They may have lost to Osasuna over the weekend, but don't blame it on lady luck, por favor! Here's a snapshot of Barcelona's 'girlfriends club' at the Nou Camp last week during Barca's Copa del Rey semi-final fixture.

From left : Antonella Rocuzzo (Lionel Messi) Daniella Semaan (Cesc Fabregas) and Julia Vigas (Thiago Alcantara) all cheered their men on from the stands.

By Chris Wright

I'm willing to bet your gut reaction to the news that Sergio Busquets got well and truly knobbled in a challenge with Real Sociedad's Carlos Martinez during the home side's 2-1 win at the Nou Camp last night was somewhere along the lines of 'what goes around, comes around' but that doesn't make the deep laceration that the Barca midfielder suffered any less grotesque.

Vaya polemica que ha desatado esta fotografia con los supuestos uniformes de Nike para este 2012 por parte de sus equipos insignia : el Arsenal de la premier league,el Barcelona de España y los red devils del Manchester United.
Al parecer el que menos ha gustado de los tres es el de los diablos rojos, tal parece que es un mantel de picnic hecha camiseta.

Vaya polemica que ha desatado esta fotografia con los supuestos uniformes de Nike para este 2012 por parte de sus equipos insignia : el Arsenal de la premier league,el Barcelona de España y los red devils del Manchester United.
Al parecer el que menos ha gustado de los tres es el de los diablos rojos, tal parece que es un mantel de picnic hecha camiseta.

UEFA Power Rankings 20 February 2012 - The 90th Minute Soccer Blog

Below are my weekly power rankings for the top (8) clubs teams in UEFA. These rankings are a combination of their play in domestic and UEFA competitions.

Real Madrid continue to be in the top spot while there's little change in the rest of the power rankings.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that the same twenty-five in clubs from last week's rankings are all in this week's edition. That's been pretty standard recently. Nevertheless, there was more movement than usual this week because of movement at or near the top of the tables in several of Europe's top leagues.

By Chris Wright

Watch, mere mortals, and weep as the slightly more 'agricultural' 50% of Barcelona's central defence pulls off not one, but two 360° roulette tricks in a row as he maraudes his way through Valencia's midfield during last night's Copa del Rey semi-final first leg.

By Chris Wright

Watch, mere mortals, and weep as the slightly more 'agricultural' 50% of Barcelona's central defence pulls off not one, but two 360° roulette tricks in a row as he maraudes his way through Valencia's midfield during last night's Copa del Rey semi-final first leg.

Rubin Kazan vs Olympiakos 0-1 2012 Europa League Highlights Video David Fuster Goal Megyeri OSFP Red Card is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Rubin Kazan vs Olympiakos 0-1 2012 Europa League Highlights Video David Fuster Goal Megyeri OSFP Red Card is a post from Soccer Blogger.

By Chris Wright

The following photo has just landed on Pies' doormat in an unmarked Manila envelope, and professes to be the new Nike home kits for Arsenal (featuring the gruesome black collar and cuffs that Arsenalinsider alluded to a few days back), Barcelona (replete with Corel Draw 3-style colour gradient) and Manchester United (seven shades of ugly Gingham tablecloth).

Italian-born Barcelona midfielder, Thiago Alcantara whose father just happens to be former Brazilian World Cup winner Mazinho has spoken up about how difficult it is for professional footballers to make it in the game these days. Of course, his insights are not far from the truth.

No need to get shirty Bayer Leverkusen sports director Rudi Voller has vowed that two Lionel Messi shirts acquired during his side's Tuesday night defeat to Barcelona will both be auctioned for charity after his players fought over one of them at half-time. Defenders Michal Kadlec and Manuel Friedrich battled to get Messi's shirt as [.

Barcelona came back from conceding a 9th minute goal to beat Valencia 5-1 on Sunday. Lionel Messi scored four of those goals just because he can, but with Barca up 3-1 in the 77th what seemed like a routine substitution of Thiago for Cesc Fabregas got a little frisky. Fabregas gave Pep Guardiola a hug as he made his way to the bench, but after the two exchange a few calm words, Guardiola shoved Cesc by the back of the neck.

Este fin de semana el fútbol español vivió dos goles realmente fascinantes, de dos de sus mas grandes estrellas de los últimos años.

La gran batalla de los medios de comunicación Cristiano Ronaldo contra Lionel Messi, Real Madrid contra Barcelona.

El portugues Cristiano Ronaldo anoto un golazo de taquito al Rayo Vallecano en favor de su escuadra el Real Madrid , equipo que durante el partido conto con un poco de la ayuda del arbitro al no expulsar ni a Pepe ni a Sergio Ramos quienes de suavecitos no tienen nada.

Este fin de semana el fútbol español vivió dos goles realmente fascinantes, de dos de sus mas grandes estrellas de los últimos años.

La gran batalla de los medios de comunicación Cristiano Ronaldo contra Lionel Messi, Real Madrid contra Barcelona.

El portugues Cristiano Ronaldo anoto un golazo de taquito al Rayo Vallecano en favor de su escuadra el Real Madrid , equipo que durante el partido conto con un poco de la ayuda del arbitro al no expulsar ni a Pepe ni a Sergio Ramos quienes de suavecitos no tienen nada.

Time-Lapse Camp Nou

Egoi Suso Rius decided that capturing a match, in its entirety, at the Camp Nou would be something special. It's been done before, but not in 110 seconds. Egoi chose to film the Barçelona vs. Osasuna match in January and the results are fantastic. Set to musical stylings of "Sonata No.

Welcome to a slightly late edition of La Liga Lunes (La Liga Monday!) Over the weekend, the Women's FIFA Ballon d'Or winner Homare Sawa met up with Barcelona maestro Xavi at the club's training ground. Her team, INAC Kobe from the Japanese Women's league, played a friendly against Barcelona's female squad (highlights below).

Spanish club Real Madrid has for the seventh consecutive year topped the football rich list this is according to auditing and financial advisory firm Deloite &Touche. Madrid posted a turnover of £433m for the 2010/2011 season to finish first ahead of arch rivals and fellow Spanish side Barcelona who came in second with revenues of £407m.

09.02.2012 - «La verdad es que he tenido mucha suerte», resume Jose P. (26), el empresario barcelonés que terminó clavado.
Jugando para su equipo, el de la Peña Sang Culé del Barcelona (vs Club Cornellá) por la división Preferente en el pabellón municipal (del barrio) de Sant Ildefonso de Cornellá de Llobregat (Barcelona) se encontró con una desagradable sorpresa.

Welcome to the Friday Crackovia Club, where it's always a party in here before the weekend! Of course, Crackovia is one of the most craziest football sketch shows from Catalonia and this week was all about Barcelona's quest to slow down Madrid using some insane dressing room rituals.

Luis Suarez And so the villain enters stage left. After nine games out, Luis Suarez returned for twenty minutes on Monday, but it will be his second game that will raise the intrigue this Premier League weekend. Suarez announced this week that Manchester United fans booing him would simply make him play better, but one [.

Yesterday there were reports in Spain that Arsenal's Flying Dutchman had a controversial interview with Marca. He apparently said: "I am grateful to hear about the interest of a club as important as Real Madrid." For the Gunners it is definitely disturbing that their captain, Van Persie is so openly talking about the opportunity to [.

Full credit to Osasuna who played like they had nothing to fear against their vaunted opposition. Pep Guardiola resting Xavi, Iniesta, and Fabregas on the bench for the Bayer Leverkusen CL first leg sent in Thiago Alcantara, Pedro, and Sergi Roberto. The latter breaking into the first squad, all of four games old, completed the rejiggered midfield.

Real Madrid beat Levante 4-2, capitalizing on Barcelona's 3-2 loss to Osasuna on Saturday and putting themselves a comfy 10 points clear at the top of the table. Cristiano Ronaldo scored Real's first three goals -- all within 12 minutes of each other -- but his third was the perfectly arched effort from outside the box you see above.

Rumours of Jose Mourinho wanting to leave Real Madrid for the Premiership would mean only one thing: he is heading for Manchester. Since his famous Champions League win with Porto in 2004, Mourinho has had no desire to manage any side lacking truly world-class pedigree. For this very reason, a return to a depleted Chelsea side is not on the cards.

There were plenty of hilarious celebrations at Real Madrid's 4-2 win over Levante last night. Naturally, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick and decided it'd be a good idea to jump on his beloved coach (not for long, talvez?), Jose Mourinho.

UEFA Champions League Match Predictions 14 February 2012 - The 90th Minute Soccer Blog

Below are predictions for all the Champions League matches on February 14, 2012. Times listed are GMT or local UK time.

UEFA Champions League Match Predictions

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Bayer Leverkusen v Barcelona, 19:45 Barcelona wins 3-1

Lyon v APOEL Nicosia, 19:45 Lyon wins 2-0

Follow @jrf90thminute

UEFA Champions League Match Predictions 14 February 2012 - The 90th Minute Soccer Blog

Just two of the weapons...

Addition by subtraction for Jose Mourinho?

It's a big moment today for Barca. The Nou campers just crested a double-digit deficit to Real Madrid in La Liga with Real Madrid's talent it's hard to see Mourinho's troops dropping that trophy. Gulp.

The Champion's League is where Barcelona must make their name this year.

A new photo of Barcelona's home shirt for the 2012-13 season has been leaked on the Internet.

The iconic red and blue shirt of Barcelona will again be centerpiece. But this time, the blue and red colors are blended on the home shirt instead of featuring traditional stripes. The design also matches a mock-design of the Barcelona home shirt, which was leaked last month.

In a leaked photo that appeared all over the information superhighway in the last few hours, the new kit designs for Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona have been discovered. Whilst photos such as these have occasionally turned out to be hoaxes, this looks fairly legit, so let's take each in turn.

When you play in the Bundesliga, you don't get many chances to share the pitch with Lionel Messi, so Bayer Leverkusen's Michael Kadlec and Manuel Friedrich wasted no time in trying to snag Messi's shirts during the first leg of their side's Champions League tie against Barcelona. And now Bayer sporting director Rudi Voeller, himself a legendary footballer, is intent on punishing the two players for what he saw as an overzealous schoolboy pursuit of a fellow professional's shirt.

Welcome to the Friday Crackovia Club, amigos! If you still haven't heard about the best football sketch show from Catalonia (what?!!), click here. In this week's episode, Florentino Perez builds a statue of Jose Mourinho outside the Bernabeu to convince him to stay at Real Madrid.

Every football fanatic would love to get their hands on one of these youth player cards especially that belonging to a player/legend. While clubs usually authorize these official cards to be placed in their own museums (Real Madrid, for example, has a fascinating range of cards belonging to their present and former 'greats' at the Bernabeu), Lionel Messi's own had never been revealed.

If for some reason you are unaware of what happened during the game at Stamford Bridge yesterday, a section of the Chelsea fans made their feelings clear towards anyone that wanted to listen. After watching our side slip down to fifth in the league, struggling for results and performances, the fans called out for an old favourite.

The Special one por fin esta viendo la luz al final del tunel en la liga española,aunque no pueda ganarle al Barcelona en casi ningun torneo.
Pero en Italia e Inglaterra es mucho mas querido y mejor recordado que en la propia casa blanca.
Pues resulta que en el partido del Inter aficionados, lo recordaron cantandole.

Barcelona vs Valencia 5-1 Highlights 2012 Lionel Messi Xavi Goals Piatti Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Barcelona vs Valencia 5-1 Highlights 2012 Lionel Messi Xavi Goals Piatti Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Barcelona vs Valencia 2012 ( Barca Valencia 2012 video below) Final score and result:- Barcelona vs Valencia 5-1 ( Lionel Messi*4, Xavi/ Pablo Piatti) Camp Nou, Barcelona- 19 February, 2012- 20.

Pushy Pep Pep Guardiola pushed his midfielder star Cesc Fabregas in the back of his neck after subbing him during Barcelona's victory over Valencia last night. The shove seemed to be in response to something Fabregas said as he made his way off. The former Arsenal skipper seemed in jovial spirits after the push and [.

We review Barcelona's 5-1 win over Valencia, paying special attention to Cesc Fabregas: Can he replace Xavi? If so, why was Pep so mad at him? We also debate Arsene Wenger's situation: Is it time he left? We go over the MLS trade-a-thon that was Brian Ching and Eddie Johnson's non-committal stay in Montreal, and we close out the show with a dramatic round of The Wikipedia Game.

Barcelona earned a magnificent home victory over Valencia on Sunday and the inspiring performance let a bit disappointment for Barcelona's tactician, Josep Guardiola, as he bemoans about the current 10 points gap which doesn't really show the true quality of his club.

After witnessing the Catalan side's inspiring play against Valencia, Guardiola admitted that with that kind of game, Barca shouldn't be that far behind Madrid in the table.

It was barely two years ago that Inter, guided by the inextricable genius of Jose Mourinho, were the proud torch bearers of Italian football. As Milan were embarrassingly crushed 4-0 at Manchester United and as Juventus failed to even progress past the group stages, against the odds, the Nerazzurri overcame Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea as they went on to claim European football's most.