FORMER BARCELONA PLAYER SAYS MADRID PLAYED LIKE A SMALL TEAM

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Barcelona legend, Xavi Hernandez, says his former rival club in Spain, Real Madrid, played “like a small team” in the El Classico against his former club.

The Spanish giant, Madrid defeated Barcelona by 2-1 in a keenly contested match as it was crucial to the La Liga title.


Madrid head coach, Zinedine Zidane, opted for a cautious approach as they came from behind to beat their arch-rivals at Camp Nou. The victory is one that helped reignite the La Liga title race and has made the title race one that will end in the final minutes of the season. With two games left this season, Madrid are in third place with 84 points, Atletico and Barcelona are a point ahead but the Catalan giant are atop due to goals’ difference.

However, Xavi believes that style – along with the tactics of Atletico Madrid – would not be accepted at Barca. He told beIN SPORTS:

“Real Madrid played like a small team in the Clasico at Camp Nou.

“A big team like Barcelona should not be playing like Atletico Madrid. Big teams like Barcelona and Madrid should always stick to their own style. You cannot start playing like Atletico. Read more “FORMER BARCELONA PLAYER SAYS MADRID PLAYED LIKE A SMALL TEAM”

Luis Enrique disappointed with his Team Players Performance

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Barcelona coach Luis Enrique was disappointed to see his team not score many goals in the Champions League win over Atletico Madrid.

The Catalan club registered a 2-1 victory against their Spanish opponents, but the margin of victory could have been more had Barcelona taken advantage of being a man up for the last 30 minutes. The club conceded an early goal to Fernando Torres, who was then sent off for a second bookable offence. This gave the impetus for Barcelona to go on and win the match. Luis Suarez once again continued his impressive form by scoring twice.

Atletico will feel confident about getting a result in the return leg at the Vicente Calderon because they have secured a crucial away goal. For this reason, Enrique will see that a third goal would have given Barcelona some comfort going into the second leg. Still, many clubs would like to be in the position as the Catalan giants and this certainly applies for Real Madrid. Madrid suffered a 2-0 loss against Wolfsburg in their first leg of the Champions League game. For Barcelona, it was about recovering quickly from the El Clasico lost during the weekend and they achieved it in some style. Read more “Luis Enrique disappointed with his Team Players Performance”

2016 is a new beginning for Barcelona

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In the first season of Luis Enrique as the head coach of Barcelona, he managed to win the Champions League, Kings Cup and Spanish League. This is an amazing accomplishment for any coach and even more for someone who win the treble in only his first season in charge of a club.

 

There are many managers who haven’t been able to secure the treble even after having spent their entire careers in guiding a team and even after having done an impressive job in the hot seat of a club, it still isn’t enough for them to reach this historic achievement and now that the new year has kicked in, it’s the task of Luis Enrique and his players to defend what they reached in 2015.

The year of 2016 represents a new string of challenges for Barcelona as they have the task of defending and protecting all of the pieces of silverware that the Spanish outfit secured in the previous season but this new year also brings forth more opportunities for Barcelona to become an even more dominating force in the world of football.

Barcelona was not able to sign new players in the previous year due to a transfer ban which prevented them from adding performers into their main team but this ban has reached it’s end and it has now been confirmed that Barcelona has added 77 new players.

The Spanish team was not actually able to sign players in the previous year and what they opted to do in this period of time is that they accumulated the players. Aleix Vidal and ArdaTuran are the high profile players that were sealed in this time lapse, they couldnt immediately play for the first team of Barcelona but now that 2016 has kicked in, both of those new players will now be able to play alongside Lionel Messi and the rest of the squad.

The other remaining 75 players which have been accumulated in the transfer ban are expected to join the U-16 team academy as the majority of them are youth players. Some of them will be placed in the Barca B team, while others in a number of different academies of the younger teams. Read more “2016 is a new beginning for Barcelona”

Tony Pullis will not stop Saido Berahino to leave West Bromwich Albion

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Saido Berahino has finished this Premier League season on a high note as he scored twice against Chelsea in the penultimate match of the campaign. The 21 year old has had a spectacular season as the youngster managed to score 14 league goals and he was able to claim the 7th spot of the top goal-scorers, he has the same amount of goals scored as Chelsea’s Eden Hazard.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Saido Berahino has been one of the standout players of the season and he has entered the watch-list of a number of clubs including: Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.

The manager of West Bromwich Albion announced that if an offer is received by the club and if the player himself is interested in leaving then nobody will stop him.

On some occasions, when a top club wants to sign a promising young talent it can be difficult as the team where the youngster is performing does not want to let him go and this is what occurred for a few years with Cesc Fabregas.

Back when Cesc Fabregas was performing with Arsenal, he was being searched by Barcelona and the Spanish club was willing to spend upwards to €30 million in order to sign him but Arsene Wenger did not want to sell the midfielder and this continued going on for a number of transfer windows until eventually Fabregas was signed by Barcelona in August of 2011.

However in this case, Tony Pullis is actually willing to allow Saido Berahino to leave for a decent offer and nobody in the club will interfere with the transfer. Read more “Tony Pullis will not stop Saido Berahino to leave West Bromwich Albion”

Barcelona is interested in signing Paul Pogba

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Paul Pogba is one of the most sought out talents of the approaching summer transfer window. At the age of 22, Pogba has demonstrated that he has what it takes to join a top club and win major pieces of silverware.

Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona are just a few of the clubs that have shown interest in signing the French player.

Barcelona’s Josep Maria Bartomeu confirmed that the star player of Juventus, Paul Pogba is the leading target of the club and the future of Pogba remains unclear as the Italian club is willing to allow him to leave during the next transfer window but only if the price is right.

Even though Barcelona has a transfer ban which runs up in 2016, this ban has not stopped the club in signing players as they have already signed Aleix Vidal from Sevilla but the player will only be able to play an official competitive match for Barcelona in January of 2016.

“It is true that Pogba is a leading target of ours and obviously we are interested, but I can’t say anything more. We are forbidden to recruit players until January, so I can’t talk about it.” Those were the words which were released by Barcelona’s Josep Maria Bartomeu as he confirmed that the Spanish side is indeed interested in signing Pogba.

There does seem to be difference in opinion between certain figures involving Paul Pogba.

The agent of Paul Pogba is Raiola and he stated that there is a possibility of Pogba leaving Juventus during the summer but this will only happen if a club offers a substantially high amount of money and Real Madrid, Barcelona as well as Manchester United are all capable of doing that.

However, the CEO of Juventus, Giuseppe Marotta believes and wants Pogba to continue performing in the Italian club for another season.