mascherano

Goals from Messi and Alves see off City and book Barça's place on the quarter finals.FC Barcelona laid down a marker for the rest of Europe on Wednesday evening, cruising through to the last eight of the Champions League with a 2-1 win over Manchester City (4-1 on aggregate) with a performance that put to bed the doubts around the team after their weekend league defeat in Valladolid. Javier Mascherano insisted before the game that Barça weren’t down and out and tonight the team proved him right with an important win over one of the strongest teams left in the competition.

Messi and Alves set up impressive Champions League first leg win on Wednesday evening against Manchester City. Barça took a massive step towards the competition’s quarter finals with a 0-2 win at the Etihad Stadium. A disputed penalty and red card for Demichelsis on 53 minutes put an end to what had up to then been a cagey affair, as City desperately pushed to get back into the game, only to fall two behind when Alves scored the second late on. Manchester City surprisingly came out rather timidly, ceding possession to Barça, who, playing with Iniesta wide left and Messi as a false number nine, flooded the midfield, whilst the hosts stuck men in a high defensive line. After 15 minutes though, City came out of their shell and began to threaten.

FC Barcelona have suffered painful defeat at home to Valencia, which brings an end to a wonderful run of 25 consecutive wins in league matches at the Camp Nou. The visitors, coached by former Barça man Pizzi, took a practical approach to the game and took their chances when they came. They go home with all three points from a match that looked to be safely under Barça’s control at half-time, but from that moment on, luck was simply not on Barça’s side. Not even Messi’s penalty to put Barcelona back in contention, or the immense pressure in the final minutes despite being a man down following Alba’s sending off, were enough to prevent Valencia from winning at the Camp Nou for the first time in a decade.

Three goals from the Catalan and an own goal from Juanfran give FC Barcelona a 1-4 victory at the Ciutat de Valencia. Leo Messi assisted Tello all three times. Three goals for the Catalan – his first hat trick in the FC Barcelona strip – finished the game and perhaps the quarter-final tie. FC Barcelona bounced back from this weekend’s draw in the Spanish League as they comfortably defeated Levante in the first leg of the Copa del Rey quarter-finals. They did it despite having to deal with a very similar match to the one played this Sunday. Now, Barça and Levante will close out the three-game series next week on Wednesday, January 29, at the Camp Nou (22:00 CET).

It’s good news all round today for FC Barcelona, with no fewer than four players returning from injury. Leo Messi, Javier Mascherano, Carles Puyol and Isaac Cuenca are all available for selection by Tata Martino after recovering from their respective injuries. With these four all back, Barça’s boss is now only missing Jordi Alba and Afellay through injury. The FC Barcelona captain, Carles Puyol, hasn’t played an official first team match since March 12, the night of the comeback against AC Milan (4-0). During this time, he has undergone arthroscopy for articular cleansing of his right knee and has also had a Baker’s cyst removed.

Barça take on Celtic in the second round of the Champions League group stage in Celtic Park this Tuesday evening (20.45 CET). Martino's men come into the match after securing the best ever start to a league campaign in club history, but they'll be without Messi, who is injured and out of the pitch for the next two weeks at least. Celtic Park is a stadium that Barça know well seeing that the Blaugrana have played there four times in the last decade. The most recent clash between the two teams was played last year, when Barça lost 2-1 in the group stage of the Champions League.

While the city of Barcelona celebrated the Mercè festival, FC Barcelona made it six wins out of six at the Spanish League with a comfortable victory over Real Sociedad. Barça have equalled the club’s best ever start to a Liga campaign. The first 22 minutes saw a barrage of goals from Neymar, Messi and Busquets, and from then on it was complete dominance from the home side, with the visitor’s solitary goal doing nothing to worry the Camp Nou faithful. Neymar was outstanding with his penetrating runs from the left, and Iniesta was plethoric in an aggressive, dominant midfield in which Xavi and Busquets read every play to perfection. It was the Brazilian who first found the net after just four minutes.

A Messi hat trick plus a Piqué header from Neymar’s corner kick handed FC Barcelona the three points in their UEFA Champions League debut. Valdés also produced a superb performance: he made two vital saves when Barça were leading 1-0 and stopped a penalty in the later stages. Ajax started in great style but were overwhelmed as Barça grew in strength throughout the match, led by the goals of Leo Messi and the saves of Victor Valdés. The result puts Barça at the top of their Champions League group, tied on points with AC Milan, who beat Celtic 2-0 in San Siro.  The next match will be in Scotland, where Barça lost 2-1 a year ago.

A superb effort from Adriano gave Barça their second win of the Spanish League so far thanks to a superb Adriano goal just before half time. Valdés proved key to holding onto the win in the second half. The win was Barça’s seventh on the trot at Malaga’s La Rosaleda stadium. Neymar came on just past the hour mark for Pedro and after a fine individual run, the Brazilian tested Caballero with a well struck free kick. FC Barcelona is holding two league wins from two so far ahead of Wednesday night’s Spanish Super Cup second leg against Atletico Madrid at the Camp Nou.

Tata Martino’s Barça has exploded into the Spanish League campaign with a stunning recital of football and goals. A sublime performance.  The players followed the roadmap laid down by the new Argentinean coach during his first few days: possession, moving the ball swiftly, pressure up field and verticality in recovery. Levante was so overwhelmed in the Camp Nou that after just 25 minutes they were already losing 4-0.  And 6-0 at halftime. A record. Barça dominated the entire 90 minutes and swept to victory with goals from Alexis, Messi (2), Alves, Pedro (2) and Xavi.

The FC Barcelona Manager believes that his players need to go into tomorrow's match against Bayern Munich with cool heads: “we have to play a good game and be the better team, then the goals will come”. “We have to hold our heads high if we are eliminated, we cannot give up; we need to make our fans proud”, he said. “We have to be ourselves and try to play a good game of football. We need to score goals through our style of play”, Vilanova added. “If we are going to mount a comeback we need our fans at the Camp Nou”, he concluded.

Bayern and Barça meet on Tuesday in the Champions League semi final first leg in Munich (20.45 CET). It’s Spring’s Catalan national day, Sant Jordi, people are flocking on the streets to buy books and roses for those they love, and in the evening they will sit down together to enjoy one of the greatest games of the year. All four of the last Champions League finals have included one or other of these two clubs, FC Barcelona or Bayern. Barça won the title in 2009 and 2011, while Bayern finished runners-up in 2010 and 2012. And after they were drawn together in the semi finals this year, we already know for sure that one or other will be back in the final at Wembley next month.

Barça’s Assistant Manager, Jordi Roura says that Barça will be ambitious against PSG on Wednesday’s second leg game. Roura, who take care of Barça during Tito Vilanova’s absence, notes that only victory would guarantee a spot in the semi-finals of the Champions League. On Messi, Adriano and Pedro's fitness, Barça's assistant manager says that “we have to wait and see how they feel and we especially have to see the results from their latest medical tests”. Nevertheless, Messi trained on Tuesday with the rest of his team-mates, although he has not received the medical all-clear yet.

A 94th minute goal from Matuidi gave Paris Saint-Germain a draw after Messi and Mascherano had both come off injured. Barça went ahead in the first half thanks to a goal from Messi, who failed to reappear after the break after picking up a hamstring injury, before Ibrahimovic brought the teams level with ten minutes left to play. Xavi then slotted home a penalty on 88 minutes which appeared to have given Barça a win, only for Bartra to get the slightest of ricochets on a Matuidi shot in the dying seconds and help it past Valdes.

Two first half goals from Leo Messi (2) and two more from David Villa and Jordi Alba cancelled out AC Milan’s two-goal head start. Things looked bleak after the 2-0 reverse at the San Siro, but AC Milan were simply no match for the Catalans on Tuesday. Barça thus gain spectacular revenge for the 4-0 defeat in the Athens final of 1994 and go into Friday’s Champions League quarter finals draw.