Spain's national team coach Vicente Del Bosque has included Sergio Busquets and Gerard Piqué in the squad for the friendly game against England in Seville on February 11th. This is the first call-up to the full squad for both players and is recognition for the form shown this season. Also in the squad are regulars Xavi Hernandez, Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta which means Barça together with Liverpool are the most represented team with five players each. The full squad is as follows:

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid),...

It's been another superb month for Barça: four wins out of four in La Liga plus we are through to the Copa del Rey semi-finals after knocking out Atletico Madrid and Espanyol. The level of some players continues to be very high which makes choosing a player of the month very difficult. However, the player of the month for January 2009 has to go to Dani Alves whose progression in recent weeks has been exceptional. We all knew that Alves had great talent and never-ending resources of energy, but his adaptation to his new team has impressed us all and the combination with Leo Messi on the right wing has surpassed all expectations. In January alone Alves has notched up five assists...

As expected Sergio Busquets has arrived to an agreement which will see him remain a Barça player until June 2013. Busquets has been one of the biggest revelations this season with some commanding performances in midfield. The release clause in his contract has been set at €80 million.

There were six Barça players on international duty yesterday and the star of the night was Thierry Henry who scored twice in France's 3-1 win in a friendly against Tunisia. Tunisia took the lead after 30 minutes but France hit back with goals from Henry in minutes 40 and 49. Karim Benzema scored France's third just before the hour. Henry played 83 minutes before being substituted by Malouda. Eric Abidal played the full 90 minutes in central defence.

Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Bojan Krkic were all in action for Spain's under-21 team who beat Switzerland 3-1 after extra time to qualify for the under-21s European Championship. Piqué and Bojan played the entire...

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.

Leo Messi followed up his headed goal against Sporting Gijon by nodding in Argentina's first goal after five minutes in the 2-1 win against Uruguay...

I didn't do this for August as there were only three games, so the September award is actually for August and September. Anyway, the award is back and I'll be doing this for the whole season. The first winner of the season is our midfield maesto Xavi Hernandez who continues to be in splendid form after his excellent European Championship. I'm sure the Fcbnews award will mean more to him than Uefa's player of Euro 2008!

As I did last season, I will name a top 5 for each month. Please write in to tell me how wrong I am. This month the top 5 is as follows:

1. Xavi Hernandez
2. Andres Iniesta
3. Leo Messi
4. Sergio Busquets
5. Samuel Eto'o

Barça's 1-6 in El Molinon yesterday was satisfying not just for the result and a decent performance. What was especially pleasing was to see the role of the homegrown players who more and more are becoming the leaders of the team. Six of yesterday's starting eleven came up through the youth teams which if you compare it to some English teams such as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool is an excellent sign that things are working well at the lower levels of the club.

It is true that Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi and Valdés have all been around for a while now, and that Sergio Busquets is the only revelation of the six who started in Gijon. However, it seems that Xavi and Iniesta are both still improving and they are...