FC Barcelona - Osasuna 5 - 1

The man of the match

Yesterday's clash between FC Barcelona and Osasuna ended 5-1 for the Catalans. The biggest star of the evening was Lionel Messi, who scored 4 goals and was pretty much responsible for the victory. Pedro also managed to score once for the home team and Raoul Loe scored the only goal for the visitors. For a few minutes in the beginning after Osasuna's equalizer the game was a tie, but after that Barca and especially Messi were unstoppable and Osasuna could only stop and stare. After Atletico Madrid's 0-3 defeat to Athletic Bilbao Barca was able to restore the gap back to 11 points.

The Captain of the Bench

With the arrival of Diego Lopez to Real Madrid I can't help but wonder what is going to happen to Casillas. And it's probably not just me who's wondering. The whole world and probably even Casillas himself are thinking about that. What happened between Mourinho and Casillas that was so terrible that he put the best goalkeeper in the world to the bench? Any team would be happy to have him. With his talent, calmness and polite behavior it's hard to believe that the man is a Blancos player in the first place. And now he's not even allowed to play anymore.

I think it's interesting to see what Casillas will do. Now he's injured and can't play for 12 weeks, but after that, if Lopez is still the no 1 goalkeeper will Casillas just settle for his unfair treatment at the club or will he go somewhere else?

The Next Member of the Barca Clan?

Could David de Gea be FC Barcelona's new goalkeeper? At least according to de Gea's girlfriend Edurne, de Gea would be very interested in playing for the Catalans. De Gea is still very much a Manchester United player, but who knows what could happen when Victor Valdes leaves... I think that David de Gea could be a good solution to Barca's goalkeeper problem. He is young, Spanish and eager to play there. Liverpool's Pepe Reina and Atletico Madrid's Thibaut Courtois have also been linked with a move to Camp Nou.

Malaga - FC Barcelona 2 - 4

Yesterday's Copa del Rey clash between FC Barcelona and Malaga ended happily for the Catalans. After a 2-2 tie in the first leg at Camp Nou I was starting to worry that the Copa del Rey would be starting to slip away, but with a clear 4-2 victory in the second leg FC Barcelona is still very much in the game. The next cup game will be an El Clasico against Real Madrid on January 30th. The goalscorers of the night were Joaquin and Santa Cruz for the home team and Pedro, Pique, Iniesta and Messi for the Catalans.

The Special One Not So Special Anymore?

One of the many smug faces of mr Mourinho.

Lately there have been lots of rumors about Jose Mourinho's relationship with the players of Real Madrid. And despite everyone denying issues in the locker room I think it's hard to believe that all those rumors came out of nowhere. And of course the fact that the Blancos have played so incredible poorly tells that something is very much wrong inside the team.

I think that this is kind of funny, because before Mourinho was always known to have really good relationships with his players. For example Zlatan Ibrahimovic praised Mourinho several times in his autobiography and many others of his former players are still in contact with him.

Papa Pique

Milan Pique Mebarak the first son of Gerard Pique and his girlfriend Shakira was born on Tuesday night. The official statement on Shakira's website read "We are happy to announce the birth of Milan Pique Mebarak, son of Shakira Mebarak and Gerard Pique, born January 22nd at 9:36pm, in Barcelona, Spain.

"The name Milan (pronounced MEE-lahn), means dear, loving and gracious in Slavic; in Ancient Roman, eager and laborious; and in Sanskrit, unification.

"Just like his father, baby Milan became a member of FC Barcelona at birth.

According to the hospital the labour went excellently and the whole family is healthy and happy. Baby Milan weighed approximately 6 lbs and 6 ounces. Congratulations to Pique and Shakira!

Real Sociedad - FC Barcelona 3 - 2

"Real Sociedad can be the first team to beat Barcelona". That was Sociedad's young striker Antoine Griezmann's comment before yesterday's game. Little did I know he would be right. Real Sociedad could and did win FC Barcelona for the first time in La Liga this season. It's three points lost, nothing more nothing less, but it still stings a little. Despite the defeat FC Barcelona still sits rather comfortably on the top of La Liga with a 9 point lead ahead of Atletico Madrid. And even though Atletico Madrid will surely try to narrow that gap to 6 points tonight against Levante, Barca still has a nice lead.

What worries me the most is what Barca's playing looked like yesterday. And I don't mean that Real Sociedad won, because Barca played poorly. Sociedad was great and definitely deserved to win, but Barca wasn't what they could've and should've been. The defense was quite poor. Gerard Pique was basically asleep and got two idiotic warnings that turned into a red card. Wether the stupid red card was an overreaction from the judge or not, no one can deny that Pique shouldn't have put himself to that situation in the first place. The rest of the defense was quite bad as well and Victor Valdes... Once again Victor Valdes. I love him, but sometimes it's like he doesn't exist, like Barca doesn't have a goalkeeper at all and as a fan that's quite frustrating to watch.

 After the announcement last week that Valdes wasn't going to renew his contract made me wonder. What if it wasn't Valdes' decision but FC Barcelona's and they just made it look like it was his so that it would be nicer for him in the media. Maybe it's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but in my head it totally makes sense. He hasn't lived up to the expectations in years, if ever and I've always wondered how long he'll be allowed to keep playing like that. And it's not that he isn't good enough, but I think that often on the field he's somewhat arrogant and lazy and doesn't work hard enough. Anyway, I hope that Valdes' departure will be a good thing both for him and the club.

Villa and Valdes, Disappearing Acts?

During this transfer season FC Barcelona's striker David Villa hasn't hidden his desire to play for another team. Yesterday it was also reported that Barca's goalkeeper Victor Valdes won't be renewing his contract with the Catalans.

 I understand David Villa's situation since he is a very good player that still always gets outshined by Lionel Messi. With all the other Blaugrana strikers fighting for a place in the line-up it's no wonder that Villa wants to play somewhere he gets regular playing time and a secure place in the starting line-up. 

The Return of the Barca Legend

On Wednesday evening news broke that FC Barcelona's former manager Josep Guardiola would start coaching Bayern Munich next season. The news were highly anticipated since during his one year sabbatical in New York rumours have spread constantly on his next destination.
The contracts with Bayern Munich were signed as early as December which is funny since only this week Pep told that he would want to coach in England. I bet Roman Abramovich was pretty disappointed since he has probably most eagerly tried to get Guardiola to coach Chelsea. And Chelsea certainly wasn't the only team that wanted him. At least according to rumors AC Milan, PSG and Manchester City just to name few were all desperate to get him.

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.