Barça have confirmed they will play a friendly on May 26th against Saudi Arabian team Al-Ittihad. The game will take place at Al-Ittihad’s Abdullah al-Faisal stadium in Jeddah. Al-Ittihad were close to signing an unpopular ex-Barça player last summer but the deal fell through because the money-grabbing player in question wanted more money. The plans for a game in Kuwait against Kazma SC have been put on hold for the time being. Last season Barça played a friendly in Cairo with Egyptian side Al-Ahly. Bojan Krkic made his first team debut in that match, scoring in a 4-0 win.

Gabi Milito’s knee injury was worse than initially thought and he could be out for as much as nine months. In today’s operation surgeons needed to extract part of a tendon from his left leg and insert it into his right. This is terrible new for the player as injuries of this length can be career threatening. Right now I just hope he can make a full recovery. There was better news for Toure Yaya whose back operation was a complete success, doctors say he shouild be back to full fitness in six to eight weeks.

I would never in a million years have thought that Samuel Eto’o could be booed by Camp Nou. Last summer I argued that I wouldn’t sell Eto’o for €100 million, basically because I believe there is no other forward in the world who could replace him. Eto’o is vital to Barça’s system, not just for the goals he scores but for the way he works as the first line of defence by chasing down defenders and goalkeepers. However, after Sunday’s game with Mallorca and the reaction of the crowd and the response from Eto’o, I am beginning to wonder if it might be better to let him go now. Keep reading →

Leo Messi polled 50% of the votes for the best player in April despite only playing in half the games. Thanks everyone for voting. I still think Puyol was the best.

Gabi Milito and Toure Yaya both go under the knife tomorrow (Tuesday) for operations on their injuries. Milito will have his cruciate ligament in his right knee seen to by Dr. Ramon Cugat at 2pm at the Clínica Quirón. While at 3.30pm Toure will have the operation on his slipped disk that he has bravely put off since March. Dr Enric Caceres will do Toure’s operation at the Instituto Dexeus. Club doctor Ricard Pruna will give a press conference tomorrow afternoon to report on how the operations have gone. If all goes well Toure should be fit and well for the start of the preseason, but Milito is not expected to return until November. It’s a shame the season has ended like this for the players who turned out to be Barça’s best two signings of last summer. 

I am proud to announce that Fcbnews is one year old today. It has been a lot of hard work but it has been a great pleasure to watch it grow. In that year I have made 534 posts on Barça and there have been a total of 4,303 comments sent in by you the readers. Many many thanks to all those who have contributed by sending comments, but even if you have never sent a comment I’d like to thank you all for reading. I’d also like to apologise to anyone who I haven’t been able to reply to at any time, whether it was a comment with a question or an email, I hope you understand that there is only one of me, that I have a life and a day job to take care of too and sometimes it is just too much to reply to everyone. In the same way I am not always able to follow all the suggestions that you send, but I am grateful for all of them nonetheless. My knowledge of how a computer works has never been great so I am not always capable of doing everything I would like to, but I have learnt a great deal along the way and will strive to continue improving the site.

Fcbnews receives visits from all around the globe, just in the last month people from 158 different countries have looked in. As the site is written in English perhaps it is to be expected that most visits come from the U.S and the UK, but after that the countries with most visits last month are Canada, Egypt, Australia, India, Norway, Japan, Sweden, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, Nigeria and Russia (in that order). Just for my own curiosity perhaps you would like to write in telling us where you are from, and also I’d love to know how you came across the site; whether it was through a google or yahoo search, through Soccerlens, one of the Barça forums or by any other means, please send a comment to tell us.

Unfortunately it has not been a great year for Barça, but let’s hope that the next twelve months give us a little bit more to cheer about. Thanks again for reading.

The LFP has announced the kick off times for the last weekend of the season. Barça visit relegated Murcia in one of two games brought forward to Saturday. The game will kick off at 10pm Spanish time and will be shown live on Spanish TV.

Barça played their last game at Camp Nou under Frank Rijkaard and managed to throw away a 2-0 lead to lose 2-3 in the last minute. Less than 40,000 turned up to see the game, and sections of the public showed their displeasure with Joan Laporta during the match and at the end when Dani Güiza scored Mallorca’s third there was a bigger display of protests. Keep reading →

Frank Rijkaard has only sixteen first team players available for tomorrow evening’s match with Mallorca (kick off 9pm). This will be Rijkaard’s last home match in charge and he has brought in two players from the B team, Rafael Romero Serrano, known as “Fali”, and Jose Manuel Rueda to make up the numbers. Fali is 22 years old and normally plays at right back while the 20-year-old Rueda plays in midfield. Keep reading →

One of the great things about Football Club Barcelona is the fact that it is a club owned by its members. Every four years the members can vote for one of the members to be president of the club. In the club’s statutes there also exists the right to challenge the current president with a vote of no confidence. This morning Barça member Oriol Giralt officially presented a motion for a vote of no confidence against Joan Laporta. Keep reading →