Asia Tour Itinerary

Barça begin their Asia Tour this Sunday, with a busy week ahead which includes two games, daily training and a series of institutional and marketing events.


Monday, 2 August
11.30 h. Arrival at Seoul airport
14.30 h. Press conference and presentation of the game in Seoul
19 h. Training session

Tuesday, 3 August

10 h. Training at Bucheon Stadium
11.30 h. Ibrahimovic takes part in an event with Nike fans
12 h. Messi and members of the party take part in a charity event with Herbalife
15 h. Technical conference with representatives of the Korean League and Andoni Zubizarreta.
15h. Event organised by Catalan Tourist Board, attended by members of the board.
19.30 h. Nike. Event. Players meet children before training.
19.30 h .Guardiola press conference
20 h. Training at the Sangam World Cup Stadium

Wednesday, 4 August

10 h. Training at Bucheon Stadium.
20 h. K-League All Star vs FC Barcelona (Sangam World Cup Stadium).
00.30 h. Flight to Beijing.

All times are local (Seoul is seven hours ahead of Catalonia)

Thursday, 5 August
1.30 h. Arrival at Beijing airport.
13.30 h. Press conference and presentation of the game in Beijing.
20 h. Training at The Workers’ Stadium

Friday, 6 August

10 h. Training at The Workers’ Stadium.
11 h. Visit to Nike-Town.
18 h. Herbalife event. Photo session with children and members of the squad.
19.30 h. Event organised by Catalan Tourist Board, attended by Josep Ramon Vidal-Abarca.
20 h. Training at The Workers’ Stadium
21 h. Nike event with children at The Workers’ Stadium.

Saturday, 7 August

10 h. Training at the Workers’ Stadium
19:20 h. Audi-China event with Unicef.
20 h. Training at The Birds Nest Stadium.

Domingo, 8 August

10 h. Training at The Worker's Stadium
20 h. Guoan FC vs FC Barcelona (The Birds Nest Stadium.).
00.30 h. Flight leaves for Barcelona.

All times are local (Beijing is six hours ahead of Catalonia)
Monday, 9 August

07:10 h. Arrival in Barcelona. 

Squad List:

Goal Keepers: Jose Manuel Pinto, Ruben Mino, Oier Olazabal

Defenders: Eric Abidal, Dani Alves, Sergi Gómez, Gabriel Milito, Maxwell, Adriano Correia, Armando Lozano, Albert Dalmau, Marc Muniesa, Andreu Fontas

Midfielders: Ilie Sanchez, Marti Riverola, Jonathan dos Santos, Victor Sanchez, Sergi Roberto, Seydou Keita, Victor Vázquez, Alexander Hleb

Forwards: Lionel Messi, Jonathan Soriano, Benja Martinez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edu Oriol, Nolito, and Cristian Tello.

Recruits: 2010-11 season

Our newly recruited players so far:

Villa #7 in Barca Colors

1. David Villa Sánchez (Spanish pronunciation: [daˈβið ˈβiʎa]; born 3 December 1981), nicknamed El Guaje (The Kid in Asturian).

On 19 May 2010, Barcelona reached an agreement with Valencia, for the acquisition of Villa for the fee of €40 million.
Villa signed on a four year contract with Barcelona, with the option for a fifth, worth a reported €7 million per season.

On 21 May 2010, over 35,000 Barcelona supporters packed into Camp Nou to see Villa's presentation, where he revealed the kit Barcelona would use during the 2010-11 season. He was given his favorite number 7, a number which had been free at the club since Eiður Guðjohnsen left in 2009.





2. Adriano Correia Claro (born 26 October 1984), simply Adriano, is a Brazilian footballer .

One of few players in professional football who is genuinely two-footed, he is capable of playing as a defender or midfielder, on both sides of the pitch.

#21 Adriano

 On 16 July 2010, Adriano signed a 4+1 deal with Barcelona, for €9.5 million plus a conditional fee of €4 million; it also included a buyout clause of €90 million. He was awarded the #21 shirt vacated by Ukrainian Dmytro Chygrynskiy, departed after just one season.

Outside the Camp Nou Pre semi-final

Barcelona 1 - Inter 0.....Bitter Sweet

A one-nil score line was just not enough for us to go through to a historic final at Madrid. Today I felt a sense of great pride I had never felt before. A sense of victory that only can be described by a sense of over-whelming joy to be a cule. I know we lost on the overall tally, and in some sense feel that not Barca but football needed to go through to the finals, many will disagree with me saying that Inter played a kind of football needed to go through and achieving results. But as a Barca fan I would never support this team if they played that kind of football.

Plan B, FUCK PLAN B !!! period. We know what football we play and we will never change it. You can camp a thousand men in front of that goal, and we will never change our way of playing. All we know is short accurate passes,short corners at the dying stages of the game and exquisite dissection of the opposition.It might not have achieved a desired result but that doesn't mean we lost. We won in the way we played. Today millions of Cule's cheered their team an atmosphere that has never been seen before, a communion of people with the same passion, making me feel a sense of belonging, a sense of belief, a sense of a cule.

Inter did what Inter had to do, No team that play's football can beat us or if they do will need to be really good or need bit of luck on their side or maybe the lack of luck on our side. Not to take anything away form Inter.They played a great first leg and that cost us the spot in the final's.

The only thing about the semi's that upset me was the whole Valdes-Mou incident and the diving of Busi, and ofc not to mention the whole sprinklers thing (although I think that might have been a technical malfunction).
Valdes should have just walked away without saying a word and Busi time to L2P(learn to play), stop with the drama and get on with the game.
With grace and humility Barca can only become stronger, something that I find in most of the team. A few bad elements can spoil the name of the whole team and I think that's what happened.

Comments on the referee none again, although I would have given the Bojan goal seeing that the ball was not a hand from Toure.But then shit happnes and if we cant live with it, we should not be playing or watching this game.

Great game champs, proud to be a Barca supporter and am sure I will be one for life. This game not only cemented the fact that I was a die hard supporter of Barca in their grimiest of times, but a sure Mou hater for life :P.

All Inter had to do to reach the finals (god knows how long ago was their last, almost 50years) was give Mou 2 seasons, 9.1 million dollars in annual wages and make sure he tells his team to defend. On the other hand its been 4 semi final spots in the last 5 years and 2 champions trophy. An unbelievable last season (GOD LIKE) and a great 2010. Hope we regain our pristine form and make it all the way through the La Liga. Cause a team like ours surely deserves Silver ware this year.

I bleed Catalan. 

FORCA BARCA .

Yes We Can !!!!!

BARCA BARCA BARCA !!!

for LIFE !

San Siro Disaster !!

This is really something of a shock to most Cule's, and a really tough pill to swallow. There is no one to blame but ourselves. I dont want to hear any Barca fan's blaming the ref, or whining about missed penalty calls or bring out one of those Drogba moments(X), the 14hr bus ride to Inter didn't diminish our strengths in any way, cause playing the finals in Madrid is reason enough for any Barcelonian to win and yes a draw at San Siro would also been considered a win.

I will try and make this as short and bitter as possible ... WE PLAYED BADLY, PERIOD !!!. Although I don't feel the scoreline is justifiable, I do feel Inter deserved to win seeing they possessed a more burning desire to win than us. We didn't work and push hard enough and our mid-field lacked something so fundamental and vital to Barca football, CONTROL.

I think we just went into the usual cruise gear after we were one goal up, just like the game with Arsenal where we had a 2 goal lead and we let them run over us in the end. Similarly after the first goal we just stopped with the pressure, Probably because we were gifted a goal by Inter with the most sloppy bit of defense I have seen by them all season (not like I have seen many of their games, but from what I have heard at least ).

This is the bleeding freaking Semi-Finals, Run till your legs drop off, Bleed till you have nothing to bleed anymore.Common we are BARCA, we set the bench mark atleast this season, prove why we are who we are.
Come hail or snow or a Volcanic shower of ASH, we have to play at our best.
Give them NOTHING and take from them EVERYTHING.

It's not the loss that infuriates me its that we didn't play at our best yesterday, If we would have lost after playing our best I would have nothing but controlled jubilation for Inter but I would know that they truly deserve to be in the finals and we didn't.

I agree we have been racking up a lot of extra miles playing game after game, but that is no excuse to how we played yesterday. We gave away the ball got impatient most of the time with the Ref and the blatant ill-intent of the Inter players, but then the world knows how Inter play.
Play your opponent and not the game.

A lesson well learnt, better sooner than later. I think this has now become our most difficult match up ever this season. And to overcome this loss, I think its time for one of those Pep inspirational speeches or just reel out another or if not the same gladiator video. We will literally have to move mountains if we have to win this tie in the second leg and lets hope we can.

A Champions League of this magnitude for a Barcelona team cannot and will not come easy.

BARCA FOR LIFE, in your best and worst moments.
FORCA BARCA

Barcelona 3 - 0 Deportivo La Coruña

Barca pulled off another great performance against Deportivo to move 6 points clear of Real Madrid.

Pep started the line up with 1 Víctor Valdés 3 Gerard Pique 4 Rafael Márquez 19 Maxwell 2 Daniel Alves
6 Xavi 24 Yaya Toure 20 Jeffrén Suárez 17 Pedro 11 Bojan Krkic 10 Lionel Messi although not playing with our best team we proved to be too much of a challenge for Deportivo.

We opened the scoring with a Xavi created Bojan finisher. Bojan snuck through 2 defenders to slot in a lovely ball from Xavi at the back of the net to put us in the lead 16 mins after kick off .

We pretty much dominated the first half having little over 70% of the ball, but went into half-time with just the one goal on the score sheet.

I was scared that we might just looking at an late upset form Deportivo, but all that was going to change.
A poor clearing from Deportivo goalie saw Pedro making a amazing strike to find the netting from the half line spot.The ball curled passed the Goalie with him totally helpless and in dismay as the ball found the back of the net.
We were 2 goals up in the 69th min but then just 3 mins later Yaya ( THE BEAST) scored to put us 3 goals up and seal the deal on the outcome of this match.

It was a great effort form our boys, but we will have to work a lot harder in the next game if we are to win against our city rivals in the derby match against Espanyol on Saturday.And hopefully we see Ibra playing at-least in the second half to get himself a footing in before the big match against Inter.

SCORING SUMMARY
Barcelona	Deportivo La Coruña
Bojan Krkic (16)
Pedro (69)
Gnegneri Yaya Toure (72)

MATCH STATS
	Barcelona	Deportivo La Coruña
Shots (on Goal)	21(11)	5(3)
Fouls	11	12
Corner Kicks	14	2
Offsides	0	3
Time of Possession	76%	24%
Yellow Cards	0	3
Red Cards	0	0
Saves	3	8

HIGHLIGHTS

FORCA BARCA

Barca come out on top at El Classico

Barcelona take pole position in the La Liga after beating Real Madrid in most talked about match of the season El Classico.Barcelona have managed to win the last 4 consecutive El Classico encounters proving their superiority in playing styles in the league and establishing themselves as the worlds best.
Although Barca were not playing at their best in yesterdays game it was enough to get us a final result against Real and make sure in theory we were 4 points ahead of them in the table due to the head-to-head rule in La Liga.So if real are to over take us on the table again they would need us to minimum loose a game and then draw one, taking into account they don't drop any points.

Barca coach Pep Guardiola shocked most with his line-up, starting with only two recognized forwards Messi and Pedro.
Barca employed a 4-1-2-3 formation with Alves and Pedro flanking Messi in attack. With all due respects to Pedro and Alves, they never contributed anything meaningful in attack in first half. Alves experiment was a total failure and he seemed totally lost in his newly assigned position.
But even though the result was not as over whelming as the 2-6 defeat of last season the end seemed the same.
First 20 min of the game went almost unnoticed with nothing to talk about except for the challenge on messi, which I felt should have been given as a penalty.
But none the less Messi produced the first goal in the 33rd minute from an exceptional one-two pass from Xavi.

Messi received the pass from Xavi then played it down with his chest and then cut passed madrid's center back and then slotted it in passed Casillas.This would lead to an of scoring in the first half.
At the start of the second half Pep shuffled our formation and players back into their more comfortable positions, with Alves playing a more familiar role of right back.
Madrid looked a little more determined to the start of the second half with Marcelo having a great opportunity at goal only to see it stopped by Valdes.

But then Barca struck back with a great through ball again created by Xavi and seen to the back of the net by Pedro another one of our youth products.This was pretty much the end of Madrid's hopes of wining as a two goal lead against the cules would too much of an uphill task for Madrid to over come.They however had another chance at goal from the likes of VDV only to be stopped by Valdes. Valdes also denied Ronaldo a couple of chances, but every time Real pushed forward we seemed more likely to score our 3rd goal of the night and Messi came the closest with two chances only to be denied by Cassilas.

But in the end the game came to a close with a 0-2 result in favor of Barca.
Men of the match in my opinion Xavi, Messi and Valdes. All of the Barca fan's will hope we can regain our glorious form and beat Inter who I think are going to be way tougher than the first 2 times we faced then in the group stages of the CL. Hopefully this win ensures us a sure consecutive La Liga title with 7 games to go.

FORCA BARCA
PS: Hope to see you back in the Bernabeu in a month to pick the CL trophy and create yet another piece of history.

                                

EL CLASICO !!!!!!!!!!!

Too bad I was too busy at work to blog about Messi's fabulous display at the Champions League second leg match-up against Arsenal.
And I am so glad about the result against Man Utd, which means no English teams in the semi's and that should put an end to all the bull-crap talk of English team superiority over all other leagues in Europe.
But leaving out the talk about the champions league which I will save for some other day.

The biggest match in La-Liga is all set to kick off tomorrow at 00:00, and boy have I been waiting for this.

Both teams are evenly matched keeping in mind that Barcelona are coming with their spectacular win over Arsenal and Madrid have their amazing home form.

This is a great chance for any football fan to watch some of the worlds best players face-off, and this match promises to showcase the best attacking football ever seen this season.
Both teams are thirsty for success, even though many Barca critics, Pep and even Pellegrini claim that this match will not be the decider of the La Liga's eventual winner, I feel the team that wins this is almost sure to lift the trophy keeping in mind that it is going to very hard for any other teams to take points from either Real or Barca looking at the way they are playing.A draw in the Bernabeu would mean that Braca will come out on top but a victory for us would be sweeter.

Messi .VS. Ronaldo

1) Frankly I dont care. This topic has reached it max state of annoyance. Hands down given current form Messi is better, but on any given day you cannot predict who is going to be better.
And simply down-playing the El Clasico to just 2 players is ridiculous. There are too many factors to take into account and thats why this match is going to be mouth watering.


All I can say is enough of the analysis about who is better Messi or Ronaldo or who is more effective Xavi or Xabi . This game is too close to call. But one thing Spain can promise is thrilling and pulsating football.

This match-up is a no-holds-bar match up and we better bring our A-game to the field. Madrid are thirsty for blood, but we thirsty of eternal glory. Although for me the Champions league is more important than the La Liga , taking into account the final venue for the finals is the Bernabeu. I would rather we not loose today. This is going to be a thrilling match-up and I cant wait.

FORCA BARCA !!!

Mallorca 0 - 1 Barcelona

Even though we won this match, I have to give praise to Mallorca since they played great football and managed to keep us at bay. They live up to their reputation at home and we had to work for the win.
But all said and done Ibra's lone goal was enough to see us through and place us at top of the table ahead of the Madrid vs Atletico match-up.

Ibra's 63rd min goal from a corner saw us through today but it could have been a different story for Gregorio Manzano's men if Aritz Aduriz's thunderbolt had gone in instead of rattling the woodwork, but we have to keep in mind that we were playing a team who have won 12 of 13 matches at home coming into this game, having only lost to Sevilla previously.

We knew this match was going to be a tough one, and the only thing that matters was taking all 3-points from them if were to continue our hopes of winning the La Liga.

We started without both Messi and Xavi who were both benched keeping in mind the big midweek champions league game against Arsenal and Xavi just coming back after an injury.
 We had a nervy start with Artiz thunderbolt hitting the woodwork early, although Valdes did well to recover and stop the following strike from Castro.At the 12th min we had a goal from Pedro dis-allowed for being fractionally off-side.Mallorca did well in denying Ibra a goal towards the 24th minute and gave us a pre-halftime scare with another shot hitting the wood-work.  We ended the first half with the scoreline at nil-nil.

Pep wasted no time in the second half by bringing in both Messi for Iniesta and Xavi for Yaya Toure with the changes in place Barca were able to open the scoring in the 63rd min with a corner taken by Xavi then played down towards goal by the captain himself Puyol and with Ibra on hand to steer the shot in goal we were able to take the lead. With this goal Ibra had taken his goal tally for this season to 15 with 3 goals in the last 3 matches. Ibra is still finding it hard to find his feet on the field but I think he might have just got enough confidence to some how pull his socks up for the blockbuster line up's we have in store over the next few weeks.Towards the end we should have atleast got in one more goal with a strike from Messi being denied by the Mallorca goalie.




End of the day the result is what counts and it was a favorable one for Barca. Hope we regain some of the form we had seen over the past few weeks and get our goal scoring boots back.

Forca Barca !!!

Match Stats
	Mallorca	Barcelona
Shots (on Goal)	10(2)	7(5)
Fouls	29	21
Corner Kicks	4	8
Offsides	1	6
Time of Possession	31%	69%
Yellow Cards	4	3
Red Cards	0	0
Saves	4	2

Match Information
Stadium:	ONO Estadi, Spain
Attendance:	18,000
Match Time:	March 27, 2010
Official(s):	David Fernández Borbalán (Referee)