Numancia have announced the signing of midfielder Dimas Delgado for the next three seasons. Dimas played an important part in the B-team's promotion this season, playing 24 games and scoring 6 goals. However, the 25-year-old only played for the first team in a couple of friendlies and the Copa Catalunya. Numancia have won promotion to the Primera Division next season so we may get a chance to see Dimas playing against Barça.

Turkey qualified for the semi finals of Euro 2008 after a thrilling finish to their quarter final match with Croatia. One of the game's main protagonists was ex-Barça goalie Rü?tü Reçber who was at fault when Croatia took the lead in the 119th minute, but after Turkey equalized with the last kick of the game, Rü?tü turned hero with the penalty save that put Turkey through.

For me Friday night is curry night which meant I only saw the first half at home before going out. Luckily for me, and unluckily for my friends, the game was on in the restaurant so I was able to follow the whole game while enjoying my chicken jalfreizi.

I thought Modric had a very good game for Croatia and in the first half he set up a great chance that Olic could only send against the crossbar from 6 yards. Croatia h...

Despite a good performance from Deco, Portugal offered a disappointing image as they went out 3-2 to Germany in tonight's exciting first quarter final. Germany who switched to a 4-5-1 formation went two goals up in the first half an hour. First Podolski made a great run down the left side before finding Schweinsteiger who had got goal side of the Portuguese defence. Then Klose made the most of poor defending at a free kick to head home the second.

Portugal pulled one back before half time when Nuno Gomes turned in a rebound after Lehmann blocked Cristiano Ronaldo's shot. but in the second half Portugal again paid the price for defending badly at a free kick, this time Ballack headed in after a subtle push on Ferreira went unseen by the referee.

Portugal substitute Postiga made it 3-2...

The Spanish papers are full of the story today that Barça have made an offer for Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor. The Spanish press give different reports on the amount that Barça may or may not have offered ranging from €25-30 million. It seems the source of the story comes from the British newspaper the Daily Mail (link to story).

The Spanish press also claim that if Adebayor is not possible next on the list of priorities are Dimitar Berbatov and Mario Gomez. I have to say that Adebayor does not excite me much; he may have had one very good season at Arsenal, but I think he would be a big risk. He is very strong and is good in the air but his control is not great ...

Just a short one for today, my computer has been having an off day and making life hard for me. Anyway, while I have finally got a connexion I'll give you a brief summary of the games today. For the first time I tried to watch both games at once (not two tellies, just flicking between two channels). Of Barça's players only Iniesta was playing for Spain although there was a chance to see a few ex-players as Pepe Reina, Fernando Navarro, Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Garcia and Dani Güiza all started for Spain. The Russia-Sweden game promised more excitement and I always love to watch Larsson play.

In the end it was the Russians who played the best football of the night scoring two splendidly worked team goals to win 2-0. Larsson had one fine flicked header hit the bar but Sweden with the oldest squ...

Although this news was leaked out weeks ago, today Luis Enrique Martinez was officially named as Pep Guardiola's replacement for the B team which next season will be known as Barcelona Atletic. Luis Enrique hopes to take the team up another catagory while betting on a "culture of attacking football". He also said that he would use an attacking formation of either 4-3-3 or 3-4-3.

Luis Enrique played for Barça between 1996 and 2004 and was always one of the most popular players. His contagious never-say-die spirit will definitely be a good characteristic as a coach, he also seems genuinely to be one of the nicest blokes in football. I wish him every success at Barça and I hope he is with the club for many years to come. Click here for a vid...

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...

At 12.30 today Pep Guardiola was officially presented as Barça's first team coach for the next two seasons. Guardiola appeared alongside president Joan Laporta and sporting director Txiki Begiristain. Guardiola said he could not and would not make promises of winning trophies, and he also said that it was a great responsibility for him and he felt he would not fail. He said that Barça have to be strong and work hard from the first day.

I've said before that I think Guardiola will do a good job. He knows the club as well as anyone, he has a great footballing brain, he has passion for Barça and for the game and he will certainly give the job everything he has. Hopefully he will also be capable of transmitting to the team the same mentality. He may not have the experience of coaching a big team ...

Watching the Austria-Germany game this evening I got to trying to remember which Germans or Austrians have ever played for Barça. The only Germans I could think of were Bernd Schuster who I won't say any more about, and goalkeeper Robert Enke who made four appearances for Barça in 2002/3. As for Austrians I can only think of the great Hans Krankl who arrived in Barcelona in 1978 as Johan Cruyff's replacement.

Krankl was pichichi with 29 goals in his first season at the club and he also played in the historic European Cup Winners Cup Final against Fortuna Dusseldorf which Barça won 4-3 after extra time. If you've never seen the goals from that game watch them here. Krankl scores Barça's fou...

A last minute goal by Rodrigo Palacio saved Argentina's blushes as they scraped a 1-1 draw at home to Ecuador in a qualifying game for the 2010 World Cup. Messi played the entire 90 minutes but had no luck in front of goal. Ecuador scored their goal with their only shot of the game through Patricio Urrutia in the 68th minute but Palacio came on as a sub in the 89th minute to grab Argentina's late late equalizer. Meanwhile Dani Alves and Ronaldinho played no part in Brazil's surprise 2-0 defeat at Paraguay.