Remember the young girl who was distraught when she didn't get to meet Xavi at the Spain World Cup victory parade? A clever Catalan TV station has come up with the brilliant idea of bringing here along to the studio and making her dream come true. Emotional? Xavi certainly seems to think so. The Barca [.

By Chris Wright

Reports emanating from Israel (namely the Ma'ariv newspaper) are claiming that Barcelona's historic shirt sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation is in jeopardy as the Arab organisation have been accused of forging direct links with Islamic (and, for the record, Palestinian) terrorist group Hamas.

Arsenal's frozen assets are in the form of key players returning to fitness and form if everything goes our way, we may see the loss of yesterday's game as a bonus in that it gives us a little more time to get closer to full strength. The return of Cesc, Vermaelen, Ramsey and Diaby would make us a force to be reckoned with capable of fighting on many fronts and yes, beating Barcelona why not?

By Chris Wright

Salt and indeed pepper

The agent of Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has rubbished rumours that his client is being courted by most of European football's biggest fish, claiming that no contact has been made with any club be it Inter Milan, Chelsea or Manchester United.

Are you becoming frustrated, stampy and/or stabby trying to navigate the wasteland of blatantly fake footballer accounts and semi-convincing fake footballer handles on Twitter?

Never fear, Jermaine Jenas is here to help.

No, really. After seeing all the fakers out there, homeboy's stepping up as a beacon of social media clarity.

By Chris Wright

Allow Pies to sum up Barcelona's 5-0 tanking of Real Sociedad at the weekend in concise, 'video essay' format.

A goal apiece from David Villa, Andres Iniesta and Bojan Krkic coupled with a pair of intricate pearlers from Leo Messi ensured that Barca's day contained several elements of 'the sublime' .

Netherlands international winger Ibrahim Afellay was officially presented as an FC Barcelona player on Friday following his 3 million euro move from Dutch Eredivisie side PSV Eindhoven. The four and a half year deal will see PSV receive a percentage of any fee that Afellay is sold for and Barça play them in their centenary [.

Not quite but the back of a fag packet but pretty close Not too many used paper napkins have a lifespan of 10 years. But the one signed by Lionel Messi on December 14, 2000, to secure his move to Barcelona is still going strong and takes pride of place in the office of his [...]

Arsenal's upcoming match up against Barcelona in the Champions League has grown lots of pessimism in England regarding the Gunner's chances in getting through from the knock out round as in the past few meetings with the Spanish side, Arsene Wenger's team have always comes out short.

Despite there's un obvious fear about their chances, the London club's skipper, Cesc Fabregas, tried to calm the nerves of his teammates and supported by claiming that their team still have a shot on the meeting.

David Villa scored a double assisted twice by MessiGoing into El Clasico both Barcelona and Real Madrid looked dangerous and confident as they swept through La Liga with few difficulties. To say the truth, Real Madrid was the team which was full of momentum going into El Clasico, especially considering that they'd won their last seven matches and hadn't lost in La Liga yet before they travelled to the Camp Nou.

Totti said after the 5-0 great game: "This Barcelona is unbeatable, if three teams had played yesterday against Barca they would have all lost, not only Real Madrid. The Barca players were...
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Not even a wildcat strike by Spanish air traffic controllers could slow Lionel Messi and Barcelona this weekend.

Barcelona traveled by train and bus to Pamplona, and despite arriving just before kickoff, they still managed to beat Osasuna 3-0. The late arrival seemed to upset the La Liga leaders who took longer than usual to settle.

FC Barcelona followed their 5-0 rout of Real Madrid with a 3-0 win at Osasuna in Spanish La Liga action on Saturday. The Catalan giants made a last-minute dash by train and bus to Pamplona following a strike by Spanish air traffic controllers to arrive at the Reyno de Navarra stadium just before the match's scheduled [.

FC Barcelona's breeding ground, La Masia is guranteed to be crowned as the "Best in the World" after the sensational trio of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were shortlisted for Inaugral FIFA Ballon d'Or award. This has to be one of the most proudest moemnt as far as a FC Barcelona supporter is concerned.

FC Barcelona would be looking for their first win against Rubin Kazan

Having already qualified as the Group leaders, FC Barcelona's final group match against Rubin Kazan usually should invoke only academic interest. But I doubt it. Guardiola might be taking this test a bit serious than other thinks.

Tottenham Hotspur: The fourth place English club from last season is currently in first place in Group A with 10 points earned in 5 matches. If they win this week then they will likely remain on top of the group with a 3 goal advantage currently over the defending champs.

Inter: Rafa's new club is safe for now, but need a win and a Tottenham draw to seal the first seed.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — FC Copenhagen became the first Danish club to reach the Champions League knockout stages on Tuesday after they outclassed Greek side Panathinaikos 3-1. Goals by Martin Vingard, a penalty by 33-year-old veteran Jesper Gronkjaer and an own goal by former Liverpool misfit Djibril Cisse eased the Danish side into the last 16.

Our FC Barcelona fan site is reporting that Barcelona are considering putting a sponsors name on their shirts. From the article:

One of the things that has set Barcelona apart from other teams is that Barca has in the past refused to put a sponsors name on their shirts, instead preferring to promote UNICEF.

Our FC Barcelona fan site is reporting that Barcelona are considering putting a sponsors name on their shirts. From the article:

One of the things that has set Barcelona apart from other teams is that Barca has in the past refused to put a sponsors name on their shirts, instead preferring to promote UNICEF.

Qatar Royal Family has become the official sponsors for Barca

I wouldn't say that this is the worst news since election of Sandro Rosell, there were a procession of them. But this one was the least expected. According to Javier Faux, Barca vice-president FC Barcelona has reched an agreement in principle to sport Qatar foundation's Logo on the much holy FC Barcelona jersey.

Barcelona will be paid to carry a sponsor on their shirt – for the first time in their 111-year history. A deal with the Qatar Foundation will earn the Catalan club €30m (£25m) a year until 2016, with further bonuses payable according to success on the field.

Defending champions FC Barcelona continued their recent fine run of form with a 5-0 defeat of Real Sociedad at the Camp Nou on Sunday. The win sees Barca maintain their two point lead over challengers Real Madrid at the top of the Spanish La Liga. David Villa, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and substitute Bojan Krkic all [.

Few teams go into Old Trafford and come out succesfull.

its just one of those stadiums like Nou Camp or Bernabeu where your chances of success are unlikely.

Of course nothing is impossible.

Maybe that ref wont invent a red card and you can play on an even field..

maybe not.

By Chris Wright

Manchester City have confirmed that they have finally completed the signing of former Barcelona prodigy Gai Assulin on a two-and-a-half year contract this morning after tailing the Israeli youngster since he was released by the Catalans in July.

December Half Time Heroes is here.
World Cup fall-out, Mariners at play, Barca v Real, Cartoons, Buckle-Up Ben it's all here.

more thoughts on Sigi's Arrow

this picks right up where I left off yesterday

The search for the "regista"

We aren't going to find a true "Xavi" because this is the MLS. The closest we have right now is probably Brad Evans, who unfortunately was almost ruined this last year before his injury with the tragicomic attempt to play him at center forward or right wing.

By Chris Wright

Barcelona folklore has it that, having astounded everybody by running rings around the club's older youth teams back in 2000 aged just 13, Lionel Messi's father threatened to pull the plug on his son's association with the Catalans during a restaurant meeting with Barca's sporting director at the time Charly Rexach if a deal could not be struck there and then.

Andres Iniesta likely is just weeks away from being crowned the world's greatest soccer player, but his days at Barcelona may be numbered, a club source told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday.

Iniesta's spectacular year included the winning goal for Spain in the World Cup final, and the 26-year-old is a strong favorite to win the FIFA Ballon D'Or award for player of the year on Jan.

Gai Assulin was born in Nahariya on the 9th of April 1991 and signed for Manchester City from Barcelona in December, 2010. He is one of Israel's exceptional young talents that exist among football today.

Assulin started his career at the footballing school of Hapoel Haifa. When he was just seven years old, Assulin moved to the Bietar Tubruk youth ranks.

Would you like to see the back of Denilson?

You know it's bad when someone mouthed off something bad about your team and your team does not stuff it back right down the idiot's throat. That is exactly what happened for Arsenal and Patrice Evra. The United player downplayed Arsenal's chance to win the league this season in the run-up to the Monday night game and we had a chance to make him eat his words.

Well, after several years of getting lucky in Champions League draw, it seems like our gambler's luck has caught up to us. It always does. For the second consecutive draw, we draw FC Barcelona.

Let me just honestly say I'm not too upset about this. Yes, I would have preferred any of the other 3 teams we could have drawn.

By Ollie Irish

According to El Mundo, this is what the next Barcelona home shirt will look like, complete with Qatar Foundation logo on the chest – tis the first commercial shirt sponsor Barca have agreed to. Looks like the Unicef logo is relegated to the back. A shame but you can't blame the Catalan club for bowing to market forces, not when they are heavily in debt.

Well we all knew that fate would throw Barcelona at us again once it was certain Arsenal would finish second in the Group Stages, and other than the obvious difficulty of facing the most in-form team in the world, the other big problem is that it will once again ignite the "Fabregas to Barcelona" talk [.

Barcelona Derby Lives upto its expectation

FC Barcelona remained at the top of table going into the mid season break with a 5-1 win over city rivals Espanyol. Pedro and Villa scored twice and Xavi scored once for Barca in a very tough match. This definitely was the best game seen in La Liga till now in this season.

Well i must admit this match had me nervous.

Real Sociedad at home are a tough team to beat.

And we havent exactly inspired alot of confidence on the pitch lately either.

You can only imagine my mood when our boys went down a goal early due to a penalty by David Navarro.

I wasnt that hopefull.

Well, well, well; once again the draw for the first knockout round of the Champions league has thrown out some cracking ties right across the board and once again 4 English sides are involved. The fixture that leaps off the page is a mouth watering tie between Arsenal and Barcelona. Arsenal were always likely to [.

Tonights Copa del Rey match is set to be an explosive encounter.

We do not forget our last meeting not so long ago.

It rained cards.

The ref was an insult to football

The match was rough and nasty both on the field and in the stands.

Have no doubt these teams are true rivals on any given day.

Athletic Bilbao survived a late barrage of Barcelona pressure to earn a 0-0 draw at the Nou Camp in a Copa del Rey last-16 first leg match. The second leg is scheduled for January 5.

Barca and Bilbao, who have won the cup 48 times between them, last met in the competition in the 2009 final when Pep Guardiola's side ran out 4-1 winners on their way to a six-trophy haul that year.

First, apologies for not sharing my thoughts on the home game against Partizan - work got in the way and I didn't really have any spare time.
Suffice to say, it's a little worrying that after winning our first three games we spent a chunk of the second half of Matchday six asking what the score was in the Braga game.

Image: ABC.es.

"I have not said anything (about a possible wedding) to anyone. It's an absolute lie. I'm so in love but I'm too young".

- Malena Costa finally revealed that although she and Carles Puyol are 'very much in love,' she hasn't got a Danny La Rue how the mixed marriage messages about her and the big Barca man got started.