Barça finished a disappointing league campaign with an entertaining 3-5 win at Murcia. It was fitting that Frank Rijkaard's last match in charge should be an open game with a lot of goals. Giovani dos Santos who hasn't scored a league goal all season, tonight scored a hat-trick, it is a shame for him that the season ends now because it has often seemed that all that he needed was a goal, and goals are often like buses: you wait for ages and then they all come along together.  

Barça started the game terribly and for the first twenty minutes we looked like a broken team facing another embarassing defeat. Murcia had already created a couple of chances and then in the 8th minute a cross from the promising Dani Aquino was headed against the bar by Ivan Alonso. Gudjohnsen had a long shot tip...

Barça played their last game at Camp Nou under Frank Rijkaard and managed to throw away a 2-0 lead to lose 2-3 in the last minute. Less than 40,000 turned up to see the game, and sections of the public showed their displeasure with Joan Laporta during the match and at the end when Dani Güiza scored Mallorca's third there was a bigger display of protests.

It is games such as this that makes a football fan want to give it all up. However, we should remember that there was nothing at stake for Barça tonight. What I find difficult to understand is that the crowd picked on Deco and especially Eto'o to vent their frustration. If Frank Rijkaard deserves respect for his overall achievements in five years then surely Deco and Eto'o deserve the same for being a core part of the team tha...

Barça succumbed to a vastly superior Real Madrid side tonight who celebrated their 31st Liga by beating us 4-1. Barça were never in the game and are obviously already thinking about next season or their holidays. If ever there was a game that the majority didn't seem to want to play it was this. The humiliation of having to applaud Madrid onto the pitch did not have the desired affect of a proud reaction, instead many players looked as if they just wanted the game to be over with as quickly as possible. To make things harder the referee Perez Burrull gave a number of decisions in favour of Madrid. 

Right from the start it was clear that the game was not as important as most clasicos, Robben had a shot straight at Valdés and then Gudjohnsen shot wide for Barça. In the 7th minut...

It wasn't to be for Barça tonight. Despite having more possession and more shots in both legs we were unable to score a goal in 180 minutes. Manchester United go on to the final in Moscow thanks to a cracking early goal from Paul Scholes. Barça are left to lick their wounds and to contemplate on where it all went wrong in what will almost definitely be the end of the Frank Rijkaard era.

For the first fourteen minutes Barça dictated the pace of the game. Messi had one good run in the first minute which was only stopped by a Scholes foul on the edge of the penalty area, Edwin Van Der Sar's kicking again looked questionable and in the seventh minute Eto'o took advantage of a poor kick but could not find anyone with his cross. Cristiano Ronaldo had hardly been seen the ball an...

I have to admit that I didn't expect much from today's game, but the worst thing was the performance of some players who did not play in the Champions League game against Manchester. One would have expected that some players would have given their all in the hope of earning themselves a place in the team at Old Trafford. However, what began as an uninspiring first half ended with a diabolical second half where we saw the worst Barça of a pretty disappointing season. 

Frank Rijkaard rested many players for the game including Victor Valdés which meant a long awaited debut for Juan Manuel Pinto in goal. In the first half Pinto looked nervous every time he was involved but Barça rode their luck to reach half time without conceding a goal. Deportivo missed two great consecutive chances in the 2...

 

Despite dominating for long periods, Barcelona were unable to break through Manchester United's defensive wall and now go into next Tuesday's 2nd leg at Old Trafford needing a score draw or better to reach the final in Moscow on May 21. If the result was a bit disappointing, the performance was cause for optimism as Barça raised their game for the occasion and kept the best team in Europe on the back foot for most of the game.

When the teams were announced it looked as though Frank Rijkaard had been the more conservative of the managers as he chose to play Iniesta in a forward role and brought in Deco to bolster the midfield, while Sir Alex Ferguson suggested United wanted to attack by picking Tevez, Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo in the starting lineup. However...

Barça missed what is probably the last chance in this league when they failed to score tonight against Espanyol. However, despite the disappointing result there were reasons to be optimistic for the coming Champions League game with Manchester United. Leo Messi and Andres Iniesta looked like changing the game when they came on at half time, and only poor finishing meant Barça didn't take the three points, while Toure Yaya played his best game in midfield since his back injury.

Before the game Frank Rijkaard declared that they would not be thinking of Manchester during the game but his decision to leave Messi, Iniesta, Marquez, Henry and Deco on the bench suggested otherwise. Giovani started on the left with Eto'o in the middle and Bojan on the right, but the first half saw few opportunitie...

Barça once again paid the price for individual errors and had to settle for just one point that sees our chances of winning the league reduced to practically nil. The only positive points to take from the night were the two goals from Samuel Eto'o and the return of Leo Messi. Unfortunately the five weeks out meant that Messi was not as sharp as usual and he wasted two decent chances to win the game for Barça. 

Messi was not risked from the start and Rijkaard chose an untried forward line of Giovani, Eto'o and Santi Ezquerro. Gio hadn't been in the starting lineup since the 1-2 win at Zaragoza in February while Ezquerro started a league game for the first time since February 2007 when he played 90 minutes in the 0-0 draw at Osasuna. Eidur Gudjohnsen started in midfield in place of the in...

Barça have reached the semi-finals of the Champions League after beating Schalke 04 1-0 (2-0 on aggregate) and will now face Manchester United for a place in the final in Moscow on May 21st. However, the performance, especially in the first half left a lot to be desired. Whether the recent declarations from directors had a negative effect I cannot say, but for the first half an hour Barça played so badly it looked more likely that they would get knocked out.

In the first twenty minutes Schalke had 9 attempts on goal as Barça were completely outplayed. Schalke surprised with some neat one touch football and threatened with long shots and dangerous crosses. After 7 minutes Valdés dived to save a shot from Altintop and the ball spun up behind him and would have gone in if the keeper hadn't rea...

In yet another cruel night for culés, Barça were incapable of scoring the goal which would have reduced differences with Madrid to five points. Three times Barça were denied by the woodwork but as the night wore on, anxiety turned to desperation and the cool head that was needed to stick the ball in the net was missing.

Frank Rijkaard made just one change to the team that won in Germany with Sylvinho coming in at left back in place of Eric Abidal. During the first twenty minutes Barça played some good football despite Getafe having the best early chance when Valdés saved with his legs from Manu del Moral after the referee ignored a foul by De La Red on Zambrotta. Barça had two great chances to take the lead, first after 14 minutes when Toure won the ball from a corner and the ball ...