Sports

Two goals from Alexis and Sergi Roberto gave Barça a 1-2 win in Pamplona against Osasuna which safely sees them through to a Spanish Cup quarter final clash with Real Madrid. The first leg, the first ‘clasico’ is set for 22h00 CET January 20th.

The Brazilian player travelled to Paris, with FC Barcelona’s permission, to finalise his contract with Paris Saint-Germain. The PSG made him an offer that he wants to accept it. Barça Manager, Pep Guardiola, gave him a free hand.

The Argentinean star is named by FIFA as the best player of 2011. This is Messi’s third straight Ballon d’Or Award. Messi equals Platini, Cruyff and Van Basten, the only players to ever win three Ballon d’Or titles. The Barça boss, who won 5 titles with FC Barcelona in 12 months, beat last year's winner, José Mourinho, and Sir Alex Ferguson. Guardiola dedicated the title to his assistant coach, Tito Vilanova. Besides, 5 Barça players are in the FIFA's Best Eleven of the Year: Alves, Piqué, Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. Two of them are Catalan and four are home grown players.

Espanyol and Barça shared the points in the season’s first Catalan derby after FC Barcelona hit the woodwork on three occasions. Cesc Fàbregas opened the scoring within the first quarter of an hour and Alvaro hit a late equaliser. The draw leaves Barça five points behind Real Madrid in second spot.

Barça clearly defeated Osasuna in the first game of the new year, thanks to 2 goals each from Cesc and Messi. FC Barcelona are well on their way to going through to the quarter-finals of the Spanish Cup.

The International Federation of Football History & Statistics has named the FC Barcelona midfielder the best playmaker in the world for the fourth year in a row. Leo Messi and Andrés Iniesta are second and third behind Xavi.

Barça will play against Osasuna in the last 16 of the Spanish Cup, with the first leg at the Camp Nou on January 4th. The winner will play the quarter-finals against the winner of the Real Madrid - Malaga tie.

Pedro, Iniesta, Thiago (2), Xavi, Tello (2) and Cuenca (2), racked up nine goals – five before the break- as Barça charged into the last 16 of the Spanish Cup in the last game of 2011 at the Camp Nou.

La Masia, FC Barcelona’s football school, dominated Club World Cup. Barça won the final against Santos with 9 home grown players in starting line up. Three home grown players also the scorers: Messi, Xavi and Cesc Fàbregas.

Santos FC vs FC Barcelona: Barça becomes legendary after winning the FIFA Club World Cup. The Catalans were three up at half time after goals from Messi, Xavi and Cesc, with the Argentinean rounding the game off with a fourth after the break.

The away leg of the UEFA Champions League will be played in Germany on February 14th and the return leg will be played at the Camp Nou on March 7th. Ballack is the marquee player for Bayer Leverkusen, the team that finished second to Chelsea in Group E, beating out Valencia and Genk.

FC Barcelona vs Al-Sadd ended with goals from Adriano (2), Keita and Maxwell. The goals put an end to Qatari club Al-Sadd’s participation in the competition, and Barça will face Santos FC from Brazil in Sunday’s title decider. However, Barça’s striker David Villa broke his tibia and might be off for 4 to 5 months.

FC Barcelona's Manager, Josep Guardiola, stressed the pride that the team have in maintaining such a good level over three years and said that now, in the Club World Cup, Barça have to deserve to be in the Final against Santos, by playing well and winning. Guardiola admits that the Club World Cup is the title that he’s most excited to play for. "Getting here is very complicated, really, really difficult," he stressed. Guardiola was very direct and clear with his answer to the question about the Spanish sports newspaper Marca's leading cover story claiming Villa is for sale: "Marca is lying".

12 of the 23 players that FC Barcelona have taken to Japan have never appeared in the competition before. However, Valdés, Puyol, Iniesta and Xavi are going for the third time. Before this Tuesday’s training session in Yokohama, Barça players and technical staff met with children from Fukushima, in solidarity with Japan and its nuclear accident.

Marvellous Barça performance against Real Madrid who went ahead within a minute but were overwhelmed by a superior FC Barcelona with goals from Alexis, Messi and Cesc. Barça switched to a three man defence after 15 minutes and are now back on top of the Spanish League, though Real Madrid do have a game in hand.