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Full name Gnegneri Yaya Touré
Nationality Ivory Coast
Date of birth May 13, 1983 (1983-05-13)
Place of birth Sokoura Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire
Height 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)
Nickname Touré Yaya, La Roca, Cañón Touré
Position Midfielder
Number 17

Gnegneri Yaya Touré also spelt Yahya Touré or Touré Yaya (Arabic pronunciation: Yaheeyaa Tooray, Tooray Yaheeyaa) (born May 13, 1983 in the Ivory Coast), is an Ivorian footballer who currently plays for FC Barcelona. He has 17 caps for the Côte d’Ivoire.

Touré, a midfielder, is the younger brother of Arsenal F.C. defender Kolo Touré. They have a younger brother Ibrahim Touré, who plays for OGC Nice.

Touré joined ASEC Mimosas youth academy in 1996. After two years in KSK Beveren (Belgium) and two more at FC Metalurh Donetsk (Ukraine), he moved to Olympiacos in 2005. He was nicknamed “the new Patrick Vieira” by his brother Kolo. He is said to have attracted the interest of clubs such as Olympique Lyon, Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Everton, and A.C. Milan, but has since expressed a wish to play alongside his brother Kolo at Arsenal. Ahead of the 2005/2006 Premiership season he spent a period during pre-season on trial at Arsenal, but failed to seal a permanent move. He was also selected by Eurosport in 2005 as one of the most promising young players worldwide (Javier Mascherano and Sergio Agüero were included in the list as well). It has since emerged that Arsenal made a €7m bid in January 2006 which was rejected as Olympiacos wanted to wait to the summer to consider selling.

Olympiakos decided to accept a mere €4.5m from French Ligue 1 side A.S. Monaco as a result of the players refusal to return to Greece for the team’s pre-season training. Touré accused Olympiacos of not paying his due salaries, while Olympiacos accused him of lying in order to get transferred. On August 15, 2006 Touré completed his move to the Ligue 1 side.

Touré is a central midfielder who stands out because of his physical abilities. Very capable in holding and protecting the ball, he excels in a variety of passes, including long, short and direct. In difficult situations, when his team is under pressure, he has the ability to make forward runs, thus he has been recognized as a box-to-box player.

On 26 June 2007 Spanish La Liga giants FC Barcelona announced the signing of Touré for a reported fee of €10m (£6.7m). He is the Catalan outfit’s second signing of the summer 2007 transfer window following the capture of striker Thierry Henry from Arsenal. At his official presentation with club president Joan Laporta and director of football Txiki Beguiristáin, he was given the number 17 shirt. However, it has since been announced that he will wear the number 24 shirt for Barça which was vacated by Andrés Iniesta and the number 17 will be worn by Giovani dos Santos.

At the Joan Gamper Trophy 2007 match against Internazionale, he scored his first Barcelona goal.

Full name Oleguer Presas i Renom
Nationality Spanish
Date of birth February 2, 1980 (1980-02-02)
Place of birth Sabadell, Spain
Height 1.87 m (6 ft 1+1?2 in)
Nickname Oleguer
Position Centre Back, Right Back
Number 23

Oleguer Presas i Renom (born February 2, 1980 in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain) is a Spanish football player. Currently playing for FC Barcelona. He is an economics graduate who missed training at FC Barcelona to complete his finals.

Oleguer, started his career at the modest Lepanto, a club from his hometown of Sabadell. In 1997 he joined Gramenet UEA, making his senior debut in 2001. When he was 21 he signed for the FC Barcelona B team and made his debut for FC Barcelona in 2002 during a Champions League match between Barça and Galatasaray. During the following season he played for both teams, on occasion being a last minute addition to the senior squad.

He was an important player for FC Barcelona as they won La Liga in 2005. He is a speedy and incisive defender and embodies the youth development philosophy of FC Barcelona. He usually plays as a right back, but due to repeated injuries to central defenders in the 2004-2005 season, he was often paired with Carles Puyol. During the 05-06 season, he challenged Juliano Belletti for the right back position, as he presented a more defensive alternative to the more offensive Brazilian.

He has sympathies with left wing and catalan nationalist causes and was asked by Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas to play a charity match in Chiapas, Mexico during the summer of 2005. In late 2005 he was invited to take part in a meeting of shortlisted players for the Spanish national squad, an invitation that he was forced to accept because the spanish punishment laws that would leave him without playing with FC Barcelona however he has never defined about if he would defend the colours of Spain in the next World Cup.

On the March 30, 2006 he published his first book with recollections on his youth, early career and the La Liga triumph of 2004-2005. The book, called Camí d’Itaca (The road to Ithaca) dealt with such varied subjects as childhood anorexia, the antifascist struggle and the previous Spanish governments involvement in both Gulf Wars. The book also touched on his love of tennis and the experience of the street parade through the Avinguda Diagonal in Barcelona on winning La Liga in 2005. Oleguer was injured with a muscle strain in the match against AC Milan at San Siro and missed the return leg of the draw which Barça won on aggregate (0-1) and two further league matches. He was absent in the league winning match against Celta de Vigo on 3 May 2006 but he returned to play in the next match at the Camp Nou, where the trophy was presented to the team. True to form, Oleguer celebrated wrapped in the colours of the senyera, the Catalan flag.

On 17 May 2006 Barça beat Arsenal F.C. to win the European Cup, or UEFA Champions League for the second time in their history. Oleguer was in the first eleven, but on the day he appeared tense and slow, struggling to neutralise Freddie Ljungbergs runs down the wing and more importantly not being able to stop Sol Campbell scoring the opening goal. In the 71st minute he was substituted by Juliano Belletti, a significant decision by manager Frank Rijkaard, as Belletti went on to score his first goal for Barça and the Champions League winning goal on the night.

He signed a contract extension in July 2006, keeping him with the club until 2010. Oleguer had the honour of captaining the team for the first time in their initial pre season game of the 2006-07 campaign, in recognition of his work over the last few seasons. With the arrival of Gianluca Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram, Oleguer has found himself coming on from the bench in the first few matches of the 2006-07 La Liga season. On 29 November 2006 He was awarded the President Companys award for his efforts in promoting the official recognition of Catalan sports at an international level. Midway through the 2006-07 season coach Frank Rijkaard has opted to keep Oleguer in the starting eleven in the right back position.

On the 7 February 2007, in an article written for Basque language newspaper Berria, he questioned the validity and independence of legal and judicial processes in the Spanish state, using the example of ETA member Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos and his hunger strike intended to question said processes. His decision to write the article brought veiled criticism from his coach Frank Rijkaard and Barça President Joan Laporta. As a direct result of this he lost his boot sponsorship with Spanish sports firm Kelme. Oleguer has been the subject of a strong public backlash in Spain and is regularly heckled and booed in some of the country football stadiums due to his anti-government, anti-system and pro-radical Catalan stance. When asked about whether he felt that he should have not written the piece, Oleguer replied: “The consequences I suffer are nothing compared to what many people go through. What did sadden me, though, was that most didn’t actually read the piece. If people engaged in dialogue with intelligence and disagreed, then fine, but they didn’t.”

Full name Éric Abidal
Nationality French
Date of birth July 11, 1979
Place of birth Lyon, France
Height 1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Nickname
Position Left Back, Left Midfielder
Number 22

Eric Abidal (born July 11, 1979 in Lyon) is a left-sided French football defender of Martiniquean descent who currently plays for FC Barcelona in La Liga. He is married with an Algerian woman and became a Muslim with Islamic name Bilal.
Club career
Abidal was trained in Lyon-La Duchère, a team playing in the suburbs of Lyon. He started his professional career with AS Monaco on September 16, 2000, where he earned 22 first-team appearances. He moved to Lille OSC where he was reunited with his former manager Claude Puel and earned 62 first-team appearances. At the end of 2004, he returned to his native region by joining Olympique Lyonnais, which had just won its second successive Ligue 1 championship. During his time in France he was considered one of the best fullbacks in the Ligue 1. In the Lyon defense, he played alongside other French internationals (Grégory Coupet, François Clerc and Anthony Réveillère) and two Brazilian internationals (Cris and Caçapa).

Eric Abidal and the FC Barcelona
On 30 June 2007, Abidal moved to Barcelona for €15 million, after repeatedly stating that he would not return to training if he did not get the move, signing a four-year contract and taking the number 22 jersey, as the number 20 he wore at Lyon was already taken by Deco. Barça president Joan Laporta also mentioned that Abidal’s contract would contain a €90 million release clause, and that Lyon would receive an extra €500,000 if Barcelona win the Champions League in any of the next four seasons.

National team
Abidal has earned 22 caps with the French national team, having earned his début cap on August 18, 2004. Despite numerous injuries and disagreements with FIFA in the past few seasons, Abidal played on the French team in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, starting at left back and playing every minute of the tournament with the exception of France’s match against Togo, from which he was suspended after earning two yellow cards over the previous two games. Mikaël Silvestre filled Abidal’s left back slot for that game. When France and Italy were forced into a penalty shootout in the Final, he was placed third in France’s five shooters. Abidal made his shot, putting it past Yashin Award winning Gianluigi Buffon, but the French team lost the shootout 5-3.

Full name Lionel Andrés Messi
Nationality Argentinian
Date of birth June 24, 1987 (1987-06-24)
Place of birth Rosario, Argentina
Height 1.69 m (5 ft 6+1?2 in)
Nickname Leo, Lio, Pulga
Position Supporting striker / Attacking Midfielder / Striker
Number 19

Lionel Andrés Messi (born 24 June 1987 in Rosario) is an Argentine international football player who currently plays for FC Barcelona in the Primera División, and appears on Argentina’s national team. Often touted in the media as New Maradona, Messi has been publicly named as his “successor” by Diego Maradona himself.
Video: Best of Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi was born in Santa Fe Province on 24 June 1987. At the age of five, he started playing football for Grandoli, a club coached by his father. In 1995, Messi switched to Newell’s Old Boys. At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. River Plate showed interest in Messi’s progress, but did not have enough money to pay for the treatment of the illness, which cost over £500 a month. As Argentina’s economy was collapsing, Carles Rexach, then sporting director of FC Barcelona, was made aware of Messi’s talent, and Barcelona signed him after watching him play, offering to pay for the medical bills if he was willing to move to start a new life in Spain. His family moved with the young player to Europe and he starred in the club’s youth teams.

He soon found himself starting for the Barcelona B team, averaging more than a goal per game, by scoring 35 goals in 30 matches.

In October 2004, Messi made his official début for the first team against RCD Espanyol, becoming the third-youngest player ever to play for FC Barcelona. When he scored his first senior goal for the club against Albacete Balompié on May 1, 2005, Messi was 17 years, 10 months and 7 days old, becoming the youngest to ever score in a La Liga game for FC Barcelona.

Full name Sylvio Mendes Campos Júnior
Nationality Brazilian
Date of birth April 12, 1974 (1974-04-12)
Place of birth São Paulo, Brazil
Height 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Nickname Silvinho
Position Defender
Number 16

Sylvinho (full name Sylvio Mendes Campos Junior, sometimes alternatively spelt as Silvinho, born April 12, 1974 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian football player, who currently plays for FC Barcelona of the Spanish La Liga. He usually plays on the left, either as full back or wing back.

He started his career at Corinthians from 1994 until 1999. In 1999 he moved to English club Arsenal, where he played for two years, but in his second season at the club he was displaced by Ashley Cole. In 2001 he moved to Celta de Vigo and played there for three years. In 2004, after a transfer fee of €2 million[2], he was signed by his current club, FC Barcelona, where he has won the last two domestic leagues in 2005 and 2006, as well as the 2006 Champions League. His current contract with FC Barcelona will end in June 2008.[3]

Although he is a Brazilian international who has won six caps for his country, Sylvinho has a Spanish passport, granted to him in 2004 after completing three years’ residency in Spain. This allows him to bypass the non-EU player restrictions in La Liga.