Sad. Still no central defender

FC Barcelona celebrate the National Day of Catalonia

Catalonia celebrates the National Day of Catalonia this Wednesday, September 11, with a series of events that started off with the traditional floral offering at the Rafael Casanova monument in Barcelona. FC Barcelona was represented at the event by vice-presidents Carles Vilarrubí and Jordi Cardoner.

The directors Jordi Moix, Jordi Mestre, Dídac Lee and Josep Ramon Vidal-Abarca accompanied Vilarrubí and Cardoner at the event. The FC Barcelona entourage was not only made up of members from the Board of Directors, it also boasted the presence of of managers and players from the Club's professional teams, Club committee members, representatives from the Club’s Women’s team and youth football, and members from the Barça Players Association. President Sandro Rosell was unable to attend due to prior engagements with the ECA in Geneva.

Tata Martino’s first ‘Diada’

The manager Tata Martino, who was accompanied by Gerard Piqué, experienced his first National Day of Catalonia. Manager Xavi Pascual (handball), Ricardo Muñoz and Aitor Egurrola (roller hockey), and Marc Carmona and Jordi Torras (futsal) also attended the event. Víctor Tomás was unable to attend due to illness. The Club’s basketball manager and captain were also not able to attend because the team is currently in Andorra preparing for the upcoming season. However, the team’s technical secretary, Joan Creus, the Barça B manager Aleix Duran and Barça B player Nick Spires were in attendance. The entourage was complete with Xavi Llorens and Vicky Losada (FCB Women’s Team) and various representatives from the team’s youth academy.

In addition to FC Barcelona, the Barça Players Association, represented its president, Ramon Alfonseda, also offered up a floral offering at the Rafael Casanova monument.

Quoted from Barca's Official site

Valdés
Montoya
Piqué
Fàbregas
Xavi
Iniesta
Alexis
Messi
Neymar
Dos Santos
Pinto
Mascherano
Bartra
Sergio
Song
Jordi Alba
Tello
Adriano
Dani Alves
Sergi Roberto

The manager is happy with the condition of the players that have returned from international duty, although he has decided to give Pedro a rest because “we have to think about how much the players have been playing and Pedro worked very hard against Chile”.

Carles Puyol was able to join some of today’s training session, and that is of course good news for Martino because “it means we’ll have the third centre back that so many people are talking about, and it also means the team will get its captain back. He was happy to have been able to train with the team for the first time. I’m sure we’ll get him working harder next week and after the Real Sociedad game we should be able to start arranging more formal training for him”.

As for Neymar and Messi, the duo that travelled the furthest this week, Martino commented that “we’ll see how they’re feeling on Saturday and decide whether they are fit enough to play the whole match or not”.

Barcelona line-up (official): Valdes - Alves Pique Mascherano Alba - Xavi Busquets Iniesta - Tello Messi Neymar #fcblive

Just curious. What will happen if Barca B wins the Segunda?

The dropped Busquets is the only change from the squad that played Ajax

Puyol is left out, but joined the squad for part of the final training session before departing for Madrid.

FC Barcelona will be taking a squad of 19 players to Madrid. The coaches have decided to rest Sergio Busquets, while the other players as the same as the ones that faced Ajax. So, Tata Martino, who is flying straight to Madrid from Argentina and will be waiting for the team there, will need to drop one more player from the definitive squad to take on Rayo Vallecano.

The injured Carles Puyol, Jordi Alba, Isaac Cuenca and Ibrahim Afellay all stay behind as well.

Final session

Before the squad was announced, the players met one last time to train before heading for Madrid on Saturday morning. Gerard Piqué, despite his minor injury worries, was with them as, as was Carles Puyol. Both players were able to train with the others, but only the former has been included in the list.

wtf happened to valdes, save 2nd penalty on consecutive  game.. jz woah

From what i c is that whenever busquet not playing, the opponent can pressed us harder. busquet tricky n one touch passes are awesome. Pity neymar, can c how hard he tried to score. Hope his time will cone soon.