Barça today moved to a new training home. After 30 years training next to Camp Nou at La Masia, from now on the first team will train with all the other youth categories at the Ciudad Deportiva Joan Gamper in Sant Joan Despi on the edge of Barcelona. The move has been planned for years because La Masia was quite simply too small for all the needs of a top team. At the new Ciudad Deportiva there are nine full size pitches and the first team will use a pitch with identical dimensions and the same type of grass as Camp Nou. asked about the first day's training Dani Alves replied "The Ciudad Deportiva is fantastic and the working conditions we have here are very impressive." Maybe there is still room for improvement for the...

Pep Guardiola has given a rest to eight key first team players with an eye on next Saturday's clasico with Real Madrid. Alves, Puyol, Marquez, Toure, Messi, Xavi, Henry and Valdés will all miss Tuesday's Champions League game with Shakhtar Donetsk and have been given a couple of days holiday, they will all return to training on Tuesday afternoon. Four players from Barça Athletic trained today with the first team: Botia, Victor Vazquez, Abraham and Torres will all have a chance of being on the list for the Shakhtar game. Given that Samuel Eto'o missed yesterday's game he will probably play some of the Shakhtar game to keep him sharp, while Eric...

While we are all still basking in Saturday's thrashing of Atletico Madrid and the six-match winning streak in the belief that a new era is here at Camp Nou, it is worth remembering where we were one year ago. On the 7th October 2007 Barça played the last match before an international break at home to an in-form Atletico Madrid. Barça ran out comfortable 3-0 winners with goals from Deco, Messi and Xavi, which was Barça's sixth succesive victory having previously beaten Lyon (3-0), Sevilla (2-1), Zaragoza (4-1), Levante (1-4) and Stuttgart (0-2). We moved into second place in La Liga with 17 points (five wins and two draws) from 7 games, two points behind Real Madrid. After last season's game with Atletico I wrote on this blog...

On Thursday I watched the Hibs-Barça game on this link,not perfect quality but better than the streams I've seen in the past. I suggest you try the My Sports 2 link. Click here Thanks to SkizzG for putting me on to this site.

Last preseason Barça won 0-1 at Tannadice with a last minute goal from thierry Henry. After seeing the performance on Thursday hopefully we can bag a few more goals today.

Pep Guardiola's reign at Barça started brilliantly tonight with a 0-6 win over Hibs at Murrayfield. Three goals in the first seventeen minutes put Barça on the road to a comfortable win. Last season Barça only managed to beat Dundee United 0-1 and Hearts 1-3 in their time in Scotland so this was an extremely encouraging performance. 

Barça's first half display was quite superb. After just four and a half minutes a Dani Alves cross was poorly cleared straight to Eidur Gudjohnsen who controlled with his left foot before smacking the ball home with his right from just outside the area. In the fifteenth minute Messi jinked in from the right in typical fashion before firing low past McNeil in the Hibs goal. Two minutes later a fantastic build up from Messi and Alves on the right led...

Leo Messi arrived in Barcelona this morning and this afternoon took part in the team's first training session under Pep Guardiola. Two thousand fans turned up at the Miniestadi to watch the session which was open to the public. The fans particularly cheered Messi and Bojan Krkic during the session from which the Argentinian retired after half an hour. Having made the trip from Buenos Aires it is understandable that he only appeared for such a short time.

Barça still hope to retain Messi for the Champions League qualifier on 12/13 August but it seems more likely that the player will join his Argentinian team-mates for the Olympic Games in Beijing.

In the first training match played at the end of the training session Marc Crosas showed he is keen to stay at Barça by...

Fifteen first team players turned up at Camp Nou this morning to undergo physical examinations. Víctor Valdés, Albert Jorquera, José Manuel Pinto, Thierry Henry, Rafa Márquez, Oleguer Presas, Sylvinho Mendes, Bojan Krkic, Gaby Milito, Eric Abidal, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Touré Yaya, Gerard Piqué, Martín Cáceres and Marc Crosas all reported for work, the only absentee was Ronaldinho who is reported to be arriving in Barcelona today to negotiate his future.

According to Barça the only firm offer for the Brazilian has come from Manchester City and it is believed that if Milan do not come up with a serious offer then Ronaldinho may finally decide on the option of playing in the Premier League. There is expected to be a press conference this afternoon with more news on his future. ...