As expected Thierry Henry and Deco return to the squad for tomorrow night’s Copa del Rey semi final first leg against Valencia at Camp Nou (kick off 10pm). The surprise is the exclusion of Ronaldinho who will rest along with Sylvinho, Gudjohnsen and Giovani. Rafa Marquez has not recovered from his injury yet, while Jorquera, Oleguer and Ezquerro are all still injured. Keep reading →

Four weeks ago I wrote an article entitled Can Barça win this season’s Champions League? The intention of the article was to try and lift the spirit of Barça fans who saw La Liga as lost after our draw in Bilbao which left Madrid nine points clear. While in the article I claim that the league was still possible, I never in my wildest dreams imagined Barça would reduce the gap by seven points in just four games. Keep reading →

It may only have been Levante but Barça gave a fine display today, especially in the second half, and ended up winning comfortably by five goals to one. Samuel Eto’o returned to the starting lineup and showed why Barça have missed him so much by bagging a second half hat-trick, while Xavi Hernandez and Leo Messi both capped good performances with goals in the first half.  Keep reading →

Frank Rijkaard has decided to rest Thierry Henry and Deco for tomorrow’s game against bottom of the table Levante (kick off 7pm, local time). With Rafa Marquez also missing the game with a bruised foot, there is a return to the squad for Zambrotta, Edmilson and Bojan. There could be some big names starting on the bench as Rijkaard looks to keep his players fresh for Wednesday’s Copa del Rey game with Valencia. However, he could just as easily rest players against Valencia as the following game next Saturday is away to Atletico Madrid. Keep reading →

In a report from the Economics, Sports and Intangibles Research Group at the University of Navarra, Football Club Barcelona have been declared to have the highest “media value” of any football club. I have to admit that I wasn’t going to run this story after seeing the ten most valuable signings had Thierry Henry in second place while Gabi Milito was placed sixth in the ten least valuable signings. But hey, I suppose they are only judging this on media value, not on value to the team. For those of you interested here’s a link to the report - http://www.unav.es/econom/sport/index.php?section=1

I couldn’t help laughing as El Sport made another fine mess in their attempt to understand the play on Leo Messi’s name in the British press yesterday. They claim that there are many possible ways to put a double meaning on our little striker’s surname based on the verb “to miss”. They then try to make sense of headlines such as “Celtic in a mess” suggesting it means something like Celtic were missing something. Keep reading →

The city of Barcelona is organizing a meeting point for Celtic fans near the fountains on Montjuic close to Plaça Espanya. According to the organisers there will be bars and food stalls, football “activities”, a giant TV screen showing football, as well as luggage lockers. This is an obvious attempt to avoid the scenes caused by Rangers fans last October. I just hope they remember to provide some portaloos. For more information visit the club’s official website.

Rafa Marquez will miss Sunday’s match with Levante due to a bruised right foot. He is working to get fit in time for Wednesday’s Copa del Rey semi final first leg against Valencia at Camp Nou. Fortunately, the Levante game should not be too difficult so I don’t suppose Marquez will be missed. 

The LFP have announced the kick off times for Jornada 26. Barça’s game at the Calderón with Atletico has been scheduled for Saturday 1st with an 8pm kick off. For the first time this season Barça and Real Madrid will play their matches at the same hour (Madrid are away to Recreativo), so you had better check which game they are showing where you watch football.

And he didn’t even flinch!