FC Barcelona All Thing

Barcelona celebrate their 110th birthday in style by taking down Real Madrid with a lone goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to win the 159th edition of the clásico and take back first place.

Barcelona entered the match with a depleted squad and were hurt by their toothless front line of Iniesta, Henry and Messi, who had trouble linking up. Madrid controlled the first half and would have likely taken the lead without two great saves from Valdes.

In the second half Barcelona took control of the match, subbing out an invisible Henry in the 50th minute for Ibrahimovic, who quickly made his mark on his first clásico by scoring on a perfect cross from Alves, who would go on to create other chances later on including a Messi 1 on 1 that was shot too early.

Madrid was given a lifeline when Busquets got himself unnecessarily sent off in the 65h minute with a handball but Madrid failed to convert the advantage, with captain Puyol making vital tackles throughout the match to ensure celebration in the streets of Catalonia tonight as Barcelona reclaim first place.

The match concluded with Lassana Diarra sent off in the last minute.

Barça have confirmed that Eric Abidal has contracted swine flu whilst midfielder Yaya Touré is having tests for the illness having shown symptoms of the virus.

“Eric Abidal and Toure Yaya have viral-like symptoms with fever and general discomfort,” read a club statement. “Relevant tests have been carried out on both players.

“In Abidal’s case, these tests confirm he is suffering from swine flu.

“As for Toure, during Friday it could be confirmed whether these symptoms are also a result of swine flu.

“Nevertheless, he is certainly sidelined for Saturday’s match against Athletic Club.

“The medical services are working following the protocols established by the health department isolating the players, carrying out symptomatic treatment and giving appropriate hygienic measures.”

Lionel Messi has a suspected tear in his left thigh after he was substituted off at Sam Mamés on Saturday night.

“We took him off because he was in pain. We’ll do more tests tomorrow but the outlook is not good,” manager Guardiola told a news conference following Barça’s disappointing 1-1 draw against Athletic Bilbao which saw the champions drop down to second behind new league leaders Real Madrid.

The number of players unavailable to Guardiola ahead of the season defining week next week is increasing at an alarming rate with Zlatan Ibrahimovic out with a thigh strain, Yaya Touré out with swine flu, Éric Abidal out with both swine flu and a knocked picked up on international duty and Rafael Márquez who also has a suspected case of swine flu.

Barça take in Inter Milan on Tuesday night in a must win match. Should Barça lose all three points and Rubin Kazan beat Dynamo Kyiv at home then the European champions will be knocked out of the competition.

Following that, Barça then take on new pacesetters Real Madrid on Sunday night with all 3 points a must to regain top spot in the league.

It has been announced by France Football that Lionel Messi has won the Balon D’Or. He is the first Barcelona player to win the award since Ronaldinho in 2005.

Messi won the award by a record margin, beating second placed Cristiano Ronaldo by a hefty 240 points. It was a near unanimous decision as he picked up 473 points out of a possible 480.

It’s long been known that Messi was the best player in Europe following his excellent performances in 2009 to help Barça win a historic treble last season. As well as being the stand-out player for Barça alongside Xavi and Iniesta, he also scored a mind boggling 38 goals in all competitions, including the goal which sealed the European Cup against Manchester United in Rome last season and the goal against Athletic Bilbao in Valencia which put Barça ahead for the first time in the Copa del Rey final.

“Honestly, I knew that I was among the favourites because Barcelona had a fruitful year in 2009,” Messi told France Football. “But I didn’t expect to win with such a margin. The Ballon d’Or is very important to me. All the players who won it were great players, and some great players never won it.

“For me it’s a big honour to win. I dedicate it to my family, they were always present when I needed them and sometimes felt even stronger emotions than me.”

As well as being the first Barça player to win the award since 2005, he is also the first ever Argentine winner of the award. He now joins Luis Suárez, Johan Cruyff, Hristo Stoitchkov, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Luis Figo and Ronaldinho in the exclusive club of Barcelona players to have won the award.

Xavi came in 3rd place with 170 points, whilst Andrés Iniesta came in fourth with 149 votes. Samuel Eto’o was fifth with 75 points meaning that four out of the five best players in Europe this year came from Barça’s treble winning squad.

El Clásico hero Zlatan Ibrahimovic came in 7th after winning the golden boot in Serie A with Internatzionale, whilst Thierry Henry came in at number 15, behind Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs and ahead of Sevilla’s Luis Fabiano. Yaya Touré came in joint 29th with Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery.

Futbol Club Barcelona (Catalan pronunciation: [fudˈbɔɫ ˌklup bəɾsəˈlonə], Spanish: [ˈfuðβol ˌkluβ barθeˈlona]), also known simply as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça (Catalan: [ˈbaɾsə], Spanish: [ˈbarsa]), is a football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The team was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Spanish men led by Joan Gamper. The club has become a Catalan institution, hence the motto “Més que un club” (More than a club). The official Barça anthem is El Cant del Barça by Josep Maria Espinàs.

FC Barcelona is one of only three clubs never to have been relegated from La Liga and the most successful club in Spanish football after Real Madrid, having won nineteen La Liga titles, a record twenty-five Spanish Cups, eight Spanish Super Cups, four Eva Duarte Cups and two League Cups. They are also one of the most successful clubs in European football having won thirteen official major European trophies in total, including ten UEFA competitions.[1] They have won three UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners’ Cups, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups (the forerunner to the UEFA Europa League) and three UEFA Super Cups. In 2009, Barcelona became the first club in Spain to win the treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League. The club is also the only European side to have played continental football in every season since its inception in 1955.

The club’s stadium is the Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe with a capacity of 98,772 seats. Barcelona enjoys a high rate of popularity; about 25.7% of Spanish population support the club,[2] while according to a recent survey Barcelona is the most popular football club in Europe with around 44.2 million fans.[3] With 170,000 socis (members) in September 2009,[4] the Catalan club is also placed among the top football clubs in the world with the most registered members, and the number of penyes, the officially-registered supporter clubs, reached the number of 1,888 worldwide in August 2009. The fans of FC Barcelona are known as culés. The club shares a great rivalry with Real Madrid and contest in one of the most famous football matches worldwide, known as El Clásico.

During the 2007–08 season, FC Barcelona was the third richest club in the world with a revenue of €308.8 million. It was also one of the founding members of the now-defunct G-14 group of the leading European football clubs and its modern replacement, the European Club Association. The club also operates a reserve team, FC Barcelona Atlètic, while there was a youth team until 2007, FC Barcelona C.

As of July 1, 2009, FC Barcelona was ranked first in UEFA team ranking.[5] According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), Barça has been the most consistently successful club in the world since the organisation began collecting statistics, in the period 1991-2008