, but still managed to flick the ball over for Pedro to finish it off beautifully and put Barca ahead nearing the half. It was Jeffren who then set up the second goal for Pedro to score his and Barca's second, giving us a comfortble win that will have us at ease when we head into the second leg on Camp Nou.

Jeff did well to set up the goal, but overall his performance wasn't as tight as it could have been. His position didn't help. We were also expecting more from Bojan, and the B-team boys have yet to adapt fully to the first team playing level. Busi was in one of his better moods; Marquez is improving, on the way to getting back into top form after his injury; and we were happy with Max's performance and also Chygrynskiy's. Yaya was his usual awesome self and Keita continues to rock out; while Pinto proved to worth his minutes. All in all, an acceptable match. We're happy with this and we're having a good laugh at Real Madrid, so no worries.

Copa Del Rey: FC Barcelona vs Cultural Leonesa, Municipal, Wednesday October 28 2009, 22:00 CET

Barca's defense of the Copa Del Rey title begins against third division club Cultural Leonesa. There's been talk that coach Pep Guardiola wouldn't be giving much importance to this competition in light of the tight match schedule, but Pep had something different to say at the pre-match press conference:

"We have the same motivation to win this competition as we had last year. We are Barca and here we don't throw away games or titles. We have to go out in every game with the idea of winning. We have to take the first step in winning the tie tomorrow."

That's the spirit Pep, we're going for everything and we'll win it all again, eh? Anyway, while Pep is adamant about taking the Copa seriously, he's chosen to rest six of his key players, giving each of Messi, Ibrahimovic, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta and Pique a couple of days off as the rest of the team trained, with five players called up from the reserve squad: Benítez, Fontàs, Jonathan Dos Santos, Jonathan Soriano and Gai.

Henry and Dani Alves are still out with injury, and as the Copa only allows five subs on the bench, Pep will be leaving out one player from the the following seventeen-man squad: Valdés, Pinto, Benítez, Chygrynskiy, Márquez, Fontàs, Abidal, Maxwell, Touré, Jonathan dos Santos, Busquets, Gai Assulin, Keita; Pedro, Jeffren, Bojan and Jonatan Soriano.

Bojan will obviously be starting seeing as our usual attackers are being rested (or injured, in Titi's case) so we're tremendously excited about that; Baby Bo's not been getting as much game time as he should. We're looking forward to seeing the B-team youngsters as well, and especially Jonathan Dos Santos - here's hoping the boys make us proud!

Gossip on the Guys: Samu's Response

After Samuel Eto'o's alleged statements against Pep and others at Barca, he adressed the subject as expected at the presentation campaign for "Shoe Aid In Africa" which he's the face of. And Samu's statements were far from any sort of lashing out at the club:

"My relationship [with Guardiola] has never been bad. If I had something to say it would not be through the press, but face to face. I was with him a year and everything was wonderful. I feel privileged to have played here. For me it was quite an honour and a pleasure."

Samu also talked about Inter Milan's upcoming meet with Barca on November 24th, saying he won't celebrate if he scores against his old team:

"It will be a special date but I have no intention of celebrating."

On the subject of the legal action he's taking against Barca demanding fiteen percent of his transfer fee, Eto'o had this to say:

"I will never leave Barca in the wrong place. I've never demanded anything from Barcelona. Zilch. They are trying to lie. I will not enter into any controversy, but the signing bonus has to be paid by the buying club not the selling club."

We'll just end by saying we like Samu's look, shall we? And on the side: Check out Leo Messi and his cute self at a sponsor shop on the Champs Elysees in Paris earlier today.

Barca Buzz: Owning The Show

The dudes who run La Liga, otherwise known as the LFP (La Liga de Futbol Profesional) just dished out all the player awards for last season, and naturally, it was all about Barca, with seven spots out of nine going to our boys:

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Best Player: Lionel Messi
Best Coach: Pep Guardiola
Best Defender: Daniel Alves
Best Midfielder: Xavi
Best Attacking Midfielder: Andres Iniesta
Best Striker: Lionel Messi
Best Breakthrough Player: Sergi Busquets

Meanwhile Iker Casillas of Real Madrid came off with Best Keeper, and the Fair Play award went to Deportivo's Juan Carlos Valeron.

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Barca was also in the spotlight for the individual awards presented by Marca, with Victor Valdes named Zamora (keeper with least goals conceded) and Pep recognized as best coach (Miguel Munoz award). Vic showed up to accept his award and looked hot doing it, but Pep was too busy as always and had vice president Rafael Yuste accept it on his behalf.

Elsewhere, Diego Forlan was named Pichichi (top goalscorer) and David Villa took home the Zara award (top Spaniard goalscorer). The Guruceta award for best referee ended up going to Megia Davila - yeah, that dude who works somewhere in the offices of Real Madrid right now.

You gotta love the Barca boys stealing the show and totally rocking it out in their matching suits - we kind of can't take our eyes off Xavi. Oh yeah, and on the side: we noticed it of course at the Zaragoza match but forgot to mention: thank goodness Leo's cut his hair short again!
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Match Report: Barcelona 6-1 Zaragoza

Was that Barca out there last night? Because all we saw was a blue and red steamroller which, engineered by perfection in the form of Seydou Keita, charged onto the pitch full speed ahead and flattened the quaking opposition. Zaragoza never stood a chance against a Barca side that came out last night with more hunger than we’ve probably seen in them this season. They were radiating strength from the get-go, with increased speed, better passing, and complete domination of play.

And Keita, the unarguable Man of the Match, was simply mind-blowing. He’s really taken great leaps since he first joined Barca a little over a year ago, this season being better than ever, a rumbling volcano gradually getting louder and stronger until finally erupting with sheer power last night, peaking at the greatest we’ve ever seen him. Finding the back of the net no less than three times, assisting Zlatan to score and being in the middle of various other potential chances, he was simply flawless.

Speaking of Zlatan, how awesome was he? Full of energy, he played an amazing match with his positioning much improved. He’s really falling into place with Barca, gaining a fuller understanding of his teammates and how to work with them.

All the players were generally moving much better without the ball, something they’d been having trouble before as we’ve previously pointed out. Teamwork was dominant, things just seemed to click as they all were all working together so smoothly, beautifully.

We were up 3-0 at the half, courtesy of Keita, Zlatan, Keita, with two of the goals scored off set pieces. It’s brilliant that the team is scoring more and more off set pieces lately, really taking advantage of them, but, the team was attacking very well and there were a lot of chances, so it felt a bit strange that they couldn’t find the net except from the set pieces.

Although we must stop at Zlatan’s freekick goal, it was just insane, pure power. That keeper’s hands must still be stinging from it – and everyone caught the look on Dani’s face from where he was watching in the stands, right? Direct freekicks from afar have so far been his own specialty, and after that piece of work from Zla, he’s realizing he’s got some competition.

So yeah, chances didn’t really go through in the first half, but the second half kicked in and Barca were relentless, pressuring the goal even further and hitting the net three more times – and no set pieces this time – with Zlatan scoring his second followed by a great chip from Leo Messi, and finally Keita’s third.

Six spectacular goals, something had to give for poor Zaragoza – and Maxwell was the one who gave it, letting the ball slip to the opposition for them to grab a lonely goal. The ball came at Vic with seemingly more speed than he had the power to control, bouncing off his hand and into the net. But It’s nothing to fret over, Barca were brilliant last night and the result is spectacular, we’re back up to a three-point lead in the Liga and the team is in high spirits – all’s well in the world of Blaugrana.