[size=14pt]Pique: “Madrid were interested in me for years”[/size]

FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique admitted on Thursday on a television programme “Esports Club” that Flortentino Perez tried to sign him last year.

“Real Madrid have been interested in me for years,” he said. However, Pique didn’t hesitate to make it clear that “I cut off the interest from the beginning, now I just want to focus on Barca, I am happy here at the place I was raised, and I don’t think about leaving this club,” added the Catalan player.

Pique also said, “It is logical that people are talking about titles after we won the triplet, the press and all the fans are excited, but we must face this season the same way we did last year, with tranquility,” concluded the player.


See Madrid dey try pull chelsea tactics on top our player. FIFA must hear!! 

[size=14pt]Pedro:”Competition is good for the team”[/size]

Tell us about your new contract. What does it mean to be a professional Barça player now?
First of all, it’s a dream come true. It means being a full part of the first team, so it’s not possible to play with the B team anymore. It’s another chance and I hope to take it. It’s a new opportunity to learn even more.

Who told you the news?
The coach publicly said that he wanted me to stay and then my representatives started negotiating with the club.

Tell us about your new contract. What does it mean to be a professional Barça player now?
First of all, it’s a dream come true. It means being a full part of the first team, so it’s not possible to play with the B team anymore. It’s another chance and I hope to take it. It’s a new opportunity to learn even more.

Who told you the news?
The coach publicly said that he wanted me to stay and then my representatives started negotiating with the club.

And then you had to sign the contract. What did Laporta tell you?
He congratulated me and said he was proud of my work, especially because I was another youth player that became a part of the first team.

The contract proves you right in a way. You have always said you thought you had a place in this team and now you’re there…
Yes, I have always said that. I had this mindset for quite a long time and look where it has gotten me, I have reached my goal. But things don’t stop here. You have to continue.

Where is your limit? Is playing with the national team a realistic desire?
The national team? Why not? It is very difficult, there is a lot of competition and the coach seems to have a more or less fixed squad but I always want more.

You are very modest but at the same time very ambitious.
Of course, you have to be ambitious and long for more if you want to keep on making progress.

You have never had it easy, but will it be easier this season now that Barcelona didn’t buy a winger?
No. I have always said that I am relaxed about that because I am used to competition. And not just some competition, but competition from the best players in the world. In that cases you have to look to the future with optimism, believe in your qualities and be aware that the coach also believes in you. I don’t see competition as something negative. It’s good for the team and in my opinion also good for the individual player.

eyonigger:

Krayn khanye thanks for spicing up this thread with wonderful NEWS!!

you're welcome my broda. Barca all the way. We go run dem down!! 

Krayola2:

See Madrid dey try pull chelsea tactics on top our player. FIFA must hear!!

Madrid and Barca have one time or another being interested in every player under the sun.

go and find a club to support mr. man. abi u dey fear say ur club go dey lose?

DON'T HATE,RATHER APPRECIATE. Thats the name of the game.

Of course, for the love of the game

[size=14pt]Messi:”Puyol is irreplaceable”[/size]

Could you us few things about FC Barcelona. What is Guardiola adding to this squad?

Everything. What he transmits, what he knows, the attitude he has, the desire with which he works

working with us, everything that is happening is his merit, the five cups are his merit. I admire Guardiola, I admire his ability to lift up a squad that was humiliated, a squad that was doing really bad. He is a unique coach.

And Maradona?
He’s the idol of the Argentinian people. The only time I saw Maradona play was when I was a kid. My father and my uncle took me to the stadium of Newell’s. I had already seen the goals of Diego so many times at home… In Argentina, when there’s some gathering, people always end up watching the goals of Maradona against England. I don’t remember almost nothing of that game at the stadium of Newell’s, but now he’s here, as national team coach, of a team in which I am the number ‘10′. He’s a great motivator. If Diego talks, everyone is listening because we know we are hearing the voice of football.

Argentina – Brazil
[/b]Yes, and at home. Of course we have the qualities needed to beat the Brazilians. The team is united, Rosario is involved with the team and we need to win because we want to be at the World Cup. The Brazilians also play good football, they can count on my friend Dani Alves who is a phenomenon. But this has to be our game.

[b]José Mourinho
(laughs) I never had problems with him. I keep on saying what I have always said. He seems a great coach, who makes his team play in a very disciplined way, a winner as he has shown with several teams. And he’s a lucky guy because he can now count on a centre forward like Samu. The games against Inter will be entertaining. I really hope Samu will do great at Inter. We all want him to have a great time, a lot of us still have a great relationship with Samuel.

There’s someone in FC Barcelona who is irreplaceable?
We live as a team and we work as a team, but if there is one then maybe the captain, Carles Puyol. As a person, as a captain, how he helps the team in every moment. He has helped me a lot. And well, as a player I don’t have to reveal anything, there’s nobody like him, he’s a ‘10′.

[size=14pt]Puyol’s agent: “The player must think about his future”[/size]

FC Barcelona defender Carles Puyol is in the midst of contract negotiations with the club, however his representative, Ramon Sostres, has stated that contracts have been put on hold for the time being.

“Puyol’s renewal has been halted,” Sostres said. “It is a very good offer but the player first wants to see how things go with the team. FC Barcelona has signed Chygrynskiy and for the centre back roles there is already Piqué and Márquez”.

“We saw how it was last season: Puyol played on the right, left and center. In the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea he was played sparingly. It was only the captain that wasn’t involved in such an important game”.

Sostres has stated that “the doubts of the player of a purely technical nature, not of an economic aspect,” noting that “the player must think ahead about his future, whether it is at Barça or another team. We’ll see what happens”.

When questioned about a possible offer from Italian club AC Milan, Sostres said “at this time the rossoneri club is having difficulties. I was surprised about the sale of Kaká. However it remains one of the major clubs and one which Puyol respects”.

“Only time will tell the truth,” he continued. “It is too early to talk about these issues and assess the market. The offer of a renewal is on the table, but we are standing firm. We’ll see what happens during the year, although no one wants him to leave because the player is very important at FC Barcelona”.

Regarding the possibility of a new meeting, Sostres commented that “Shortly I will meet with Txiki [Begiristain, sporting director] to talk about Andrés Iniesta, and it is possible that we will also talk about Puyol. But it is not an economic problem, but rather exclusively a sporting one. The relationship with Guardiola is good. He is a player Pep likes, but in the middle he wants players who can play the ball well and he may want to play Márquez, Piqué or Chygrynskiy before Puyol. The coach knows he can count on a player who is always available to meet his needs. We’ll see what happens; time can change many things”.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really want Puyol to retire at Barca. It would suck to see him go to Milan. I want us to have our own Maldini.

@krayola!cant agree less man.puyol is all we have gat.dymtro still needs some time to adjust.puyol aint going nowhere.

people what time is Agentina VS Brazil match?pls they should take easy on our boi.messi is not even helping matters as he is taking the game as if his entire life depends on it.i wish him fair play.

no man is irreplaceable!

[size=14pt]Iniesta: “I want to feel like a player again”
[/size]
Barca midfielder hasn’t made an appearance since the Champions League final against Manchester United. Since that time, Iniesta could not play any matches due to his injury and has admitted that it had been a very tough summer.

“The only thing I want now is to play, and go onto the field. I have suffered a lot, and I want to feel like a player again,” he said. Iniesta also denied that Barca is short of players, and highlighted the importance of the homegrown players making their transition into the first team.

“People know that Barca is identified by it’s homegrown players, we had 6-7 players in the Champions League final. This happens because of the good structure at Barcelona, and a coach who trusts the players,” he said.

When asked about his renewal, Iniesta said that he isn’t losing any sleep because of the matter, “I feel wanted here, and the club has always valued me,” and assured what he said in the past about retiring in the Camp Nou.

The Barca midfielder commented of these matter during the presentation of his new book “A year in paradise,” which is a diary talking about the last year triplet, and reflecting on the key moments of last season.

just giggling!

[size=14pt]Txiki:”We haven’t been able to do everything we wanted this summer”[/size]

The squad
“Having a smaller squad is not a risk. You can have a larger squad but then you have the problem of managing all that and that carries some risks too. I don’t see a problem compared with next season.

The exit of Jorquera won’t have an effect because we just return to the situation of having two goalkeepers at the first team. Chygrynskiy will have more minutes than Cáceres. The minutes of Hleb will be for Pedro. And both Jonathan and Tiago could take advantage of the sale of Gudjohnsen. Maxwell will probably play more than Sylvinho and Ibrahimovic replaces Eto’o. And the club also hopes that Milito will have recovered soon.

It’s true that Pep has said that the squad is rather small but he has also said that he has a lot of confidence in the youth players, who adapt easily to the way of playing. We have played with a lot of home-grown players in last season’s Champions League final, we ended the Super Cup in Monaco with eight home-grown players on the pitch and during the pre-season we have seen that there are talented youth players coming through. We are starting the season with a good and secure feeling, and we are very satified with the current squad.”

The winter tranfer window
“Although we don’t really like the winter market, we will be monitoring things over the coming months since we haven’t been able to do everything we wanted this summer because of the very high and actually shocking prices.”

Robinho
“We have a great relationship with Manchester City and during the talks the name of Robinho came up. We didn’t make a concrete bid because every time we talked about it, they made clear that he was not for sale.”

Selling players
“It’s difficult for Barça to get money for the players we sell. We basically sell because we don’t want the player anymore. We don’t need them anymore and the other teams of course know that too. The salary is one of the other problems when selling players. In any case, we don’t want to be the best sellers. Our first objective is to buy players and to improve what we already have.”

***yawns***

haha. just tryin to keep everyone informed. those articles were translated from catalan sites. I get em hours b4 they show up on goal.com. If ever.

ok. we believe you

haha. U better!!

Yaya scored again today

Getafe go hear am.

up yaya! that guy will go places.

Piqué, scores and Xavi Puyol and Busquets all start

The four Barca players in Vicente Del Bosque’s Spanish squad, Piqué, Puyol, Busquets and Xavi,
all started in Spain’s 5-0 hammering of Belgium and Pique was also one of the goalscorers.

Spain virtually booked their place in South Africa with the win in La Coruña and all the Barca players in the squad played their part in the convincing victory. As well as Pique, Villa and Silva both scored twice in the 5-0 win.


Ibrahimovic gets the points for Sweden


Sweden needed a win against Hungary to keep their hopes of making the World Cup finals alive, but when Hustzi equalised Mehlberg’s earlier goal for the visitors it looked as if they’d have to settle for a draw before Ibrahimovic, playing despite suffering knee problems all week, popped up in injury time to give the Swedes the points. Sweden are third in Group 1, just a point behind Hungary, with Denmark top and virtually guaranteed winning the group.

Henry goal earns France a point

France were held to a 1-1 draw in Paris against Rumania thanks to a Thierry Henry goal and it looks as if they will have to settle for second place in their group and a place in the play offs. France are 4 points behind leaders Serbia and 4 ahead of third placed Austria with three games left to play.

Touré on target for Ivory Coast

Touré Yaya was on the score sheet in Ivory Coast’s 5-0 win over Burkina Faso, with Didier Drogba also grabbing a brace. The result puts Ivory Coast top of their group and looking good for South Africa.

Easy win for Ukraine

Barca’s latest signing Dmitry Chygrynsky played the full 90 minutes in Ukraine’s easy 5-0 win over Andorra. Ukraine lie third in Group 6, three points behind Croatia and seven adrift of leaders England.

barca Players no dey carry LAST!

we can see that!

How dis weekend match go b now against Gatafe our threat but am stil sure of beatin wit my full squard. Up barca!, We are more dan 2much.

Team Win Draw Loss Goals for
Real Madrid 68 30 60 262
FC Barcelona 60 30 68 242

we don beat barcelona sotay them no dey see again.

Still not convinced about Zlatan but time will tell.

segunpc:

Team Win Draw Loss Goals for
Real Madrid 68 30 60 262
FC Barcelona 60 30 68 242

we don beat barcelona sotay them no dey see again.

SOUR GRAPES!!! "shior!!" to the 11th power. Where is the roman empire today? Where is Alexander the great's empire? Where are the great egyptian civilizations? EXTINCT!! nothin 4 them.

All these guys wey go dey quote ancient history. . .games wey happen before dem born my grandfather. Wetin concern Messi and Pep with game that was played in 192x?

Abegi, forget dat one. . . We re kings right now. When y'all do sumn with ur future, holla back. Till then hold ya sef

@ Kray

Aw far now,
We need to talk on Y!
You can buzz me now!

Moi not thinking of getefe yet.im praying for our players to come back healthy.
it will be a difficult game for us as usual,but the 3points is sure.
barca for life

barca!!!

SOUR GRAPES!!! "shior!!" to the 11th power. Where is the roman empire today? Where is Alexander the great's empire? Where are the great egyptian civilizations? EXTINCT!! nothin 4 them.

All these guys wey go dey quote ancient history. . .games wey happen before dem born my grandfather. Wetin concern Messi and Pep with game that was played in 192x?

Abegi, forget dat one. . . We re kings right now. When y'all do sumn with your future, holla back. Till then hold ya sef

i laugh u in vernacular.

it is not history crayon it's just the summation of all the transactions that ve happened between the two teams from the first game till date i.e including ur 2-6 victory.

so na who be the master?

The Whites ended the 2007/2008 campaign as the highest scoring (84 goals) and the least scored upon (36) team. They also established a new La Liga record by notching 85 points, 18 more than third place Barcelona.