Minnows Hercules Humiliates Champions Barca; FC Barcelona - 0, Hercules - 2

Newly promoted Hercules made a mockery of the attacking talent Barca possessed by dominating a match and winning it quite comfortably. This was suppposed to be a cake walk and I myself predicted a 5-0 drubbing tonight at the Camp Nou. Instead Hercules gave an astonishing drubbing to the defending champions. In my preview I did wrote about the usual troubles we face adter an international break. But don't blame FIFA for this defeat, it is all made by one man - Pep Guardiola. In a way this is not a surprise defeat, as Hercules has done this to Barca when last time they were in the top flight. Barca B, who played at the same time went down at Cartegena 4-1, but that could never be considered as a humiliation. In my preview I argued heavily on not using Abidal as a Centre-Back and giving Mascherano the start. My fears were proved right with some awful performance. I will come back to that later.

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FC Barcelona vs Hercules Preview

FC Barcelona would be playing their first home match of this season tomorrow against newly promoted Hercules. Usually coming back from an international break is a bit worrisome for Barca. But Guardioila will be happy playing hercules rather than any other team. Hercules went down to Athletic Bilbao on the opening week and was not expected to create any trouble for Barca. But the recent acquisition of Drenthe and Trezuguet have made them pretty competitive and couple with our usual problems after an international break, this could be tricky. Many of the FC Barcelona players had a mixed international break. Spanish stars like Iniesta, Pique, Busquets, Pedro etc would like to forget the 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Argentina. Meanwhile Messi and Milito should be pretty high from that win. Milito is expected to start the match as Puyol is still not match fit. Teams like Hercules should be an ideal platform to give the youngsters a go. Jonathan dos santos and Thiago is expected to get some playing time.

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FIFA Ballon d'Or should go to Xavi Hernandez

This year's Ballon d'Or would be one of the most contestly fought contest in recent years. The front runners of this years award are Andres Iniesta, Xavi hernandez, Lionel Messi, Diego Forlan and Wesley Sneijder. The Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year award has been merged from this year and has been Christened as FIFA Ballon d'Or. The inaugral award already has raked up enough interest, with everyone linked with football making their choice heard. Jose Mourinho has backed Wesley Sneijder to bag the award whereas the FIFA World Cup Golden Ball winner Forlan has backed Xavi Hernandez to win it. Mourinho in his typical arrogant fashion has dismissed Andres Iniesta, despite an excellent World Cup campaign, topping it with the Winning goal. Diego Forlan had a great World Cup and led his under achieving club side to UEFA Europa Cup, but fails to impress the "The Controversial One". Meanwhile Messi with a whopping 47 goals in all competition is expected to retain his title, eventhough a weak World Cup Campaign is going to act against him.

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