FC Barcelona vs Villareal Preview

FC Barcelona will be returning back to La Liga action tonight with Villareal visiting Camp Nou. Lionel Messi will not feature in tonight's encounter as he was given an extended holiday. Yaya Toure has already left for African nations Cup, eventhough it is clear that Guardiola will not have used him even if he is available. So it is better for Toure to get some playing time. Keita and Jeffren has also down with injury. One good news is that Andres Iniesta has been declared fit to play in this match. Last season in the corresponding ficture Iniesta was injured and Barca ended drawing the match 3-3, find the report here - Title Party Postponed. Villareal always have been a tough opponennt for Barca. In total encounter between these two teams, the honours now remain shared with eight wins each. What makes it more interesting is that in ten visit to Camp Nou, they have only lost four times.

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Wishing You All A Prosperous 2010

2009 has ended and 2010 has begun. For every Barca fan 2009 will be a special year. It was the most perfect year in the history of the club. With the triumphs of 2009, we enter 2010 with greater hope for a year as good as the last one. Repeating 2009's success would be very difficult but repeating the style in which we played is very much possible. We have topped our Champions League group, is currently the top in the league and is true and well alive in Copa Del Rey. But there is no doubt that we are nowhere playing like last season. The pace has gone off a bit from last season's game and many players are not yet hit the top gear. But still we are very much alive in all teh competition shows how good a squad we have.

Tough January Ahead

You cannot ask for a much tougher month to start an year like the one we have. We will be playing some of the best teams in the league in January meanwhile Real Madrid has a much easier opponents in the month of January. With Real Madrid hitting form Barca cannot afford to concede an inch to their main rival this month. Getting knocked out of Cop Del Rey will work in favour of Real Madrid in January as they have to play less number of games.

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2009!!! wow What an Year

What an year we had. Six trophies with a team and manager who seems to have inherited the "Midas Touch". Everything Guardiola touched turned into goal within minutes. Lionel Messi's "Goal From Heart" sealed the perfect season for Barca in 2009. The achivements of this Barca side will be written with Golden Ink in the history books of the game. I don't know whether any team will be able to replicate what our boys have done, may not atleast in this century. It all started with a stunning last minute victory against Chelsea. Statistically it all started from that stunning Yaya Toure's goal against Atletic Bilbao but I would prefer to see the Iniesta's Chelsea goal as the pivotal in Barca's success of this year. Had that didn't happen it could have gone all the wrong way in this year. That goal was god sent, sure there were enough controversy surrounding that match but no one can question that goal. Guardiola looked like had lost all the hope so did all Barca fans, I was about to turn off the TV as I couldn't bear to see teh highlights, then that "Moment from Heaven" happened - Lionel Messi played the ball to Iniesta, Iniesta against his usual nature decided to take the shot and the ball ended in the goal sending Barca to Rome. The match against Manchester United was an example of how the season went - perfect to the plan. Barca had played much better game throughout the season and was for me below par in the final, but still they were miles ahead of Manchester United. I had earlier wrote why I though Barca Out Played ManU, Have a look - Why Manchester United were Stunned by FC Barcelona in the Finals?

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FIFA Award Night In Pictures

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Messi Wins the World Player Of The Year Award

Lionel Messi of Barca Adjudged "The Best Player In The World"

Exactly one day after helping Barca secure the World Club Championship with his "Goal from the Heart", Lionel Messi was adjudged the as the FIFA World Player of the Year. It come as no surprise as everyone expected him to win this hands down. Messi secured 1073 points and the second placed Ronaldo secured 352 points. Barca's Xavi Hernandez came third with 196 points followed by Kaka with 190 points and Iniesta with 134 points. The inaugral FIFA Puskás Award for the 'most beautiful goal' of the year went Ronaldo for his goal against FC Porto. Ronaldo's goal secured 17.68 percent of total votes, meanwhile Iniesta's important strike against Chelsea came second bagging 15.64 percent of votes. Lionel Messi has expressed his hapines of becoming the first Argentinian to win the award - "It’s lovely to get this recognition from colleagues and coaches. That makes it even more important. The fact that I’m the first Argentinian to win it is also a great honour." FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award went once again to Brazil's Marta, who incidently has created history by winning her fourth World Player award. The voting pattern went in expected lines but I still believe it is a great injustice to Xavi and Iniesta after being ranked at three and five. Xavi had a better season than Ronaldo for Spain and Barca but still finished thrid behind Ronaldo. The same with Iniesta who also had a very good season atleast better than what Kaka had. But it looks like this is the order of the day, you got to be flambouyant to secure votes in these awards.

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