According to El Sport Lilian Thuram could receive an offer from Arsenal to continue playing for another year. Thuram, who is 36, was planning to retire at the end of this season, but a chance to join up again with Arsene Wenger may persuade the Frenchman to continue for another season. Wenger gave Thuram his first opportunity as a player when he gave him a debut for Monaco at the age of 17 way back in 1991. As Thuram has finished his contract with Barça he would not cost Arsenal anything. 

Members of the press presented Frank Rijkaard with a t-shirt today with the message “Mai fumaràs sol” (You’ll never smoke alone) I’m not quite sure of the origin of this phrase but there has been a banner seen at various games this season bearing the legend. Keep reading →

Barça play the last league game of a disappointing season tomorrow night at Murcia (kick off 10pm). Frank Rijkaard has named just 17 players for his last game in charge including Fali and Rueda again from the B team. Iniesta has not recovered in time from his knee problems and Deco and Marquez both miss the trip through injury, Edmilson is suspended while of course Milito and Toure both had operations this week. Keep reading →

After all the rumours this week it seems that negotiations with three players are in an advanced stage. If transfer fees can be agreed with the clubs, the first signings of the summer could be Dani Alves and Seydou Keita from Sevilla, and Gerard Pique from Manchester United. Keep reading →

Barça signed a deal today to play six matches in the next five years with teams in America’s Major League Soccer (MLS). Barça’s vicepresidents Ferran Soriano and Jaume Ferrer were in New York today to seal the deal with MLS commissioner Don Garber. The first games will be played this summer and an announcement will be made next week regarding dates and opponents. Click here to read more.

Today I could have written more on the latest press speculation (today it is Benzema, Keita, Pique and Rodrigo Palacio) but I was sent a link on Paulino Alcántara who you should all know was Barça’s highest scorer of all time. Alcántara was born in The Phillippines, where his Spanish father was stationed, on October 7th 1896. Keep reading →

Well, I can’t say this was not totally expected, Deco has seemed unhappy for quite a while. The final straw was the whistles he received at Sunday’s game with Mallorca. One report says that Deco got showered and changed at half time without saying anything and Rijkaard was forced to put on Bojan as a substitute. Keep reading →

With the end of the season drawing close it is no surprise that the Catalan sports press is full of stories of who Barça are going to buy and sell in the summer. El Sport headlined with the story of Kaka being a possible target, seeing as Ronaldinho and Zambrotta could both be on their way to Milan, the paper speculated with the idea that a deal could be struck with Kaka signing for Barça in exchange for Ronnie, Zambo and €20 million. A nice story perhaps, but the idea that Silvio Berlusconi will let Kaka go is extremely hard to believe. Keep reading →

Barça have confirmed they will play a friendly on May 26th against Saudi Arabian team Al-Ittihad. The game will take place at Al-Ittihad’s Abdullah al-Faisal stadium in Jeddah. Al-Ittihad were close to signing an unpopular ex-Barça player last summer but the deal fell through because the money-grabbing player in question wanted more money. The plans for a game in Kuwait against Kazma SC have been put on hold for the time being. Last season Barça played a friendly in Cairo with Egyptian side Al-Ahly. Bojan Krkic made his first team debut in that match, scoring in a 4-0 win.

Gabi Milito’s knee injury was worse than initially thought and he could be out for as much as nine months. In today’s operation surgeons needed to extract part of a tendon from his left leg and insert it into his right. This is terrible new for the player as injuries of this length can be career threatening. Right now I just hope he can make a full recovery. There was better news for Toure Yaya whose back operation was a complete success, doctors say he shouild be back to full fitness in six to eight weeks.