NBA stars who are fans of FC Barcelona

Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Magic Johnson and Steve Nash have all expressed their admiration for the Club

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It’s no secret that FC Barcelona are one of the most followed football teams on the planet, but it may surprise some to know that some of the team’s fans come from the best basketball league in the world, the NBA. Just this week Kevin Durant stopped by the Nike store in Barcelona and received a Barça kit and other Barça merchandise, but Durant is the latest in a long line of NBA players who have associated themselves with the Club. Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Magic Johnson and Steve Nash have all expressed their admiration for FC Barcelona. 

Barça bewitches Nash 

In 2009, Steve Nash said that “it’s a pleasure to watch Barça play” when he visited this side of the Atlantic at the behest of Thierry Henry, who at the time played for the Catalan team. He added: “I’m a great fan of the whole team. I love the way they play. For me it’s a great honour to be able to enjoy a match in the Camp Nou. We’re talking about one of the best teams on the planet.”

Busy week for FC Barcelona and Champions League debut

Barça face a demanding week in which they'll host Ajax and play away to Rayo Vallecano 

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Tata Martino’s men have a completely packed week. The team will train on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning to prepare for the first Champions League match of the season, against Ajax at 20:45 on Wednesday evening. Additional training sessions have been scheduled for Thursday and Friday ahead of the Saturday match away to Rayo Vallecano (20.00). The team will close out the week with another training session on Sunday. 

Monday, September 16 

11.00 - Training session at the Ciutat Esportiva 

Tuesday, September 17 

10.30 - Training session at the Ciutat Esportiva 

Wednesday, September 18

11.45 - Training session at the Camp Nou

20.45 - Champions League match, Barça - Ajax

Thursday, September 19 

11.00 - Training session at the Ciutat Esportiva 

Friday, September 20

18.00 - Training session at the Ciutat Esportiva 

Saturday, September 21

20.00 - League match, Rayo Vallecano - Barça

Sunday, September 22

11.00 - Training session at the Ciutat Esportiva

Recovery session for the full squad

The players that started against Sevilla did recovery work with Wednesday's Champions League debut in mind

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There is no time for prolonged celebrations of the dramatic win against Sevilla, for attention has to immediately switch to the team’s Champions League debut on Wednesday at the Camp Nou against Ajax (20.45). The players met at the Ciutat Esportiva at 11.00 this morning for a training session at which Tata Martino had all his fit players available. As usual on the day after a match, most of the work was about recovering from the previous night’s exertions. The first team were joined by youth players Juan Antonio Ros, Rodrigo Tarín i Pedro Godoy.

The most noted absentee was Jordi Alba, who tore fibres in his femoral biceps against Sevilla and will be out of action for about three weeks.

Messi no afloja y sigue pichichi

Messi no afloja y sigue pichichi

El gol de Messi ante el Sevilla sigue dejándole como pichichi de la 

              Leo Messi, delantero del Barcelona, sumó su sexto tanto de la temporada ante el Sevilla, con lo que sigue al frente de la clasificación de goleadores de la Liga BBVA, mientras que el holandés de origen marroquí Mounir El Hamdaoui, atacante del Málaga, presentó sus credenciales con un triplete ante el Rayo.

Messi mantiene su ventaja de dos tantos sobre Rodri Ríos y el brasileño Diego Costa, que marcaron en el duelo entre el Atlético de Madrid y el Almería en el Vicente Calderón.

El mexicano Giovani dos Santos, jugador del Villarreal, anotó ante el Real Madrid su tercer tanto de la temporada, con lo que está igualado con el madridista Isco Alarcón y el portugués Helder Postiga (Valencia).

Este domingo hubo dos bigoleadores, el venezolano Nicolás Fedor 'Miku', delantero del Getafe, y Salva Sevilla, mediapunta del Betis.

Clasificación de goleadores

- Con 6 goles: Leo Messi (Barcelona)

- Con 4 goles: Rodri (Almería); Diego Costa (1p) (Atlético de Madrid).

- Con 3 goles: El Hamdaoui (Málaga); Francisco Alarcón 'Isco' (Real Madrid); Helder Postiga (Valencia); Giovani dos Santos (1p) (Villarreal)            

Messi, six goals in three games

The Argentinian is top scorer in La Liga, and has now scored 16 goals in 16 games against sides managed by Unai Emery

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  Messi, Neymar and http://footballlife2013.blogspot.gr/

We take a look back at some of the trivia produced by the Barça v Sevilla game on Saturday night, starting with yet more achievements for Leo Messi:

- Messi is top scorer in the league with six goals in three games. He got two against Levante, three against Valencia and one more last night against Sevilla.

- The Argentinian has now scored 16 goals in 16 games against sides managed by Unai Emery.

- The teams Messi has scored most goals against are Atletico Madrid (20), Real Madrid (18), Osasuna (16), Sevilla (16), Zaragoza (14), Valencia (14) and Athletic Bilbao (13).

- Neymar has supplied two assists in the league, both for Messi.

- Alves scored the first header for Barça this season. It is four years since the Brazilian last scored with his head – against Malaga on March 22, 2009.

- Alves scored Barça’s 3,500th goals as the home side in La Liga. FCB are followed by Real Madrid, with 3,471, goals at home and Athletic Bilbao with 2,909.

- It is two years since Barça last scored a league goal involving two defenders. Dani Alves was also involved in the last example, when he and Bartra produced the goods.

- Barça have won 17 consecutive league games at the Camp Nou. But they have a long way to go before beating their all-time record of 39, set in 1960 (39), although the 21-match streak of 1974 is not far off.

- Martino is only the fifth FC Barcelona manager to ever win all four of his first league games in charge. The other coaches to do this were Brocic (1960), Venables (1984), Van Gaal (1997) and Vilanova (2012).

- Barça is only the second team to ever win the first four games in two consecutive leagues. Real Madrid also did this in 1961 and 1962.

- Barça once again had most of the possession (63%) and shot 19 times, 10 times on target.

Jordi Alba out for three weeks

Tests on Sunday morning have confirmed that he has torn fibres in his right hamstring

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  http://footballlife2013.blogspot.gr/

Jordi Alba underwent a medical examination on Sunday morning to determine the extent of the injury sustained against Sevilla. The Medical Services have been able to confirm that he has torn fibres in his right hamstring and is likely to be sidelined for at least three weeks.

Six games before the break

Barça have six games in that time, four in La Liga and two in the Champions League, so Alba will probably miss the matches against Rayo (September 21), Real Sociedad (September 24), Almeria (September 28) and Valladolid (October 5) in the league, and Ajax (September 18) and Celtic (October 1) in the UCL.  After the Valladolid game, there will be another international break.

Sergio Busquets makes 150th Liga appearance with Barça

In his sixth season with the first team, the midfielder reached 150 games for Barça against Sevilla at the Camp Nou 

Speaking to ‘El Marcador’ on Barça TV, Sergio admitted that “we sometimes attack too much and forget that we are in control of the game”

25 year old Sergio Busquets is the kind of player whose contributions to the team are often left in the shadows of others that play more glamorous roles, but he has now amassed 150 league appearances for FCB after last night’s win over Sevilla at the Camp Nou.

First team regular

It was in the 2008/09 season that Pep Guardiola promoted the Catalan to the first team, and Sergio has been a regular starter ever since. That season he also won a place in the Spanish national side, where he is also a first choice in the midfield. In his debut season, he played 24 league matches and scored one goal.

The season after, Sergio featured even more prominently, with 33 league appearances. In 2010/11, he turned out 28 times and scored another goal, against Bilbao at San Mamés. He played 31 matches in both the following seasons. Then in 2011/12, the last under Guardiola, he scored on the final day against Betis. He also scored in the only season under Tito Vilanova, 2012/13, against Atletico Madrid at the Camp Nou.

Tata Martino’s confidence

Nothing seems to have changed for Sergio Busquets under the new manager. He has played three of the first four Liga matches, having been rested against Malaga with the Spanish Supercup in mind.

Speaking to ‘El Marcador’ on Barça TV last night, the player commented that things have been the same for him under all three of the FB managers he has served. “The philosophy is the same and all that’s different are some of the exercises we do in training” he said. “Some of the things are improvements on what we used to do but it does make it a bit more difficult”.

Learning from mistakes

Busquets also spoke about the last gasp win over Sevilla. “I’m happy with the win but we have to improve things to avoid going into the final minutes in such situations” he said. “We sometimes attack too much and forget that we are in control of the game”. Therefore, what happened at the Camp Nou on Saturday night “was a warning call for us to make sure that doesn’t happen again”

El Barça se lleva el 'Miniclásico

El Barça se lleva el 'Miniclásico

Los azulgranas dominaron con claridad desde el arranque, tanto por méritos propios como por la débil oposición de un Real Madrid Castilla que sigue sin puntuar en Liga 

                 El choque no hizo más que confirmar el rumbo en el que ambos equipos navegan en este arranque liguero. Claro y firme en el caso azulgrana, titubeante y lleno de nubarrones en la dubitativa deriva de los blancos en estas cinco primeras jornadas.

Los de José Alberto Toril seguirán otra semana más como colistas de Segunda, con tan solo un gol anotado y, peor aún, la sensación de que esta temporada el camino se dibuja angosto y cuesta arriba. La marcha de pilares del equipo está pesando demasiado, todo lo contrario que la dulce transición azulgrana.

Fue precisamente uno de los jóvenes valores llegados del juvenil barcelonista, el ariete Sandro, quien abrió el marcador cerca de la media hora, al cabecear un rechazo tras un disparo de Román (1-0).

Fue el premio al buen hacer del filial barcelonista, que merodeaba continuamente el área, si bien sin excesivo peligro. Precisamente, había sido el visitante Borja quien había protagonizado minutos antes la acción más peligrosa, cuando desde el punto de cal lanzó un fuerte disparo que solo la prodigiosa intervención de un inspirado Masip logró abortar.

Pero el gol azulgrana noqueó al Castilla, que tan solo tres minutos después vio cómo la herida se hacía más profunda. Lucas Torró arrolló a Nieto en el área y el delantero transformó el penalti (2-0).

Pacheco desbarató una doble ocasión de Espinosa y Nieto que habría supuesto una brecha inalcanzable. El panorama incluso podría haber dado un vuelco imprevisible si, en el contragolpe posterior, el disparo cruzado de Lucas Vázquez no se hubiera perdido por centímetros.

Toril trató de reactivar a los suyos poniendo en juego a Burgui y Raúl de Tomás tras la reanudación, dejando como lateral a un Femenía muy silbado por su antigua afición. El cambio funcionó, pues De Tomás a punto estuvo de acortar distancias en una gran internada.

Mientras una tenue neblina caía sobre el estadio azulgrana, Edu Bedia estrellaba un balón en el poste. El filial se relajó, pendiente más de gestionar el marcador, y De Tomás volvió a exigir a Masip. La soberbia actuación del meta evitó cualquier mal mayor.

Con más intensidad que juego, la recta final tuvo tiempo para hacer honor al nombre de 'miniclásico' con los instantes de máxima tensión, cuando una dura entrada de Espinosa a Mascarell acabó en un conato de trifulca entre ambos equipos. La guinda la pudo poner Nieto, cuando Torró falló en la cesión a Pacheco y el delantero a punto estuvo de marcar a puerta vacía.     

Liga Adelante

Barça B

1. 2

Castilla

1. 0

ALINEACIONES

• Barça B Masip; Patric, Sergi Gómez, Ilie, Planas; Samper (Lucas, m.65), Espinosa, Denis Suárez (Edu Bedia, m.60); Nieto, Joan Román (Babunski, m.77) y Sandro
• Real Madrid Castilla Pacheco; Llorente, Pulido, Derik (Burgui, m.46), Casado; Cristian Gómez (Mascarell, m.72), Lucas Torró, Femenía, Lucas V.; Borja y Rozzi (De Tomás, m.46)

GOLES

• 1-0, m.24: Sandro. 2-0, m.27: Nieto (penalti)

ÁRBITRO

• Jaime Latre (comité aragonés). Amonestó a los locales Suárez (m.16), Espinosa y Nieto (m.83) y a los visitantes Lucas Torró (m.27), Casado (m.80) y Mascarell (m.83)

INCIDENCIAS

• Partido de la quinta jornada de la Liga Adelante disputado en el Miniestadi ante 9.003 espectadores

         

Fc Barcelona

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