Barça players face a hectic opening of the season, with five games in the first fifteen days - three league matches and the two Spanish Super Cup games against Real Madrid. In addition, next Monday’s Joan Gamper Estrella Damm Trophy pits them against Sampdoria.
FC Barcelona celebrated their 157th goal so far this season on Tuesday, which leaves Barça just one goal short of the record for a season under Guardiola, in the 2008/09 campaign. Messi, with 58 goals is the leading scorer, averaging 1.18 goals a game.
With his three goals against Granada, Leo Messi surpasses César’s record and became the all-time top goalscorer in the history of FC Barcelona in official matches with 234 goals.
FC Barcelona and Benfica are the only two leading clubs in Europe who remain unbeaten since the start of the season. Guardiola’s team has indeed remained unbeaten since 30th April, when they went down in the Spanish League against Real Sociedad.
Barça player Gerard Piqué got injured in training and will be out for three weeks. Piqué tore fibres in his left calf muscle and will not play the European Super Cup match in Monaco against Porto next Friday evening.
The FC Barcelona President Sandro Rosell addressed the audience at the 32nd Supporters Clubs Congress. He looked back on the 2010/11 season and spoke positively about all of the sporting activities at the club. He explained why FC Barcelona did not file a formal complaint against Mourinho and he asked for a cooling down for everybody’s sake.
Barça and Real Madrid have drawn 2-2 in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup. The visitors responded to Ozil’s opener with goals from Villa and Messi. After the break, Xabi Alonso converted Madrid’s equaliser.
Despite having the whole squad around for only the past two days, FC Barcelona coach, Josep Guardiola doesn’t want any excuses ahead of the Spanish Super Cup which starts this Sunday at Real Madrid’s stadium. "This is a final and whoever wins will be the best team" he said.
In three weeks time, Barça begin their pre-season with the prospect of more than 20,000 kilometres of travel ahead of them, including visits to Split, Munich, Washington, Miami and Dallas.