Eric Abidal and Thierry Henry have come in for a fair bit of criticism since signing for Barça last summer. Whether Barça are to blame or not I cannot say, but now playing for France they have both had poor tournaments as a lacklustre French team finished bottom of the Group C.

Abidal was moved to centre back to play alongside William Gallas but the decision proved to be extremely costly. After just four minutes a schoolboy error from Abidal allowed Luca Toni a shot on goal that went wide, but in the 24th minute Abidal again allowed Toni to get goalside and then a clumsy tackle from behind saw Italy win a penalty and Abidal sent off for preventing a clear goalscoring opportunity. Pirlo scored from the spot to make it 1-0.

With France down to ten men it was always going to be an uphill st...

Thierry Henry played his 100th game for the French national team tonight and played a part in the goal that brought France a 1-0 victory over Columbia. Henry won the penalty in the 23rd minute that was then converted by Ribery for the only goal of the match. Abidal and Thuram both played the entire 90 minutes of the game. Henry made his debut for France in a 2-1 win over South Africa on October 11 1997 and since then he has become the highest ever scorer for France with 44 goals in 100 appearances.

If we discount Gianluca Zambrotta who played in Italy's 3-1 win over Belgium on Friday, there were five Barça players involved in friendly internationals this weekend in preparation for Euro 2008. Puyol, Xavi and Iniesta all played in Spain's 2-1 victory over Peru, Xavi set up Spain's first goal with an excellent through ball to David Villa. Deco played the first 45 minutes of Portugal's 2-0 win over Georgia, while Thierry Henry also played the first half only of France's disappointing 0-0 draw with Paraguay. Thuram and Abidal are also in France's Euro 2008 squad but the played no part in yesterday's game.

I take pride in trying to bring you a decent blog here so it is with great embarrassment that I have to admit I made a cock-up of the May player of the month award (see previous post). Regular readers will remember I couldn't see the Barça-Valencia game and therefore there is no corresponding match report. In my haste to prepare the post I clicked on match reports and therefore only came to three games (Madrid, Mallorca and Murcia) when the Valencia game was also played in May. Sincere apologies to everyone as now Giovani dos Santos has been relegated to fourth position. Thanks to Titi 186 for reminding me of the Valencia game though he won't be happy cos Henry still didn't win. The revised top 5 for May is as follows:

1. 
   
   
2. Leo Messi
   
3. Thierry Henry
4. Carles Puy...

The new poll is on whether Frank Rijkaard should rest players for Saturday's game at Deportivo. Barça still need to fight for second place in the league, but the only chance of a trophy is in the Champions League. Of course if Barça get thrashed tonight I imagine I will remove this poll pretty quickly.

In an interview broadcast today on the Spanish radio station RAC 1, Samuel Eto'o declared that if things continued the same and Barça didn't win anything next season, he will look for a move abroad. Eto'o stated that he had reached the top in Spain at Barça but he wanted to win titles and if that if he left Barça it would be to move to a club in another country.

If that was bad news, worse was to come when Barça's director Ferran Sorriano announced on BBC Radio's Five Live that Thierry Henry is happy at Barça and that he will stay at the club next season. Let's just hope it is only talk, it's been a bad enough day with those cabrones from Madrid winning.

With important matches against Espanyol and Manchester United in the next seven days it is good to see that many of the players with physical problems are recovering in time. Deco who hasn't played since the start of March looks ready to play after training well for the last three days. He may well start against Espanyol to try and regain match fitness and then be available for the Champions League game.

Henry, Iniesta and Marquez all missed last weekend's game at Recreativo but today trained normally for most of the session and only at the end did they partake in individual exercises along with Milito and Thuram. Frank Rijkaard will need to decide who to play and who to rest against Espanyol with an eye on having the team at its maximum level next Wednesday. The only first team players who are s...

Carles Puyol had to come off after 15 minutes with an ankle injury in Spain’s 1-0 win over Italy. The extent of the injury is not clear yet though it is not thought to be serious and he may be ok to play against Betis on Saturday. Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez both completed the 90 minutes while Gianluca Zambrotta came on as a substitute for Italy in the 68th minute.

In tonight's other friendly internationals, Lilian Thuram and Eric Abidal both played 90 minutes in France’s 1-0 win over England in Paris. Thierry Henry missed the game due to more back problems but he has not been ruled out of Barça’s game at Betis. Eidur Gudjohnsen scored Iceland’s winner in the 82nd minute of a 1-2 win in Slovakia. Gabi Milito missed Argentina’s 0-2 win over Egypt in El Cairo ...

Thierry Henry gave a very frank press conference yesterday explaining that he is not happy in Barcelona. The reason, he stated, had nothing to do with Barça, but was because he missed his two-year-old daughter Téa. One can understand how difficult it must be; Henry said he had only seen her five times in the last eight months.

Henry's best game this season was against Murcia which coincided with a visit from Téa, so I think we can believe the importance of a player's mood if he is going to perform well. I'm afraid I can't help wondering why he came in the first place if his daughter is so important to him, and perhaps the answer lies in the well-known break up of his marriage with Nicole Merry. People who go through emotional crises tend to make hasty decisions and it's possible that Henry si...

Oleguer Presas will be out of action for six weeks after X-rays confirmed an oblique fracture of the third metacarpal bone in his left hand. I understand this is the second bone of his middle finger but I'm no anatomist. Apparantly Oleguer received the injury in the first half, and perhaps this might help to explain his poor performance. I suffered a similar injury a few years ago and can assure you that it was quite painful and left me feeling faint. Oleguer deserves credit for playing on. Then again, Bert Trautmann played on with a broken neck so who am I to talk. What I do find strange is that he will be out for six weeks. With a hand injury!? I know a lot of fans may say this is the best news we've had today, but with the injuries to Puyol and Zambrotta we need all the cover we can get. Thierry Henry...