Sunday&Monday summary

After their win in Zaragoza, the squad were back in training on Sunday morning. One of the most important elements of this morning’s session was the presence of thirteen B team players, with Dos Santos, Nolito, Fontàs, Riverola, Benja, Thiago, Saúl, Rochina, O. Romeu, Miño, V. Vázquez, Edu Oriol and Bartra joining in with the first team squad.

Guardiola decided to give eight of his players –Puyol, Pique, Iniesta, Alves, Messi, Villa, Valdés and Busquets, a rest, but the last three decided to come in anyway and do some gentle recovery work, whilst Xavi and Milito also continued with their own treatment apart from the rest of the group.






Seydou Keita spoke after training on Sunday morning and stressed the good performances and results the team are putting in, whilst explaining how keen he is to start this season’s assault on the Spanish Cup. (read more -click)

Ten first team players and six from Barça B will make the trip to Ceuta on Tuesday as Barça open their Spanish Cup campaign. The Cup rules state that the squad must be 16 strong and a maximum of six non-first team players can be named. The trip to Ceuta will be unusual for the team, who will fly to Malaga, before taking a helicopter flight over into the African continent. The squad are due to touch down in Ceuta at 12.30.

The full list given by Guardiola this morning is: Pinto, Puyol, Abidal, Maxwell, Adriano, Mascherano, Keita, Bojan, Jeffren, Pedro, Miño, Bartra, Fontàs, Thiago, Dos Santos and Nolito. Seven first team squad players -Valdés, Alves, Piqué, Busquets, Iniesta, Messi and Villa -are still enjoying the short break Guardiola gave them after the Zaragoza game.

The squad for the Ceuta game, with the exception of Pinto who had the club’s permission to miss the session for family reasons, trained at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper this morning. In addition, Valdes came along and worked out with a coach, before joining the rest of the group, whilst Xavi and Milito continued with their own recovery programmes.












Barça begin their campaign to regain the Spanish Cup when they travel to the North African enclave of Ceuta on Tuesday and Guardiola commented: “It’s not a chore at all - I’m looking forward to the game, When you play a team you don’t know, you always pick up something new”. If you want to know what else Pep said at meeting with press click (here), pay attention to Pep's clothes and shoes (sorry for poor quality but couldn't find better pictures)


On official website there is interesting piece sbout new system 3-4-3 (click for more)