THE FINAL THIRD

The always reliable “Guardian” is reporting that Javier Mascherano is on his way to Barcelona. The transfer fee is believed to be close to Liverpool’s £25 million price. Mascherano’s family never adapted to life in England, he also refused to play against Man city last Monday.
Reports in the Spanish media earlier this week claimed Mascherano had already agreed a four-year, £85,000 a week contract and, now that Liverpool have accepted a fee, the Argentina captain will travel to Barcelona for a medical this weekend.

Figure it out…

Penalties 3-1 Barça

Good article from TotalBarca.com on the close relationship between Ronaldinho and Messi. The young Argentinean was devastated when “Ronnie” left Barça in 2008, almost to the point of wanting to leave the club as well. He was also caught in the middle of the tug of war between club and country. Barça wanted to keep him around for their USA summer tour, and Argentina wanted him for the Olympics. Messi went with his country, and returned to Barcelona a changed person, he had grown up. The rest is history.

Link to article

spotted at First Team Football

See the rest of the goals after the break . . .
(continue reading…)

Manchester City have offered Barcelona striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic a bank-busting £500,000 a week deal to quit the Spanish champs. The Sun says have offered Zlatan Ibrahimovic a four-year deal worth a staggering £96MILLION – or roughly £500,000 a week. The mega-deal would make the Barcelona striker the highest-paid footballer in the world, earning £24m a year. That dwarfs the salaries of top stars such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka. City representatives made their mouth-watering offer direct to Ibrahimovic’s manager Mino Raiola to show how much they want to capture the Swedish international. A source close to Ibrahimovic said: “City have shown how much they want Zlatan and although he is well paid at Barcelona this offer is in a different league. “It has given him plenty to think about especially when he is not so happy with his football at Barca.

Source: The Sun?????

A must-read for everyone!!
Spotted at “Far Post Report”

Some excerpts: “…When Barca wanted to sign Cruyff , there were numerous obstacles to overtake. All of them came from the direction of the Madrid based Spanish government (Real Madrid?). When at last the Spanish borders were opened up and the clubs reached an agreement (2 Mio Euro), the Spanish government prohibited the transaction. It was bad for the Spanish economy to export all that money to a foreign state. The financial officer of Barcelona found a solution. JC was registered as an agricultural machine and imported into Barcelona as an impulse for the Catalonian economy…”

Link to article

An “exclusive”, coming from the Guardian: “…Cesc Fábregas is staying at Arsenal. Barcelona’s protracted and often tortuous summer-long campaign to lure the Spain midfielder back to Camp Nou is over. Arsenal’s captain held talks with Arsène Wenger, the manager, earlier today and the upshot is that he has been persuaded to remain at the club.”

Link to article