International: Four players called up for Catalonia

Barcelona players Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Bojan Krkic have been called-up to play with the Catalan national team against Colombia on Sunday 28 December.

Víctor Valdés, Xavi Hernández and Albert Jorquera will for different reasons not take part in the game. Busquets could make his debut with Catalonia.

Former Barcelona players Joan Verdú (25, Deportivo La Coruña), Marc Crosas (20, Celtic Glasgow), Jordi Alba (19, Gimnàstic Tarragona), Sergio García (25, Betis Sevilla) and Damià Abella (26, Betis Sevilla) are also included in the list.

In May of the year, the Catalan national team played their last game. The team was defeated 0-1 by Argentina. Current Barcelona players Víctor Valdés and Gerard Piqué took part in that game.

Read more:
International: Spain u-21 drawn in tough group
International: Marquez through on goal difference
Barça B: Serbia thinking about Maric

Henry: "I'm in love"

Barcelona player Thiery Henry gave an interview to Catalan sports paper Sport.





What do you admire in a woman?
That I know a first sight that she will be my soulmate. When I was younger, I used to watch other things (laugh), but not anymore.

It's difficult to find the right woman?
You bet, and much more in my case.

Is it hard sentimentally?
Not only sentimentally. When I tell the truth or I tell what I feel, it may be difficult to understand me because I'm a complicated person. And I've already changed a lot in that perspective! Before, I got angry over small things but now I can hold myself better.

Your world is dangerous. Fake friends, women,...
It's not easy. When I as twenty years old, I took some bad decisions, but in the end it turned out well and it helps you in the rest of your life. Since I was young, I knew that I wouldn't make friends easily. Friendship is a special thing. It's unique. You can have a good relationship with someone and that's it. Friendship is something else, it's telling your friend everything about your life, the truth. So the other knows absolutely everything about you. I have friends with whom I don't talk or don't go out every day but when they have a serious problem, we talk about it. If you're not standing by a friend when he needs you the most, that's the end of it.

Do you need love?
Mmmmm... yes. It's very important.

Are you in love?
Right now I am.

What does your daughter Tea mean to you?
Oh man! Until you don't have your daughter in your arms, you cannot know that. It's undescribable. Do you have children?

No.
Well, then you cannot understand it. Before, I only thought about my career, about dedicating all my time to my own things and suddenly your whole priority list changes drastically.

How are you dealing with your divorce?
It's never easy, and even less when there's a child involved. Looking back at it, last year was hard. I arrived here without speaking the language, I was injured, in full divorce... It wasn't easy at all.

When you joined Barcelona, people said that you were fleeing London.
When I signed, nothing had happened yet. So that rumour was very annoying to me.

What frightens you?
Dying. It's something that we all have to go through but that frightens me.

I have time for one last question?
Of course, no problem.

What does the kiss on your wrist when you celebrate a goal mean?
We were on our way out, right?

This was the fifth and last part of this interview.


Read the earlier parts of the interview:
"I'm a bit of a loner beause of my youth"
"I find peace in Guadeloupe"
"Kurt Cobain was a genius"
"I'm tired, my career will end soon"

Busquets delighted with renewal

When leaving the club's offices after signing his contract renewal until 2013 (read more here), Barcelona midfielder and Spanish youth international Sergio Busquets (20) has said to journalists that he's delighted with the extension of his contract:

"I'm very happy. This is what I've always dreamt of since I was a child. Suddenly the right circumstances were there.

Everything has been going really fast over the past months. Last season, I was playing with Barcelona B in the fourth division, this year I did the pre-season with the first team, the coach gave me playing minutes and I took the chance.

I will keep on working like I have done before. You'll keep on seeing the same Sergio Busquets as you've been seeing until this day. I still need to continue getting better and to learn from all of my teammates and coaches."

Read the complete Busquets renewal story from the first negotiations until the signature

Poll result - Man of the match: Villarreal

This is the final result of this blog's Villarreal-Barcelona: Who was our man of the match? poll:


1. Henry 42%
2. Xavi 27%
3. The whole team 8%



see full results here
see other poll results here

Barça B - Iago: "I had seven great years at Barça"

Former Barcelona Atlètic and current Juventus player Iago Falqué gave an interview to Madrid sports tabloid As.





First of all: you were to travel to Bergamo with the first team this weekend, but in the end you played with the second team. What happened?
Well, Maladoni, the coach of the second team, asked Ranieri not to take me with him because he needed me. So I played with the second team against Siena.

You were angry, of course.
There's time! The boss is the boss... Now I'm playing with the second team and last weekend's would have been my fourth call-up with the first team.

The calcio: that's like doing a football master, boy.
I know what I came here for and what I could expect. Until now, the hardest thing has been my mobile phone bill. I paid one thousand euro a month! Now I'm having an Italian one, the Spanish one was ruining me.

You're living in Turin with your grandfather.
He came with me because it's not easy to go from one country to another. I left home when I was 10 years old, but that was just going to Barcelona. Living abroad is different. That's why he came with me, so that everything would be more comfortable for me. He goes shopping, does my laundry... My grandfather Carlos is a phenomenon!

What about the food?
A lot of pasta, a lot of pizza... We're adapting but it's true that nothing can match the Spanish kitchen. Leaving Vigo was even harder, but at least I ended up at Barça. For me, who was coming from Cristo de la Victoria, a very modest local club, that was a dream.

You didn't stay in La Masía.
No, not at all. My parents didn't want me to go to Barcelona so they were asking Barça a lot of things, hoping they would say no... But they agreed. They asked an apartment, a job for my father, my mother being able to visit us every weekend... It was immense, but they accepted everything. I had seven great years in Barcelona.

Until the day that Luis Enrique told you that he didn't really saw a place for you in Barça B.
Yes. He told me that he thought it would be better if I played with the Juvenil A, that he didn't plan to count on me and that I would have few minutes if I stayed with the B-team. A couple of weeks after that talk, he surprised me by saying that everything was ok, that there wouldn't be a problem if I wanted to stay with his team. But I wasn't motivated anymore. If they don't count on you from the start...

And if above that Juventus is interested...
They saw me last summer at an under-19 tournament in Ireland. With eleven days left before the end of the transfer market, Claudio Ranieri called my father and said he wanted me to join Juventus. You can imagine that I felt like I was dreaming.

What did they pay for you?
Nothing. They signed some agreements with Barça based on incintives: if I play in the Champions League, if I play fifteen games with the first team... Barcelona can receive a maximum of 2,5 million euro°. It was a good thing that I was represented by IMG, that also acts as agent of people like Rafa Nadal or Kun Agüero... Cause you know, in the world of footall there are some lies and therefore it's a good thing to have capable advisors, certainly when you're young.

This was the first part of this interview. You can read the second part in the coming days with Iago talking -among other things- about football in Italy.


Read more:
Barça B: Iago talks about exit
Barça B - Official: Iago to Juventus
Barça B: Manchester United offer for Iago