Not a bad night for the Barça players as Puyol, Busquets, Messi and Keita all scored to add to the two goals scored by Samuel Eto'o earlier in the day (see previous post). Spain won 0-3 in Estonia with good performances from Xavi, Iniesta and Puyol who scored Spain's third goal (Click here to see). There was not such good fortune for Pique, Bojan and Busquets playing for Spain's under-21 team who lost 2-1 away to Switzerland though Busquets did score Spain's goal.

Up to 17 Barça players are on international duty this weekend and things have started well with big wins for Samuel Eto'o's Cameroon and Toure Yaya's Ivory Coast. Eto'o scored the first two goals in Cameroon's 5-0 win at home to Mauritius, the first goal came in the 26th minute while the second was from a penalty at the start of the second half. Toure played all 90 minutes in Ivory Coast's 3-0 victory over Madagascar. Both Cameroon and Ivory Coast have now qualified for the following stage in the qualifying stage for the 2010 World Cup. Also on international duty was our 17-year-old promise Gai Assulin who played for Israel's under-21 in this afternoon's 0-0 draw away to Italy.

Ok, not much to do with Barça except for one clip, this will at least make you feel better if you have ever missed an open goal - Click here

The draw for the last 32 of the Copa del Rey was made today and Barça have been paired with Benidorm CD. The first game will be played on October 29th with the return at Camp Nou on November 12th. The date could vary a day either way depending on the TV companies.

Barça last played Benidorm in the 1998/99 Copa del Rey winning 3-0 at home and 0-1 away. Benidorm play in Group III of the Segunda Division B and are currently third from bottom with 6 points from 7 games.

Here is the full draw: 

Poli Ejido - Villarreal
Real Unión - Real Madrid
Benidorm - Barcelona
Orihuela - Atlético
Portugalete - Valencia
Ponferradina - Sevilla
Read More

The LFP have announced next week's kick off times a day early this week. Barça's away game at Athletic Bilbao will take place on Sunday 19th October with the kick off time set for 7pm local time. The Madrid derby between Atletico and Real Madrid will be played on the Saturday at 8pm. A good week to go three points above our biggest rival.

Bad news for Pedro Rodriguez who was injured yesterday training with Spain's under-21 team. Tests today showed a torn muscle in his right thigh and the estimated time for recovery is four weeks. Let's hope he makes a full and speedy recovery.

Having sorted out the polls I have now managed to get the statistics page up and running. You can click on statistics at the top of the page and then you can check the stats for both this season and last season, or if you want to go immediately to this season's stats click here

While we are on the subject of improvements to the blog please feel free to send comments with your suggestions. Please don't expect me to follow all your ideas but I promise to consider all of them and if I have technical difficulties getting things done I will ask the guys at Oleole if they can help sort things out.

Yes, I know it's been a while, but finally we have things sorted to begin putting regular polls on the blog again. The first poll is on how well you think Pep Guardiola has done as coach so far this season. Please don't rate him just on yesterday's performance or on his dress sense. Has he the tactical nous we need, the motivational skills or the ability to read a game and make the right substitutions? You be the judge, click on one of the answers in the sidebar and then click the button in the bottom right hand corner to cast your vote.

Barça destroyed Atletico Madrid tonight with a superb display of attacking football. If in the last two games we had to wait until injury time to seal the three points, tonight the victory was all but sewn up after just ten minutes. Marquez, Eto'o and Messi put Barça 3-0 in just eight minutes and by the half hour we were 5-1 up.

Games between these two clubs have a history of producing high scoring, incident packed games and tonight's clash was no exception. Leo Messi played a blinder and won the battle with Kun Agüero hands down, but the performance of unsung players such as Eric Abidal and Eidur Gudjohnsen was just as pleasing to see.