FC Barcelona News

Barça’s big signing of the season arrived in the Nou Camp yesterday to be greeted by more than 60,000 people, more than those who had turned out for Ronaldinho and Henry’s presentations combined. Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived at the club yesterday morning, where he underwent medical examinations before signing his contract.

Some fans have been waiting outside the stadium all day and in the end the gates were opened early to avoid anyone being injured in the crush outside.

Ibrahimovic wore the number 9 shirt, where to the Barça anthem blaring over the tannoy he showed off his ball skills to the crowd, eventually taking the mike and finishing in Catalan, always guaranteed to set off a great response – “Gràcies a tots. Visca el Barça!” – Thanks to all. Long live Barça.

Afterwards he compared the experience with the birth of his children.

If you want to see Ibrahimovic playing for Barça at the Nou Camp, keep an eye on our homepage for availability of FC Barcelona tickets.

Barcelona played their second match at Wembley Stadium last night and notched up their first win of the pre-season.

This time they faced Egyptian Champions, Al-Ahly, in a game they eventually dominated. At first the teams were evenly matched, with Bojan scoring the first goal for Barça in the 15th minute and El Agizy equalising for Al-Ahly in minute 30. Rueda then scored in the 41st minute to put Barcelona in the lead ahead of the break.

With the team completely changed for the second half, Barça started to dominate the second 45 minutes, with Messi and Valdes on the pitch. The result was a goal from Jeffren in minute 55 from Messi and Pedro to make it 3-1; and the final goal came from Pedro, off Gudjohnsen, in minute 66.

0-1, Bojan (min 15)
1-1, El Agizy (min 30)
1-2, Rueda (min 41)
1-3, Jeffren (min 55)
1-4, Pedro (min 66)

Keep an eye on the homepage for forthcoming match details and buy your Barcelona FC tickets online. Next stop for Barça is the United States, where they play three matches including against LA Galaxy next Saturday.

According to Italian news reports today quoting his agent, Samuel Eto’o has today reached a deal with Inter Milan.

While no official announcement has been made, Josep Maria Mesalles went on to say that Eto’o’s exit agreement with Barcelona was still not finalised, but he would arrive in Milan early next week. With him goes Alexander Hleb, on loan for a year, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic will join Barça from the Italian club.

For tickets for Barcelona’s home fixtures see our homepage.

Manchester City has now been confirmed to visit the Nou Camp on August 19 to play Barcelona in the 2009 Gamper Trophy.

The invitation event takes place every August to show off the new squad and in recent years has included Juventus and Bayern Munich. The trophy is named after the founder of FC Barcelona, Swiss-born Hans Gamper, and while a friendly is often a good chance to see how the squad performs together.

If Samuel Eto’o decides to stick around at Barça he’ll also be able to check out what he missed by failing to agree terms with Man City – although it is likely he’ll be doing that from the bench.

A 28 strong Barça squad arrived in London on Tuesday afternoon ahead of their pre-season friendlies to be played at Wembley Stadium.

The squad is comprised of 17 first team players and 11 reserves, and includes such well known faces as Victor Valdes, Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry and Bojan, as well as recent signing Maxwell, while missing from this squad are Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Piqué, Busquets, Alves and Milito.

The players are staying at the Danesfield House Hotel & Spa until Sunday and this week will be training at the Bisham Abbey Sports Centre.

Following the Wembley matches, against Spurs and Al-Ahly, the Barcelona squad heads to the States for three matches against Los Angeles Galaxy, Seattle Sounders and Chivas. The first opportunity to see the new Barça lineup in Spain will be in Bilbao on August 16 in the first round of the Spanish Supercup against Athletic, while their first home match is the Gamper Trophy on August 19.

The visiting team in the Gamper is still to be decided – you can check availability of FC Barcelona tickets for all matches on the homepage.

Samuel Eto’o is reportedly furious at talks between Barcelona and Inter Milan, without him being consulted about any move to the Italian club.

The Cameroon striker will return to Barcelona next week after his holidays, with a deal agreed between Barça and Inter to sell Eto’o for €40 million plus the loan of Aleksandr Hleb in exchange for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Eto’o is reported to announce his decision later in the week once he has considered the deal fully and as the deal cannot go ahead without Eto’o’s say so, Barça are keeping their options open and are still talking about the possibility of signing David Villa from Valencia.

So far this season Barcelona have been slow to finalise any deals – their only signing to date is Brazilian left back Maxwell Scherer, also from Inter Milan.

We now have tickets for all Spanish League fixtures. You can find availability of Barcelona tickets at the Nou Camp on our homepage.

With a year left on his contract with Barcelona, the Cameroon star has every reason to be feeling unloved by the club for which he has done so much.

When Pep Guardiola first took over the coaching reigns from Frank Rijkaard he immediately announced that there was no place in his squad for Eto’o and would be sold; with no buyer in sight though, he was forced to eat his words and Eto’o became a consistent fixture in the 2009/10 squad and delivered – he was the second highest scorer in La Liga.

And now Barcelona wants him out to claw back some money in the form of a transfer fee back before his contract expires next year.

While Manchester City looked to be a dead cert for Eto’o, they finally walked away from the negotiating table. It seems that in addition to a big fat salary, Eto’o  also wants a large cut of the £18M transfer fee too, which means it looks like he’ll be in a team that doesn’t want him and he no longer wants to play for.

Is it a case if Eto’o being too greedy?

With the Spanish League fixture list now drawn, we’re still awaiting prices from FC Barcelona. Keep an eye on our home page for prices for FC Barcelona tickets. We’ll have allocations for all matches at the Nou Camp shortly.

One piece of good news from the recent wrangling between players and management is that Victor Valdes contract has been renewed for another 5 years, potentially allowing the Barça goalkeeper to retire at the club.

Negotiations with the 27 year old player’s manager broke down recently, with Joan Laporta insisting that they deal direct with Valdes instead, with the aim of resolving the standoff. It is difficult to imagine Barça without the opinionated Valdes, who is also third Captain behind Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernadez, and despite coming in from some criticism he does a solid job when the Barcelona defense fails.

And as a product of the Barça youth system, born in nearby Hospitalet de LLobregat, it is almost impossible to imagine him playing for another club, especially in Spain. However, the deadlock was broken on Tuesday, when the player and Barcelona management agreed terms.

FC Barcelona showed off their new kit for the 2009/10 season last Saturday against Osasuna, and the good news is that it is now available to order online.

The official 2009/10 FC Barcelona shirt was designed by Nike and features traditional blue and burgandy “blaugrana” bars, rather than the blocks of colour used on the 2008/09 shirt. This home shirt is available in sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL.

You can also have the shirt printed with your favourite player’s name and number or customised to your own preference using the official La Liga or Champions League style, or add sleeve patches for £5.

The FC Barcelona shirt and other kit is available from UK Soccer Shop.

All I can say is that it’s a right mess at FC Barcelona at the moment, but hopefully they’ll get themselves sorted out soon and it won’t have a negative impact on the squad.

What am I talking about?

Last Sunday there was a vote of no confidence that required a 66 percent vote AGAINST the club president to kick him out. With only 60 percent of the members who voted going against him, Joan Laporta won the vote…

…for the moment. And then yesterday the board of FC Barcelona convened to discus their way forward and 8 members out of 17 resigned after Laporta refused to step down.

It’s quite a turnaround for the golden boy of Barça. Until this season it seamed he could do no wrong in the eyes of fans, having turned the club’s fortunes around. But with no trophies for the second year and lacklustre performances from players like Ronaldinho, his support dwindled.

Having ditched Frank Rijkaard unceremoniously in May he must have hoped he could put his troubles behind him. Instead the pressure seems to be intensifying, at a time that all eyes should be on the new squad.