Back to La Liga tomorrow with a visit to San Mames to face Athletic Bilbao (kick off 10pm). Pep Guardiola will have to make do without the injured Zlatan Ibrahimovic and flu victims Eric Abidal and Toure Yaya, so Johnathan dos Santos has been called up to make up the numbers. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that nobody else goes down with the flu as we already have other players who are not at 100% after various knocks and niggles picked up in the last couple of weeks.

Athletic will probably be without Fernando Llorente who is unlikely to recover in time from a hip injury, though coach Joaquin Caparrós will not name his 18-man squad until tomorrow lunchtime. Athletic are currently 8th in the table on 16 points and of five home games they have won three...

The kick off time for the first Clasico this season has been fixed for 7pm on Sunday 29th November. You have been warned. Don't go making any silly family plans for that time.

If we thought it was bad yesterday with the news of Zlatan Ibrahimovic's hamstring injury, today it is worse as news arrives of two cases of Swine Flu in Barça's first team squad. Eric Abidal is the first player to be confirmed as having the H1N1 viral strain of influenza A while Toure Yaya is suspected of having the virus but is waiting for conformation. We may feel relieved that Abidal has caught the bug while he is already out injured but Toure, who is thought to have picked it up while on international duty, trained with other players yesterday and may have passed on the illness. We will just have to wait and see if any of the other players get ill. Presumably if a lot of players get it then there may be a case for postponing matches but I don't suppose we'll get...

Excellent news this morning as Gabi Milito played his first friendly game since getting injured in the Champions League semi-final with Manchester United on April 29 2008. Milito played the first 45 minutes of a friendly game against Bolivian team Bolivar at Barça's training ground in Sant Joan Despí which Barça won 4-1. I have to admit I was beginning to think that Milito would never make it back but today's news  is very encouraging. Given the length and the complications of Milito's injury it is unlikely that he will be back in the first team for a few weeks, but if all goes well he will be an excellent addition to strengthen the squad in the new year.

As we near the end of the year the personal awards keep coming in recognition of our excellent year. Leo Messi has been named the best player of 2009 by the French magazine Onze Mondial, and in a final list of 57 nominations Barça were the team with the most candidates, besides Messi there were nominations for Valdes, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Xavi, Toure, Iniesta, Ibrahimovic and Henry making a total of ten players from Barça which beat Manchester United who had eight nominations.

There was also an award from the Observer Sports Monthly Magazine who named Pep Guardiola as the Best Coach of the Year. There is also an excellent article from John Carlin on Guardiola. Click...

Just a quick post to give the results of the latest poll and to inform you of the new one. Asked "Who is Barça's biggest rival in La Liga this season?" there was no surprise that the majority of you voted for Real Madrid. What was perhaps  a little surprising was that only 60% voted for Madrid while 21% voted for Sevilla. The other votes went to "other" with 10%, while 9% of you voted for "none". The next poll in the sidebar is for who will qualify from our Champions League group. Remember it's all very close at the moment with Inter on 6 points, Rubin and Barça on 5 points and Dynamo Kiev on 4. So get voting, and please feel free to use the comments section to discuss any of the internationals today. I just...

I have to admit I was tempted to put a headline to this article along the lines of "Barça move for Casillas" or "Torres agrees terms with Barça", just to see how many extra visits it would create. Yes, folks, there is an international break this week which means that with newspaper inches to fill, it is time for our friends from the mainstream media to churn out any old rumour based on the smallest piece of evidence. There is nearly always something to back up the story such as Manchester City manager, Mark Hughes, being spotted at the recent Osasuna-Barça game. However, was Hughes negotiating over Robinho, watching Toure Yaya or following Osasuna's right...

There is just under a month before the beginning of the 2009 Fifa Club World Cup which is being held in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates from December 9 to December 19, and this lunchtime the draw was made for the tournament. As there are seven teams taking part the draw is a little confusing. First there will be a play-off between the host team Al-Ahly and New Zealand team Aukland City. The winner will go into the next round and will play Mexican team Atlante FC, while in this same "quarter final" stage the Congolese team TP Mazempa play South Korea's Pohang Steelers. Barça and the Argentinian team Estudiantes come into the tournament at the semi final stage. Estudiantes will play the winner of TP Mazembe and Pohang Steelers on December 15, while...

Five second half goals gave Barça an easy win over Cultural Leonesa to put us into the last 16 of the Copa del Rey, but the big news in the Copa tonight is the elimination of Real Madrid who could only beat little Alcorcon 1-0 and go out 1-4 on aggregate. Pep Guardiola was taking few risks that Barça would suffer a similar humilliation and the only player from Barça Atletic who started the game tonight was Johnathan dos Santos who showed his potential with an excellent assist for our second goal.

As is so often the case in games like this, there was a lack of intensity from the team in the first half. There were a lot of imprecise passes and early on a couple of loose back passes might have  seen us go behind. First...

Tragic news just in. Ex Barça goalkeeper Robert Enke today took his own life by throwing himself under a train. Enke was reported to be have been suffering from depression since his two-year-old daughter Lara died in 2006. Enke played four times for Barça in the 2002/03 season but never established himself in the team. He played seven times for Germany and was currently playing for Hannover 96. It is terribly sad to lose such a young man. Enke was 32-years-old. May he rest in peace.