Month: April 2011

Coach Pep Guardiola wants Barcelona to do their talking on the pitch

Mourinho sparked an uncharacteristically angry response from his opposite number after branding Guardiola as being a unique coach who “criticises the right decisions made by referees”.

“We will meet each other on the pitch. He’s won his games off the pitch and I’ll give him his personal Champions (League) for that,” said Guardiola.


“In this room, he’s the chief, the man, the person who knows everything about the world and I don’t want to compete with him at all.” Guardiola added “If you think that his allegation that I always complain about the referees is true after you’ve all heard from me over the last three years, well there’s nothing I can do. Off the pitch there’s nothing we can do to fight that.

“Off the pitch, he has already won, as he has done all year. On the pitch, we’ll see what happens.”

Proud to be a Barcelona fan

First of all,­ Shakhtar is an excellent team. One of the best attacking­ teams in Europe, unlucky they did not score more goals.­ As the Shakhtar coach said: If they had someone like­ Messi, who had converted 100% of their chances, they­ would have progressed. Valdes had 5 very good and­ important saves! Second: Arsenal? Hmm…

Weak? No, not­ at all! They won 2-1 at Emirates, and then went on to­ play a kinda bad game in the Nou Camp, which they lost­ 3-1 (no shots on goal, only an own goal from Busquets­ after a corner). But Arsenal+Shakhtar, and now Real­ Madrid+Possibly Man U in the final. Can’t see it­ much tougher! Proud to be a Barcelona fan, even if we­ go on to lose all 4 clasicos. We have played a great­ season – and no matter what, we can be proud of the 5-0­ routing of Madrid at Camp Nou, Real won’t ever beat­ Barcelona by that result!

Anyway, I think we will­ win Copa Del Rey by 3-1, Get a 1-1 draw in La Liga this­ saturday, and qualify on away goals in CL! Good luck,­ Visca Barca!

Leo Messi sets new record with 48 goals in one season

Leo Messi has set a new record yesterday with his goal in the Champions League quarter-finals against Shakhtar Donetsk. He has scored 48 goals so far this season and now has the record for most goals scored during a football season for a FC Barcelona player:

He has scored 29 goals in the Spanish League (with 7 matches left), 9 in the Champions League (with at least 2 matches left), 7 in the Spanish Cup (with 1 match left), and 3 in the Spanish Super Cup.

Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi

He scored 47 goals last season (tied with Brazilian Ronaldo for best as a FC Barceona player) and is now en route to beat the Liga record held by Puskas (49 goals for Real Madrid in the 59/60 season). Have a look at last year’s 47 goals below:

FC Barcelona set to name best side vs Shakthar Donetsk

“We are making a mistake if we play with the Real Madrid games on our minds,” said Guardiola, FC Barcelona‘s coach.

“There are 90 minutes still to play. The idea is to go out there to win the game and try to score one or two goals.”

“That’s the idea we have always had and the one we’ll maintain. Tomorrow we’ll see how people are feeling physically.”

“Each game is a rehearsal for the next but this one is important enough not to think about anything else.”

Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu was not holding out much hope of causing an upset on Tuesday.

“It is clear there is very little chance for us to progress to the next stage,” he said at a news conference. “But we want to go out with our heads held high.”

FC Barcelona would reach once more the semi-finals of the Champions League if they go through the quarter-finals stage against Shakhtar Donetsk, and they may face arch-rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals for another Clásico.

FC Barcelona and Real Madrid meet four times in 18 days

FC Barcelona, the La Liga leaders, will face Real Madrid at the Bernabeu next Saturday. Four days later the two teams meet again in the Copa del Rey final, and the likelihood of a Champions League semi-final clash between the Spanish giants drew closer when Pep Guardiola’s side won against Shakhtar Donetsk 5-1 in the first leg.

Continue reading “FC Barcelona and Real Madrid meet four times in 18 days”

Champions League Lineups: FC Barcelona vs Shakhtar Donetsk

FC Barcelona – Shakhtar Donetsk
Champions League
Quarter finals
Wednesday 06 April 2010
Camp Nou, Barcelona

The line ups for tonight’s Champions League quarter finals at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona.

Dani Alves
Dani Alves

FC Barcelona : Valdés; Alves, Busquets, Piqué, Adriano; Mascherano, Xavi Keita; Messi, Villa, Iniesta

Shakhtar: Pyatov; Srna, Ishchenko, Rakitskiy, Rat, Costa, Mkhitaryan, Hübschman, William, Jadson; Luiz Adriano

FC Barcelona vs Shakhtar

Match facts and stats ahead of the first leg of FC Barcelona‘s Champions League quarter-final with Shakhtar Donetsk at the Camp Nou.

Lionel Messi is struggling with a leg injury sustained on international duty with Argentina. He was only used as a substitute in the 1-0 La Liga win at Villarreal on Saturday. “In Villarreal I did not feel good,” Messi said. The World Player of the Year is still expected to start in a Barca side that is missing Carles Puyol (knee), while Maxwell and Pedro hope to return after injury. Eric Abidal was present at training on Tuesday following surgery on a liver tumour, but did not take part.

Former Barcelona defender Dmytro Chygrynskiy is doubtful with an ankle injury, while Olexandr Kucher misses out. Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho is available after seven months out but is not expected to start. Star Brazilian trio Jadson, Douglas Costa and Luiz Adriano all start.

MATCH FACTS

The team that has knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League in the last seven seasons has gone on to lose their next knockout match.
Shakhtar have the best shooting accuracy of the eight teams left in the Champions League (57 per cent).
Barcelona have allowed their opponents fewer shots on target against them than any other team in the Champions League.
The Ukrainian side have won nine of their last 10 Champions league matches and scored 26 goals in those games.
Shakhtar have only won two of their 12 European games against Spanish sides but both of those victories were against Barcelona.
Shakhtar have won two and lost three of their six European games against Barcelona but they won 3-2 on their last visit to the Camp Nou.
Eduardo has scored four goals from just six shots on target in the Champions League this season.
Lionel Messi has scored 25 goals in his last 30 Champions League games and 14 in his last 11 starts
Shakhtar have conceded 138 fouls, more than any other team in this season’s Champions League.
Shakhtar have scored the most goals from outside the box in this season’s Champions League.
Lionel Messi has fired in 20 shots on target, more than any other player in the Champions League this season.

ODDS

Barcelona 1/5, Draw 11/2, Shakhtar 14/1

Champions League – Euro Club Index: Barcelona widen gap

Barcelona’s win and Real Madrid’s loss opens up Pep Guardiola’s side’s lead at the head of our ranking of Europe’s top clubs.

Barcelona’s win and Real Madrid’s loss opens up Pep Guardiola’s side’s lead at the head of our ranking of Europe’s top clubs.

HOW IT WORKS

This season we are using the Hypercube Infostrada Euro Club Index, which scientifically analyses hundreds of thousands of matches from the top divisions in all European nations as well as Europa League and Champions League games.
The Index takes into account all matches played over an eight-year period but with recent results carrying more weight than older ones. The most recent result has 20 times more impact than a result of three years ago.
The performance of a league’s teams in Champions League and Europa League reflects the rise or fall of the sporting level in that league. So, for example, if English teams perform well in Europe, all Premier League teams receive a small bonus in their ECI score. The ranking and its predictive power are thus made even more accurate.

Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho admitted that his side’s loss to Sporting Gijon – his first home league defeat in nine years – had all-but ended their La Liga hopes; Barcelona beat Villarreal 1-0 in a game as entertaining as Real’s was poor, opening up an eight-point lead with as many games remaining.

That result is reflected in our rankings as, while Real stay second, the gap increases from 185 to 274 points. Que pena, as they say in Madrid.

Otherwise there is no positional change in the top 10, with a bit of rotation in the bottom half of the top 20 that sees the same sides switch around a few domestic draws and wins here and there: Milan and Manchester City exploiting wins over Inter and Sunderland to move up two spots each, with Valencia gaining five places thanks to a win at Getafe.
Top 20

1 (1) Barcelona – 4194 points
2 (2) Real Madrid – 3920
3 (3) Manchester United – 3833
4 (4) Chelsea – 3576
5 (5) Porto – 3517
6 (7) Internazionale – 3403
7 (6) Arsenal – 3348
8 (8) Bayern Munich – 3275
9 (9) Marseille – 3236
10 (10) Shakhtar Donetsk – 3200
11 (15) Valencia – 3168
12 (14) AC Milan – 3165
13 (11) Lyon – 3156
14 (12) Tottenham – 3152
15(13) Benfica – 3148
16 (16) Zenit St Petersburg – 3086
17 (17) Villarreal – 3055
18 (20) Manchester City – 3052
19 (18) Lille – 3051
20 (19) Borussia Dortmund – 3028

FC Barcelona to play their matches at sea?

Catalan architect Emili Vidal has submitted plans for current European Champions FC Barcelona to play their future home matches in a brand new 150 000 capacity stadium on a man-made island in the Balearic sea. The artificial island is tentatively to be called ‘Illa Barcelona’.

FC Barcelona currently play their home matches at the Camp Nou which has a capacity of 98 000, but as one of – if not the biggest team in world football – demand to see them play is incredibly high. In 2007 FC Barcelona commissioned Norman Foster to re-design the Camp Nou, with the aim of increasing the capacity and modernizing the ageing stadium – however his designs were criticized for only increasing the capacity by 10 000.

‘Illa Barcelona’ would increase capacity for the reigning Spanish and European Champions to 150 000 and be as revolutionary as the team that would play in it. The idea of hosting sports and events at sea is not a new one however as anyone who has visited Singapore will tell you, where they have had a floating stadium since 2007.