We as fans can dream of such an achievement. Can't see what's wrong with that. Its important however, that the players stay calm and humble. I'm sure Pep is trying to do just that. For that reason, I am veeeery happy and optimistic

IINM, Chygrynskiy has been at least a good defender in FM since 2-3 seasons ago.

Should be a little bit worried, but I'm calm now. Since we are playing at home, and at home we always dictate the game. We only lost at home when the defense make terrible mistakes, like against Espanyol last season. Thank god, because the league will have a short break, so Iniesta and Marquez have more time to recover from their injuries.

Hoping that Toure will wave his magic wand for us again.

I'm sure nobody forgets him. But for today's match, he is going to replace Messi, and it is not the easiest task to complete. Even Hleb failed miserably.

I'm certainly not counting on him to baing in the goals. I would rather count on Ibra and Henry for the job.

LOL, weh, ape brand? Gonna stay in front of the TV tomorrow 24 hours

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Added on September 1, 2009, 3:12 am

Barca, Barca, Baaaaaarca!!!!

This post has been edited by matyrze: Sep 1 2009, 03:12 AM

On top of that, according to Sport, he doesn't like cars, clubs, alcohols and likes literature. His mates back in Ukraine used to call him Jesus Christ.

Thx bro. Will download it.

BTW, our Pique scored a brilliant goal against Belgium for Spain. He brought the ball forward by himself, and continues his run into the Belgian penalty box to score. 'Pique'bauer indeed

I think I've stopped updating myself about Barca since the 2nd death of the Fcbtransfer blog. Really sad.

Hoping del Bosque will give Xavi some rest tonight, although that is really unlikely.

Gila lah, malam raya pon nak tengok bola gak. Not sure whether we will have live or not. Gonna sleep first. See y'all later.

Hey you guys, have you all read about the latest scandal surrounding Barca's board right now? It sounds like our 4 vice presidents are all being spied on by, erm, Laporta!! El presidente has been spying his own vice presidents. Have you all heard such sort of things before?

Sport (iinm) has published a cartoon depicting Guardiola cleaning Barca crest after Laporta tainted it. Seriously, I can't see how candidate from Laporta's side is going to win next year's election. Sandro must be loving all of those recent news.

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Added on October 2, 2009, 12:47 amOh, here is the cartoon



Use translator yourself.

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Added on October 2, 2009, 1:19 amSid Lowe gave some insights on the scandal.

This post has been edited by matyrze: Oct 2 2009, 01:19 AM

I beg to differ. We are not lucky. We earned the win. But the players were clearly not having the best game.

Ibra was having a bad game, but IMHO, so do other players. I mean nearly all of them. Only Puyol was great. Marquez was awful, maybe because he was still short on fitness. Xavi and Iniesta were not showing their usual creativity. And Messi, well, if we are going to criticized Ibra, I think Messi should also be criticized. He too lost the ball way too easily.

Back to Ibra, yes he is still not fitting in well into our system. But remember, there are not many new players who could adapt to Barca's style of play. Henry, Yaya and Keita needed a whole 1 year to adapt. Guddy failed. Hleb Failed. No wonder if Ibra takes time too. For me, Ibra's goal ratio per match so far is already impressive for a newcomer.

As Pep said, Ibra will get all the time he needs to assimilate into our system. I really have faith with Pep, just because I feel that Pep just knows what he is doing.

And I also can't agree that our gameplay was unpredictable last season. Remember what people said after the Stamford Bridge match? Yes they said our game was very predictable, mainly playing through the middle. Our wingers rarely cross. Always cutting inside. Only Alves tends to cross, but then, there was actually nobody could head the ball, except Keita. We won the treble, simply because our players are really really good at what they do, dribbling and passing, that many teams simply can't cope with. This season is different, as all teams so far have been playing Chelsea-like ultra-defensive tactic against us, including the Italian champs. I believe Pep wants Ibra to be the solution to this problems. And I think he has already think long and hard enough about this.

Generally, Barca played poorly as a team. Absolutely not fair to blame any individual. Pep yesterday also said he was surprised with Almeria's tactics. Xavi and Iniesta was man marked super tightly, sacrificing their own gameplay. But he also said that he already has the solution if we encounter such team with that tactic again.

IMO, Messi was played in the middle to preserve his energy. Winger runs a lot, and gets tackled a lot. So the risk of getting injured is bigger if he plays there. So there are certain matches that require him to play more modestly. It is important to keep him fit so that he can continue helping us gunning all 4 trophies left for us to grab.

I watched the match Navas + Adriano = Marcelo got raped big time!!

Have been reading news and comments in the net, and found out that all Barca and Messi haters are all in the mood to type essays.

It is never bad to draw in Mestalla. We lost Henry and Ibra, forcing Iniesta to play as forward. That has already complicated things. I think we did well enough. Our defenders were great. Puyol was immensely good. And my friends kept asking me why Man Utd sold a defender as good as Pique.

And Valdes, well, he saved us, and he did it again again and again. Only 4 goals conceded in 11 matches. Keep on performing Valdes, until del Bosque could not overlook you any longer.

I am just hoping Barca have serious plan to let Messi, at least, has the opportunity to take a deep proper breath. To play in Buenos Aires, then at Montevideo, then at Valencia, in just 1 week, that is really really horrible.

Yeah, it is inevitable. But still the fact that he traveled thousand of miles, to play 3 very important matches, that is ridiculous. He played full 90 minutes in those matches. And now we are gonna have an UCL match. I will not be surprised if Pep choose to field Bojan and leave Messi out. Actually, that is what I'm hoping for.

IMHO, no, he is not. Bojan is actually best as a out and out striker. But his main weakness here is his physique. If he can improve on his physique or his composure, he may be our own Villa. For now, his best position is at the wings, but it is undeniable that his ball distributing is horrendous. He certainly has a lot to improve on.

They both are fast, but they don't have enough experience to use their pace against good defenders. But I also prefer Pedro over Bojan at the wings though.

For me, the biggest culprit was Marquez. He was very slow. When Rubin counterattacked, he and Pique struggled to cover at the back. Puyol always manages to find ways to pull opponents into offside position, especially in the situation for the 2nd goal. So there we have it, we have 2 shots on goal against us, and both were the goals Rubin scored from.

Iniesta also underperformed. His passing was not good. And I do think many of our players were suffering from fatigue. Expect more reinforcement being brought in January.

This is great news But actually Puyol has still not sign the renewal yet. We have to wait for another several days.

Zaragoza is our opponent tonight. A chance for ourselves to have a 3 point cushion over RM. Hoping that we will grab the win.

Team list: Valdés and Pinto; Defenders Puyol, Márquez, Piqué, Chygrynskiy, Maxwell and Abidal; midfielders Touré, Busquets, Keita, Xavi and Iniesta; forwards Jeffren, Bojan, Pedro, Ibrahimovic and Messi.

Great game for us against Zaragoza. Messi was fit enough to run again. He even scored a goal, and I'm really relieved.

Keita's performance was also very promising. I think he has already gelled into our system really well. He has minimized considerably the effect of Iniesta's absence so far. He is another example that we should be patient with our new players. If they are given enough time, be it 1 month, or 1 year, they will eventually become really good.

On another note, have anybody here realized Guddy was also at the Camp Nou too? He is another example, showing that Barca is a club that always produce 'honorary' Catalans. People always highlighted Barca's relationship with players like Maradona, Ronaldo, Ronnie, and Eto'o as proofs that Barca can never held good relationship with their star players, while in fact, there are so many ex players who have a lot of fond memories here.

Guddy's family is still at Barcelona, because his son is playing for our cadete team, and obviously he will live in the city after his retirement. There are soooo many other ex players who fall in love with the club and the city, like Cruyff, but the ultimate example was Laszlo Kubala, our legendary star in 50s, who lives in the city until his death.

Now I'm still waiting news about Eto'o's football academy in Cameroon which has brought several young Cameroonian to La Masia, like Etock and Armand Ella. Hoping the academy is still up alive. And with it, Eto'o's allegiance with Barca won't just die like that.

The list of nominees for World Player of The Year Award has been published. 6 Barca players feature in the list Congratulations to Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Puyol, Henry, and Ibrahimovic.

@cavarella, nice post you got there. Got to say that although Abidal is a bit of a withdrawn person, he likes to joke with Bojan, and Pique always defended Bojan with his pranks

Now it is official, Puyol has signed the contract extension with Barca. Congratulations Puyi

This post has been edited by matyrze: Oct 31 2009, 03:43 PM

Yeap, he looked like a noob in that particular mistake. Pique and Puyol would have never done that, seriously.

I thought we already did just well, just like last season. Reyno de Navarra is indeed a very fiery place for big teams. Can't really expect easy times while playing there.

And did anybody realize Mark Hughes was also on the stand? What was his business actually? Please don't say that he came to scout Henry/Toure/Puyol.

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Added on November 1, 2009, 3:26 pmLarsson remembers his farewell to professional football

At age of 38, former Barcelona player Henrik Larsson, put an end of his career on Wednesday. Barcelona players Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernandez and Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave a work of gratitude and admiration for the Swedish striker, who had recorded the same on Wednesday morning in Sant Joan Despi. Ibrahimovic sent the longest and maybe the most excited message for his national team colleague: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You helped me a lot at first and I was delighted to have played with you. I feel I let the football but we know that this decision must be made at any time. In any case, life goes on and I wish you luck from now on, whatever you do. I wish you well.”

The words of Xavi were probably the funniest: “Henrik, you machine, we remember a lot about you. We miss you very much. Good luck from now with your family and stuff, you phenomenal ‘kid’ .” Barcelona captain Carles Puyol also participated in the award session and was grateful for the contribution of Larsson in the team: “Henrik,I just say it was an honor to play with you, and from now on, I wish you luck outside of the pitch. I wish that you are doing very well and have good luck with your family and life. Remember that Barcelona is your home.”

These messages and many more were addressed to Henrik Larsson at the olympic stadium of Helsingborg, Sweden. Larsson himself was excited and very touched: “I usually never show my feelings, but this is unbelievable.”

totalbarca.com

This post has been edited by matyrze: Nov 1 2009, 03:26 PM