Barca's Junior Stars

We all know that a big secret to FC Barcelona's success has been their La Masia graduates. Players like Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique and Lionel Messi have all gone through the academy. Now that the current Masia stars are slowly getting older all we Barca fans hope for some new Barca talents to make their big break in the first team. There are many good players in the Barca B team hoping to one day go from good to great. Here are some of my favourite promising stars, some of them have already played a game or two in the first team while some are still eagerly waiting for their debut. One thing that they're certainly not lacking is talent.

Marc Bartra

21 years old

1,83 cm

Centre back

Of all the promising players Marc Bartra is probably my favourite. With his good looks and unquestionable talent he has often been branded as the new Gerard Pique. Bartra transfered to La Masia in the age of 11 from their local rival Espanyol. He made his debut in the first team in 2010 and has played there 7 times since then. Despite his few appearances in the first team he is still very much Barca B's player, but with his talent I'm sure we'll be seeing him in the first team more soon.

John Terry, Captain or a Crook?

UNfair play?

According to goal.com Chelsea's captain John Terry will soon be back on the field after a knee ligament injury. And that isn't making Chelsea's manager Rafael Benitez jump with glee. John Terry is known to be a very difficult player for managers. As the captain and Chelsea legend the fans love him, but as a player he is known to be very unpredictable and famous for stepping on managers' toes.

 I personally believe that John Terry is one of the reasons why the numerous managers have enjoyed such short visits at Stamford Bridge. I've always seen him as a bit of a bully. Sure he is a good player, but is he really that good? I mean so good that it's justified that he gets away with all the nasty things he does on and off the field. And there really have been MANY nasty things..
Terry might be many things, but everybody knows that gentleman isn't one of them.

And the Winner is...

4 time's a charm?

The winner of the prestigious Ballon d'or award was as anticipated Lionel Messi. Messi is the first football player to win 4 consecutive Ballons d'or. Cristiano Ronaldo came in second and Andres Iniesta was third. In my opinion Andres Iniesta should've been second since I think that as a striker Cristiano Ronaldo is too much behind Messi. But the most important thing is that Messi won!

 It's interesting to see how many more Ballons d'or can Messi win. He is only 25 years old and already won 4 and hopefully still has many, many years left in football. If that is possible for a human being I don't see any reason why he wouldn't keep improving even more.

FC Barcelona - Espanyol 4 - 0

Barca started their year with a victory at Camp Nou.

Yesterday FC Barcelona started their new year with a catalan derby at Camp Nou. The 4-0 victory against their fellow catalan team, Espanyol showed a strong Barca that was able to pretty much win the game before even the first half had ended. They played effectively and confidently and the little Espanyol really never stood a chance. Xavi scored the first goal on the 10th minute, then a little over 5 minutes later Pedro scored the second one. About 10 minutes later Pedro scored another goal and the numbers were already 3-0. 2 minutes later FC Barcelona got a penalty, that I must say even as a Barca fan was a wrong call. Or at least Fabregas fell quite easily, which in my opinion pretty stupid considering that they already had a 3-0 lead and really didn't need a penalty. But anyway, Lionel Messi scored the penalty in and the game was 4-0. After that goal the last 15 minutes of the first half were quite boring. Barca didn't really make an effort anymore yet Espanyol still couldn't get the ball.

Fixtures

So the first half of the season 2012-2013 is finally finished. After the first half these are the fixtures from the top 3 leagues:

La Liga

FC Barcelona 49

Atletico Madrid 40
Real Madrid 33 
Malaga 31
Real Betis 31




And the top scorers...

Lionel Messi 26
Radamel Falcao 17 
Cristiano Ronaldo 14

Tito is Back!

Tito Vilanova returns to coaching tonight

I was so happy to read the good   news about Barca's manager Tito  Vilanova's return to coaching in  tonight's game against Espanyol. According to assistant coach Jordi Roura Tito will be back on the manager's seat, but he will have to continue the cancer treatments. I really really hope that Tito's cancer will be beaten this quickly, because Tito is an amazing coach and it would be such a loss to the players and the fans and himself if he had to quit. Hope not!

Go Milan!

Kevin Prince Boateng got tired of racism

A couple of days ago AC Milan did something that everybody has been waiting for, an actual stand against racism. Racism has been a problem in football for years and although there have been all sorts of campaigns etc to end racism I feel like no one has actually done anything. First of all "the better player you are the more you can get away with"-attitude has proven that despite all the nice things the football federations have said if a moment comes when they need to choose between a star player and fighting against racism they choose the player. And in my opinion that has to change if they really want to end racism.

Ballon d'or

Hello everybody! Only 3 days till the announcement of this year's Ballon d'or winner. There has been a lot of debate going on in the media about who truly deserves to win the prestigious award. Naturally as a Blaugrana girl I wish that either Messi or Iniesta wins it. However it's not just because I'm a Barca fan, but as a football fan I can't name one reason why Cristiano Ronaldo should win it. No offense to anyone, but in my opinion Messi outshines him in every department and while maybe a few years back comparing these to each other and debating about which one is the best made sense, but now, again in my opinion, I don't think that there is anything left to compare. Like many smart people have said Ronaldo is the best of the humans, but Messi is just simly on another level.