Barca Players Dominate UEFA Club Award Nominees

As expected FC Barcelona players have dominated the nominee list for UEFA Club awards, which will be declared on the 27th of August. At the same time thegroup stage draw of this season's YEFA Champions League also will take place. FC Barcelona has six out of twelve nominees listed. It is good to see Valdes getting the nomination; but the real fight will be in the midfield where both Iniesta and Xavi have been both nominated. I have been hammering my head for sometime to decide who will come top, but no idea. May be the goals at Chelsea may tilt it towards Iniesta this time. Manchester United has three nominees whereas Chelsea got two of its players on the list. Here are the list of nominees.

UEFA Club Goalkeeper of the Year

Petr Čech (Chelsea FC)
Víctor Valdés (FC Barcelona)
Edwin van der Sar (Manchester United FC)

UEFA Club Defender of the Year

Gerard Piqué (FC Barcelona)
John Terry (Chelsea FC)
Nemanja Vidić (Manchester United FC)

UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year

Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC)
Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona)
Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona)

UEFA Club Forward of the Year

Samuel Eto'o (FC Barcelona)
Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United FC)

My prediction:

UEFA Club Goalkeeper of the Year : Valdes

UEFA Club Defender of the Year : Nemanja Vidić

UEFA Club Midfielder of the Year : Iniesta

UEFA Club Forward of the Year : Messi

UEFA Club Player of the Year : Messi

Athletic Bilbao vs Barca, Super Cup Highlights

Athletic Bilbao 1-2 Barcelona FULL HIGHLIGHTS SuperCopa HQ

Athletic Bilbao - 2, Barca - 2

FC Barcelona looks like they will be al set to add their first silverware of this season at Camp Nou next week after securing a 2-1 away victory at Sam Mames. With two away goals and a goal lead, it looks pretty unlikely that Barca will falter in winning the title. Athletic Bilbao went ahead towards the end of the first half but second half strikes from Xavi and Pedro secured Barca a deserving victory. The best moment of the match was Xavi receiving a standing ovation from the home crowd when he was substituted. That moment should be seen as the best reward for his contribution to football, especially nationa team. Guardiola selected Valdes at the goal ahead of Pinto. Alves, Puyol, Pique and Abidal started at the defense. Xavi, Toure Keita formed the midfield trio and Bojan, Henry and Pedro formed the attacking trio.

As expected Barca started the game well in the first half. Bojan had two decent chance in the first four minutes. Alves was at his menancing best throughout the match with his trademark runs through the flanks. In the 11th minute Alves tested the goal keeper with a 30 yard screamer but the custodian managed to save the same. But Bilbao slowly settled in the game and started causing more worries to Barca. Just before the half time Toure lost the ball, the ball came to De Marcos he turned inside Pique before shooting past Valdes with the help of a big deflection to go 1-0 up. Early on the second half, Barca were struggling to settle down. But we found the equaliser in the 58th minute. Keita went forward on the left and sent in a cross to Pedro who squared the ball to Xavi inside the box, who made no mistake from 12 yards. In the 68th minute Pedro sealed the victory with a screamer from 25 yards out. This may not have been a trademark performance but still as a start this was a very efficient one.