You can tell we are moving towards the end of the year by the number of awards ceremonies. Last week we had the list of candidates for France Football's Ballon d'Or and now it is the turn for the other most prestigious individual award: the Fifa World Player. Fifa have released a list of 23 candidates for 2009 which includes six Barça players, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Henry and Ibrahimovic plus ex-blaugrana Samuel Eto'o. Compared to the Ballon d'Or list which you can see HERE the difference for Barça is the inclusion of Carles Puyol and the omission of Toure Yaya. We all know that Leo Messi is going to take...

There are a lot of questions being asked this week after Barça’s disappointing defeat to Rubin Kazan. Following on from a below par minimum victory over Almeria and the goalless draw in Valencia the main doubts seem to be aimed at our goal-scoring ability and the lack of back up to cover for injuries. There are some claims that certain players are not good enough, and also worries over a general mental tiredness.

Having scored so many goals last season it is...

No big surprise that we have six players in the final 30 for this season's Ballon d'Or. Leo Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Toure Yaya, Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have all been shortlisted for the award by France Football and there is also a place for ex-Blaugrana Samuel Eto'o. My only problem with the list is that none of our defenders have been nominated as Alves, Piqué and Puyol could all have made the list, but I suppose this just goes to show that it is the forwards and midfielders who take the glory in football.

There is the possibility that we could end up with the top three spots as Messi, Xavi and Iniesta will all receive a lot of votes but I imagine Cristiano Ronaldo will...

Ok, I just got back from my trip to London and I'm a bit too exhausted to write much right now. Of course it is crunch time in the World Cup qualifiers and Leo Messi and Argentina have to get a result in Uruguay tomorrow night if they are going to be in South Africa next summer. A win will mean qualification while a draw should also be enough unless Ecuador thrash Chile, but given the recent form of Argentina with some pretty strange decisions from Maradona, nothing can be taken for granted. I've not had time to check on all the groups but it seems that most of our other international players will make it to the finals except for Seydou Keita and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. 

In other news Xavi is doubtful for Saturday's game at...

As there were only four official games in August, I decided to combine August and September for the first Player Of The Month award of the season. Results are based on the Liga and Champions League games played so far plus the three supercup games we played in August.

Not too many surprises that the first winner of the season is Leo Messi. He has only played in eight of the ten games but has started in excellent form scoring eight goals including two in the games against Atletico Madrid, Racing Santander and also two in the Supercup game with Athletic Bilbao at Camp Nou. In second place is Gerard Piqué who continues to...

Coinciding with the draw for the Champions League was the announcement of the Uefa awards for the best individual players of last season's Champions League. As expected the award for the best player went to Leo Messi. Leo also picked up the award for best forward while Xavi Hernandez beat Andres Iniesta to the award of best midfielder. Best defender went to Chelsea's John Terry while Man United's Edwin Van der Sar was awarded best goalkeeper. Personally I would have given these awards to Gerard Piqué and Victor Valdés

I had a lot of headaches when I started thinking about this. After such a marvellous season it seems a shame to single out one player as being better than the others. If truth be told I would like to give the award to the top three players who have all had exceptionally good seasons. But as I didn't want to cop out on a decision I decided to make a choice anyway and then you can all argue amongst yourselves.

After considering long and hard I have decided that Barça's best player of the 2008/9 season should go to Leo Messi. He may not have been as consistant as his two closest challengers but overall I think Messi was the one who showed up when we most needed it. In the first half of the season especially he was responsible for many late...

There may be an exellent relationship between Pep Guardiola and his players, as shown in the celebrations after winning the Copa del Rey on Wednesday night, but Guardiola showed no let-up in his strict regime by fining six first team players for arriving late for this morning's training session. Leo Messi, Samuel Eto'o, Eider Gudjohnsen, Xavi Hernandez, Toure Yaya and Dani Alves will all have to pay a fine of €500 after turning up after the agreed time this morning. The players were only ten minutes late and one or two of them arrived just one minute late, but...

I just found this article by Simon Kuper on Xavi and Iniesta in the UK's Financial Times no less. It's worth a read, nice to know they are appreciated in such places - LINK.

The latest poll on Fcbnews asked who was Barça's next best player after Leo Messi. I have to admit I think this was one of the most enjoyable polls on this blog with Xavi and Iniesta battling it out for the honour. Both players held the lead at times but at the moment Iniesta just wins with 31% of the vote compared to Xavi's 29%. It's an interesting one: I think Xavi probably wins on consistency and efficiency, he scores more goals and also creates more; however, if I have to chose which of the two I would rather watch it would have to be Iniesta, he combines great passing with excellent close control and he is certainly better than Xavi when it comes to dribbling past defenders and he is also more versatile. At the end of the day we should just be grateful to have two such...