FC Barcelona vs. Brazil in 1999 - The Full Match

The beginning of the week is never enjoyable, but let's lessen the dosage of suffering with a glorious find on Youtube. 1999 was FC Barcelona's centenary year and the whole season was quite the celebration of everything FC Barcelona.

Valencia served a reminder of its proud heritage as a football team holding Barca and then denied Leo Messi a PK goal in the Copa Del Rey semi-finals first leg.

Jonas gave the home side the lead at the Mestalla but Carles Puyol who seems to have made a career scoring very important headers equalized for the Blaugrana.

You're looking at Munich's Olympiastadion, which will be the host to the Women's European Champions League Finale on May 17! The Olympiastadion was built for 1972 Olympics and it also hosted the 1974 FIFA World Cup Final. You may not recognize it because none of the games from the 2006 World Cup tournament were played there.

Messi shows frustration in draw against Villarreal (Photo: REUTERS/Heino Kalis)

Barcelona saw their La Liga title aspirations take a serious hit after suffering a goalless draw against Villarreal at El Madrigal on Saturday night.

Another road game, another setback.

It has been the same story all year long; with Barca now having dropped 13 points in league play away from the Camp Nou this season.

Pedro celebrates goal that moves Barcelona through to next round of Copa (Photo: REUTERS/Albert Gea)

In a battle of titans, Barcelona held on to defeat Real Madrid 4-3 on aggregate and eliminate the defending Champions from the Copa del Rey.

It was everything a clasico should be: a high-octane encounter of offensive brilliance and heart-stopping tension.

Messi scores another hat trick in victory over Malaga (Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)

An inspired three-goal performance from Lionel Messi saw Barcelona defeat Malaga 4-1 at La Rosaleda, keeping the Catalans within striking distance of Real Madrid in the race for the La Liga title.

John Nyen sees parallels

The two managers sit across from each other, both hooked up to the machine. The humming and whirring increases as they are instructed by the lab technician in the white coat.

"Think of your ideal, of what you want your team to become.

Abidal fires the winning blast to defeat Real Madrid (Photo: REUTERS/Susana Vera)

Barcelona mounted a second half comeback to defeat Real Madrid 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu, extracting a measure of vengeance for their defeat in last year's Copa del Rey Final at the hands of their eternal rivals.

By Joe Milord

With La Liga having resumed, Jose Mourinho finds himself in a familiar situation. After all, in some ways, he has been here before; back against the wall, protecting a lead, against the same opposition as well, but in a much different context.

By David Chalmers

If you'll excuse the pun and read on...

Over a number of years, football has played with systems and tried to define formations while the brains on the bench tell us that their players aren't confined to a sole set of instructions, but taking a look at the Premier League this season, it's looking increasingly more like target men are the focal point of most sides at this moment in time.

FC Barcelona resumed domestic action last night following their triumph in the FIFA Club World Cup and helped themselves to a 9-0 rout over third tier side L'Hospitalet in the Round of 32 of the Copa Del Rey (Spanish Cup).

Barcelona, who already led 1-0 from the first leg of this tie, played a relatively strong side against their Catalonian neighbours and had Pedro to thank for getting the ball rolling after just 11 minutes when converting a penalty to open the scoring.

Cesc goal helps Barcelona past Real Madrid 1-3 (Photo: REUTERS/Sergio Perez)

Barcelona recovered from conceding the quickest goal in El Clasico history to defeat Real Madrid 3-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu, delivering a decisive blow in the race for the La Liga title.

The victory snaps Madrid's 15 game winning streak and sees Barcelona leapfrog their bitter rivals to reclaim first place in the provisional Primera Division standings.

Write off Barcelona at your peril: The European champions show their worth at the Santiago Bernabeu - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Saturday's El Clasico between Barcelona and Real Madrid lived up to all expectations; there was passion, spell-bounding skill and goals the only thing missing was the heavily anticipated Madrid victory.

szólj hozzá: Real Madrid 1-3 Barcelona

There are fewer joys in the world than the spectacle of seeing Barca coming to the Santiago Bernabeu and beat the crap out of Jose Mourinho's brownshirts. Which they proceeded to do summarily in the first edition of this year's El Clasico.

Real is considered favorites to win La Liga and the Champions League this season but they need to solve the riddle that Barca poses them.

REAL MADRID
• Real Madrid, líder de la Liga BBVA, ha ganado los últimos 15 partidos consecutivos en todas las competencias en las que ha participado, igualando su récord histórico de 41 años.
• El Madrid no ha perdido puntos en más de dos meses y medio: su último tropiezo fue un empate en cero frente al Racing Santander el 21 de Septiembre de este mismo año.

Former Barcelona coach Cesar Menotti believes that Real Madrid are afraid of Barca ever since they were beaten 5-0 in La Liga last season.

The Blaugrana hammered the Santiago Bernabeu side in November 2010, and Menotti feels that Madrid have never really recovered since that heavy loss at Camp Nou, despite having met several more times after that game.

FIFA's final 3 man shortlist for the coveted World Player of the year award were announced yesterday and usual suspects Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo made the Cut. Joining the pair is Messi's Barcelona team mate Xavi.

Messi who has won the award on two previous occasions, is looking to make history by wining the award for the third consecutive year at the award gala ceremony in Zurich's Kongresshaus on January 9th.

Barcelona warmed up nicely for Saturday's 'El Clasico' with a fine 5-0 thrashing of Levante thanks to a double by Cesc Fabregas, Joan Cuenca, Lionel Messi and Alexis Sanchez. The win keeps La Blaugrana second in the table on 34 points, three points behind Real Madrid but having played one match more.

After beating Milan 3-2 at the San Siro on Wednesday, i certainly was not expecting Defending European and Spanish League champions Barcelona to lose to Getafe.

If anything, i expected them to reduce the points margin on leaders Real Madrid who were themselves facing a tough opponent in Atletico Madrid at the Bernabeu.

Pique celebrates goal against Zaragoza (Photo: REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino)

Barcelona continued their impeccable home form this season, cruising to a comfortable 4-0 victory over bottom feeders Real Zaragoza.

With a critical group stage match against AC Milan looming on the horizon, Guardiola rested regulars Abidal, Iniesta, Busquets and Villa.

Iniesta's goal takes first leg of Copa del Rey 0-1 (Photo: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

A 42nd minute thunderbolt from Andres Iniesta proved enough to see Barcelona past modest third division rivals CE L'Hospitalet in the blaugrana's first Copa del Rey match of the season.

The game was moved up several weeks due to Barcelona's participation in the Club World Cup next month.

Al Camp Nou il Barcelona non delude le aspettative, in questa giornata di Liga, e questa volta passa, in scioltezza, sul corpo del Racing Santander con il risultato di 3 a 0. Partita che si trasforma subito in un assedio blaugrana della porta avversaria. Bastano 11 minuti ai ragazzi di Guardiola per trovare il vantaggio: [.

In yesterday's pre-match press conference, Valencia manager Unai Emery praised Barcelona by stating that when "they have a good day, you're only choice is to choose how you're going to die." Today, however, the Blaugrana faced one of their toughest away fixtures of the season in a stadium where they have won a Copa del Rey final and lost another.

Stesso allenatore, stesso risultato, Pep Guardiola è il legame vincente della squadra più forte del pianeta calcio. L'altra sera al Camp Nou il Barcellona ha dominato, stravolto, stregato, impietrito gli avversari del Villarreal, praticamente inesistenti, mai con un possesso palla che andasse oltre i tre, quattro passaggi.

Stesso allenatore, stesso risultato, Pep Guardiola è il legame vincente della squadra più forte del pianeta calcio. L'altra sera al Camp Nou il Barcellona ha dominato, stravolto, stregato, impietrito gli avversari del Villarreal, praticamente inesistenti, mai con un possesso palla che andasse oltre i tre, quattro passaggi.

Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fabregas all smiles sporting their new colors! Glory and lifting Cups is what awaits them.

After 3 seasons of seeing magical football displayed by arguably the best football team ever assembled I asked myself if it could ever get better than this. The answer is YES!

Bojan at AS Roma playing in second leg of UEFA Europa (Photo: Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)

With La Liga finally about to begin after a long summer, I wanted to commence with what I hope will become a once a week article covering some of our wonderful players playing abroad in Europe. I am open to suggestions on players who will feature in these articles but to start with I will follow Nolito (Benfica), Oriol Romeu (Chelsea), and Bojan Krkic (AS Roma).

74° titolo per lo straordinario club blaugrana del Barcellona che, con il risultato di 2 a 0 (deciso dalle firme di Messi e di Fabregas su assist dell'argentino), supera il Porto a Montecarlo e si aggiudica la quarta Supercopppa Europea della sua storia, quarto titolo del 2011 (dopo la Liga, la Supercoppa spagnola e la [.

FC Barcelona won the UEFA Super Cup in Monaco last night beating FC Porto by two goals to nil. It is the second trophy already this season for the Catalans who had also won their domestic super cup against Real Madrid less than a fortnight ago.

The spirited Portuguese started the game sharper and had some good early chances against the favourites.

Who will follow Atlético Madrid as Super Cup winners?

The UEFA Super Cup will be held on Friday night with 2010-11 UEFA Champions League winners FC Barcelona ready to take on the 2010-11 UEFA Europa League holders FC Porto in a massive Iberian derby. These two clubs have been the dominant forces in their respective countries in recent years and both teams are hoping to add yet another trophy to their already bulging trophy cabinets this weekend.

By Chris Wright

Barcelona beat Napoli 5-0 to win their 36th (out of 46) Joan Gamper Trophy at the Camp Nou last night, a match that saw Cesc Fabregas notch his first goal in blaugrana after starting up front in Leo Messi's 'false 9′ position duly opening the scoring by nudging home Adriano's cross.

Looks like it after yesterday's great game. I had already referred to Mourinho as being the first hacker coach in football's history. The Special One is transforming the classy image that Real Madrid has patiently built up since 1902. Pepe and Marcelo are his preferred hound dogs in this image transformation of the Merengues.

Clive Mason/Getty Images (Bleacher Report)The arrival of Cesc Fabregas means Pep Guardiola and his transfer saga other the form Arsenal man is finally over. Personally I am extremely thankful for that.
However, there are still many rumors circulating about players that the young masterful tactician could possibly be thinking about eyeing up for the future.

Messi celebrates goal in first leg of Spanish Super Cup (Photo: AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

You can watch FC Barcelona take on Real Madrid in the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup live on ESPN Deportes (4pm ET, 17th August)

The Spanish Super Cup returns to the Camp Nou on Wednesday evening as both sides are even at two goals a piece.

Real Madrid and Barcelona are featured prominently in the new FIFA 12 trailer to promote the video game, which will be released in North America on September 27 and in Europe on September 30.

After watching the above video, you might be surprised by whether Los Blancos or Blaugrana score, so watch the above video to find out the answer.

Por Ernesto Rosado Magallón / @ernestormlmpf
La Liga BBVA comenzará un año más con dos claros favoritos, Real Madrid y Barcelona, principalmente por el desigual reparto de los derechos televisivos donde ambos clubes cobran más del triple que sus perseguidores, Valencia y Atlético de Madrid.

Ronaldo vs Messi in Spanish Super Cup (Photo: Getty Images)

Derbies for Super Cup glory have been going on all around Europe this year; Schalke 04 defeated Borussia Dortmund in penalties at the end of July to win the DFL Supercup, AC Milan took out Inter Milan this saturday with two second half goals to obtain the Supercoppa Italiana, and just this Sunday Manchester United came back from a 2-0 deficit to Manchester city and lifted the community shield.

"Barcelona's philosophy never changes. Speed of thought, and speed of mind, enable the players to take control of any match" is how Nike describes the successful formula that the Blaugrana preaches.

After watching this 90 second video, you get a good glimpse of what separates Barcelona from many of their competitors in Europe as well as how intense their training sessions are.

Denis Doyle/Getty Image (Bleacher Report)Barcelona B squad midfielder Oriol Romeu is the latest member of the Nou Camp to move to England as the 19-year old player will move to London after agree to terms on a four-year contract. His starting fee is 5 million, but his contract has additional options that Barcelona may exercise in time.

Alex Livesey/Getty Images (Bleacher Report) Lionel Messi has stolen the Champion's League spotlight this year as he leads the competition with 11 goals as Pep Guardiola's Barcelona team heads into the final against Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson.
Messi's two goals against archrival Real Madrid in the first leg of their eventual triumph were what allowed the Blaugrana to advance, and he will be keen to continue his success this year and hopefully help his side raise the Champions League Trophy once more.