Barcelona wants to get Cesc Fabregas

Barcelona are all set of signing Spanish talent Cesc Fabregas ,Arsenal’s top goalscorer this  season and is also their captain and therefore set to meet Arsenal chief for the discussion.

 Barcelona have established their trail for old boy Fabregas is now on, but at well below Arsenal’s £54million asking price.

FC Barcelona's 2011/2012 Home/Away Kit

The new home/away kit of FC Barcelona 2011/2012

Real Madrid Ripped Off Valencia at the Mestalla

With the Copa del Rey celebration may now be over but the excitement probably is not finished yet. I’m sure you know already who won and brought the Super King’s Cup trophy home. The game is one of the arch-rivals fantastic games and in fact it needs an extra time to decide who should be raising the silverware. I believe Real Madrid deserves to grab its first silverware under Mourinho and it’s their first after a long 18 years of drought.

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And it really seems that the Los Blancos is not over yet in their quest for more silverware as they return to the Mestalla Stadium for their La Liga game with Valencia. The goal scores showed how they needed to win more games in order to catch up with Barcelona in the leaderboard and possibly grab one more trophy. But the hope of a treble starts to fade after Barcelona won its game at home against Osasuna with 5 more games left yet 3 of it are against lower half teams.

Real displayed another thrashing game by scoring 6 goals against Valencia’s 3 when they visit the Mestalla again despite playing with mostly second tier players. And Valencia was torn apart with the explosive pace of the Merengues counter attacks.

While another game to watch is on 27 April when they meet each other again for the Champions League semifinal first leg at the Bernabeu and the return game will be on 3 May at the Nou Camp for the last of four Clasico.

16 April 2011 : Not Just Second Clasico

For the El Clasico fans and followers, mark your calendar as 16 April 2011 is the date that everyone should not miss. It is not just the second Clasico but it could be the deciding factor if Real can still catch up the chase with Barca in the championship race. If Real wins, statistically, the race is still on but judging with the way Barcelona have been playing and the 8 points gap is doubtful and near impossible to overcome.

What’s more interesting is that four days later they will face each other again in the finals of the Copa del Rey. So, who ever get the three points on 16 April will have a psychological edge going into the next big games.

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And you think the thrill and excitement just ends right there?

With both teams thrashing their respective opponents in the Champions League first leg quarters by a considerable big margin then there’s a big possibility that both teams will face each other again for the third time in just one month. It could be the fourth Clasico then. It will be decided and wrap up midweek next week whether they will meet each other again in the semis.

If Madrid lost again this weekend’s second Clasico, it is virtually impossible for the Los Blancos to overtake the Blaugrana even if they are going to fight for it until the end. There are only six more games left and the road for the treble is not in Real Madrid’s side for they still have games against top five teams.

Triple Barca - Real Derby Imminent

With Barca's thrashing over Shakhtar Donetsk in their own Champions League quarterfinals first leg, it is now imminent that the Blaugranas and Los Blancos will be meeting each other for at least three times this month. They will face separate opponents first later this week on Saturday (9 April) before the second El Clasico will happen at the Bernabeu. Real was demolished by Barca when they have visited them at Nou Camp for the first Clasico. At the moment, Real is trailing Barca by 8 points after an upset at their own turf by a lowly team Sporting while there are already 8 more games left.

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The result of the second Clasico will have a possible impact in the coming games that they're going to have. Four days after the second Clasico, they will meet again for the Copa del Rey finals. Who will win on 16 April will have a psychological edge in bringing home The King's Cup silverware. Then on 26-27 April is the Champions League semifinals game and possibly both teams will meet again based on the recent results by demolishing their own opponents. Real hammered Tottenham with a 4-0 score while Barca had demolished Shakhtar by a 5-1 score.

I cannot wait to see all those games happened and I am already excited in this situation. And the triple Barca - Real derby can no longer be stopped anymore.

El Clasico Derby Extended...

Later tonight Barcelona will see action against Shakhtar Donetsk at Camp Nou in their first leg Champions League quarterfinals. A win by the Blaugranas will give them a boost for a possible semifinal showdown with the Los Blancos. If that would be the case then their 2010 rivalry will let them face each other for at least three times in the weeks to come.

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Two of them will happen in the next two weeks. The first one will be the on 17 April for the second El Clasico and this time will be held at the Bernabeu and you know what happened in the first Clasico. Next encounter will be 4 days later for the final of the Copa del Rey (The King's Cup). And late this month for the first leg of their (possible) Champions League semi-final clash.

Liverpool FC Coach Makes Some Very Interesting Observations About Playing the Barca Way

Sourced form http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1365644/Kenny-Dalglish-Its-way-Barcelona-play-makes-Xavi-Messi-look-good.html

A lot of analysis of Barcelona is going on at the moment and for good reason. As the "experts" delve into this football organisation, it quickly becomes evident that it is a very elegant and socially responsible football culture. So much more than just a few extravagantly talented players. There are so many lessons to learn from Barcelona, on and off the field. All of it is directly transferable to our football environment here in the ACT.
Lets start by making the Capital Football development regime a loud echo of Barcelona's academy, then it on to Clubs, many of whom have the ordinary, socially responsible attitudes so apparent in the Barcelona Football organisation.
Barcelona's motto is "Move than A Club".  So it is. Dalglish makes that point in a very Football fashion.

It's the way Barcelona play that makes Xavi and Messi look so good

by Kenny Dalglish, Manager Liverpool FC

13th March 2011

Robin van Persie's controversial sending-off in Barcelona should not disguise the fact that the right team went through to the Champions League quarter-finals.

Barcelona, not Arsenal, deserved to be there. They had 20 shots on goal at the Nou Camp and Arsenal, unusually, had none.

You can never say for certain that a team from one era could beat another from 30 years ago but the time has come when it’s legitimate to compare Barcelona with all the legends from years gone by.

There are certain teams who will always be remembered by their generation as the best ever, to be revered down the ages — the Real Madrid team of the late Fifties and early Sixties with Puskas and Di Stefano; Brazil in 1970 orchestrated by Pele; the AC Milan of the Eighties and Nineties with the three great Dutchmen Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard.

Now you can add Barcelona to that list, and deservedly so. Many years from now, younger fans will listen attentively to tales of Xavi and Iniesta, who worked in tandem and never gave the ball away, or the wizard Lionel Messi, who scored 45 goals in a season before the middle of March.

Van Persie was unjustly sent off because, even if he saw the offside flag before shooting, there wasn’t enough time between the two actions to prove it was intentional. But, despite the fuss being made about it, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Barcelona were a class apart.

Their manager, Pep Guardiola, will watch this week’s Champions League games featuring Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Inter Milan with interest but not fear. I don’t think he minds who he gets in the quarter-final draw. But I think everyone else will be praying they avoid Barcelona.

Clearly there is a way to knock them out. Inter Milan did it under Jose Mourinho last year with a supremely disciplined performance in defending the 18-yard box. But to do that, and also score three goals in the home leg, is a very tough call.

Mourinho’s Real Madrid showed that without that discipline you can get hammered, as they were 5-0 this season. Arsenal were better than that on Tuesday night but not tight enough and they couldn’t pose a goal threat either. Barcelona’s principles are world renowned. I wouldn’t say other clubs see that and say, ‘We must copy the way they play’ but, of course, we all try to look and learn.

We have two former Barcelona coaches in our academy at Liverpool and that must tell you something.

What is interesting is that, despite the incredible individual talent at the Nou Camp — they had three nominees for World Player of the Year — the team is king.

The first-team players have been educated to play a certain way since they were kids. If you went to see the B team, I bet their style is very similar to the style we saw against Arsenal.

On top of the world: Xavi, Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta were shortlisted for the Ballon D'Or, with the Argentine scooping the prize

Xavi and Iniesta are rightly lauded but would they look half as good if they went to another club? I think the Barcelona players look great because they play in a system where they trust everyone around them. Maybe if you took them out and stuck them somewhere else, you’d realise that individually they aren’t quite as great as you thought.

Even Messi, one of the most talented players you’ll ever see, wasn’t quite the same when he was taken outside the Barcelona comfort zone and played for Argentina in the World Cup. It is not a criticism of him, just a compliment to the methods that they use at the Nou Camp.

Whatever ability their players have, it is tutored and doctored in the right way. And they make their team-mates look better as well. ........

But irrespective of who Barcelona face, you’d fancy them now. Youngsters today should be glad they are able to watch a team who compare with anything their fathers — or grandfathers — saw in the past.

Is It The Barca Way For Football Development In The ACT? It Should be!

Well if it isn't, it should be.

They are the perfect training aide for National Football Curriculum. Who wouldn't want to play like Barcelona? The number of triangles they create in quick time, the willingness of every player off the ball to work to provide the next best option, the hunger to retain the ball and then win it back quickly if its lost, are attributes you would want in your team, every team, not just the representative teams or development programs. Every Junior coach should analyse the Barca style, Capital Football should make it their business to get as much vision of their games, edit it to provide a training resource to coaches and clubs.  If the Junior Clubs mandate the use of the 1-4-3-3 this season, the National Football Curriculum will really take off and the Football leap ahead.

Parents take note - look to have your child trying to play like this and their coach advocating and training to play in this style. Its fun! The best that Football can offer - next to the enjoyment of playing a truly beutiful game with your mates.

If you get a chance, find a video fo the recent first round game between Barcelona and Arsenal. It was nothing short of Football heaven. An inspiration for the season ahead here in the ACT at every competitive level in junior commmunity football.

The Les Murray Blog from that wonderful Football program "SBS The World Game", contains a terrific article on Barcelona - http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/les-murray/blog/1048057/Is-Barca-the-best-in-history#add

Les Murray had this to say:

Is the current FC Barcelona the best club team of all time?

"...Sorting through the images that are in my mind, and the experiences that I’ve had as a student of the game for more than half a century, I’m having difficulty resisting the supposition that this Barca is not only up there with the cream but may be as good as it gets.
It’s important that I qualify what I mean here. I’m not talking about the greatest club in the world, based on trophies won, achievements made over prolonged periods, star players paraded etc. I make reference only to the unique excellence of this current Barcelona, the one under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, which is yet to complete its third season.
Greatness in football is defined by many things. But the greatest point of distinction and respect, is when a team becomes a singular reference point for all that other teams admire and want to become. This is the Barcelona of today, in a way and to an extent one has rarely seen in the long annals of the game." ....

"The stars have aligned, creating a product that is the envy of all clubs and will be remembered and nostalgically recalled fifty years from now. By and large it has a team that was not bought but organically fashioned from within, and by a technical ideology which, though inspired by the Dutch, is now distinctly its own. This is important when making comparisons for too many great teams of the past were assembled by the cheque book.
This fact promises the greatness of the current Barcelona some serious longevity, which brings us back to the original question: is it the greatest club team of all time? "....
"What I can and will say, is that the Barca of today is the finest club team I have ever seen. I would guess that many would take the same view, including Craig Foster who I’m sure would shamelessly concur. And I’ve been around more than twenty years longer than him.

I rejoice every day at being alive to witness the infinite beauty of this Barcelona and sometimes have to pinch myself to see if it’s all real."

Here is a couple of video clips of Barcelona to inspire you:

Second El Clasico is fast approaching...

Real Madrid had a home game on the way now and I can't resist not to follow the game but aren't subscribe and I don't want to waste some fee for only a few games that I may like in a month. So I am just watching, I mean, reading the live text commentary at Yahoo Sports and while making this post... GOOOOAL...! by Benzema in just 6 minutes of playing time.

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Today's game at the Bernabeu, home of the Los Blancos will be a test if they could catch up Barca in the La Liga championship race. Real Madrid is 5 points adrift from Barca. Real is trying to maintain the small gap between them when Barca unexpectedly draw with Sporting de Gijon last week in fact, they almost lost that game if not for the late goal of David Villa. A win will move them with in two points from the league leader Barcelona.

What's more interesting is the second round of El Clasico is fast approaching. We all know how Barcelon thrashed Real in their turf with a demolition score of 5 - 0. That is just so embarrassing knowing how Real Madrid have spent to get star players in their squad. But that's not it, the two bog clubs are fighting for supremacy again in the Copa del Rey on April 20, four days after the second Clasico.

15 minutes more left before half time and the score still remains the same. It looks like Real will salvage another win at home and have a clean record so far at home soil. A win will also extend Jose Mourinho's unbeaten run in home league games to a whooping nine years. 

And just as I about to publish this post and to left you hanging for an update tomorrow if Real will get another win, a GOOOOAL...! from Carvalho coming from Ronaldo could seal the game from here.

And there goes the half time... Looks like the game is over with the way Real Madrid is playing. They have dominated the ball possessions so far.

HUMOUR | FAN LOSES HIS PANTS OVER LIONEL MESSI AT BARCELONA AIRPORT

Here is a light humour post to give you a true human story. Let me put you in the picture.

LIONEL MESSI returned to Barcelona today from Zurich where the night before he played for Argentina in a Friendly International against Portugal. All fine & normal up to this point.

At the Airport the famous World Nº1 Football player grabbed the attention of a fan, a zealous fan at that, who followed