FC Barcelona's World Cup is made up of Brazilians

Six players have gone to the World Cup as FC Barcelona players. These are Romario, Rivaldo, Giovanni, Ronaldinho and Alves, plus Neymar Jr, who is making his debut this year.

The first was Romario, who was at Barcelona from 1993 to 1995, and came back from the USA as world champion and as the third highest goalscorer in the competition with five, topped only by Oleg Salenko and his FCB team-mate Hristo Stoichkov, who both had six.

There were two Barça players in Brazil’s France 1998 squad, Giovanni and Rivaldo. Both played in the final that year, which they lost to the host nation, and Rivaldo was also there for the 2002 final in Japan and Korea, where Brazil beat Germany to win the title for a record fifth time.

Edmilson, who was at Barça from 2004 to 2008, was due to go to Germany in 2006, but ended up missing out through injury.

The fourth on the list was the great Ronaldinho, who was in Catalonia from 2003 to 2008, and after some amazing seasons for Barça he also excelled at Germany 2006, but Brazil failed to make it into four finals in a row when they lost to France in the quarter finals.

The last two are still at FC Barcelona. Dani Alves played at South Africa 2010, where Holland knocked his side out in the quarter finals, and will be returning to the World Cup this summer in his home country, joined by Barça colleague Neymar, who is playing at the tournament for the first time.

The Catalonia Cup will face Girona and FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona will play for La Liga title this Saturday at 6:00 PM against Atlético Madrid. But before that, Barça will feature in the semifinal of the Catalonia Cup.

The match will be played this evening at 9:45 PM away to Girona. A few minutes beforehand, there will be a tribute to Tito Vilanova, who passed away on April 25th. 

The winner of the match will face the winner of the other semi-final between Espanyol and Sabadell in the final on May 21st.

Therefore, in the event Barça defeat Girona, who are fighting to get out of the Segunda A relegation zone, the team will have the chance to win the Club’s eighth ever Catalonia Cup, and defend the title they won last season against Espanyol. 

The players that will travel to Girano are Isaac Cuenca plus a combination of Barça B and Juvenil A players (Bañuz, Ortolá, Patric, Ilie, Dongou, Espinosa, Babunski, Bagnack, Samper, Denis Suárez, Dani Nieto, Lucas, Adama, Munir, Godswill, Riera and Kaptoum). The manager will be Eusebio Sacristán.

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Bartomeu is satisfied with the last results

After the conclusion of the penultimate round of La Liga, the President Josep Maria Bartomeu said, “we suffered, but we’re happy and satisfied. 

With the combination of the last results, Barça will have the chance to win the league at the Camp Nou next Saturday. It will be a final and we deserve it and we will fight for it.”

Speaking to Barça TV, President Bartomeu called on the Camp Nou faithful to attent Saturday’s match en masse: “I encourage everyone to come to the stadium. It will be difficult but we will fight.” Bartomeu also said that he believes in this team: “Like all Culés, I have a lot of confidence in the players.”

After the 0-0 draw with Elche, the Club’s Director of Football, Andoni Zubizarreta said that “we came here with the objective of reaching the last match of the competition with chances of winning the title, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Zubizarreta expects a heart-stopping match on Saturday, but he’s thankful that it will be played at the Camp Nou. “Atlético are a tough team, very demanding. They force you to play very concentrated. We’re playing for it all at our stadium, with our fans, after a very complicated year.”

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It is 25 years since the last visit to Elche

Barça are ready to come back to Elche for their first league game in a quarter of a century. 

That last encounter between the sides was just the second match after Johan Cruyff had taken his seat on the Barça bench. That was September 11th in1988, with the Catalans away to a side that had just been promoted into the first division. 

There were some illustrious names in the team that day, including Zubizarreta, Eusebio, Amor and Roura, who are all now on the club staff. 

A 26th birthday double from Salinas and another from Alexanko secured a 3-0 win. Elche went straight back down at the end of the season, and the sides haven’t met in the league since.

That was also the first time Elche played an official match since the renaming of their stadium. Inaugurated in 1976, until 1988 it had simply been called the ‘Nou Estadi de l’Elx’ (New Elche Stadium). But that season it became officially known as the Estadi Martínez Valero in order of the club’s former present Manuel Martínez Valero who had died not long before.

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FC Barcelona has more than 2 million followers on Instagram

FC Barcelona continues to surge ahead in social media networks with the news that the   Club’s official page on Instagram passed the 2 million followers mark in April, when a total of 220.000 new fans signed up.

Since its launch in January 2013, the Club’s Instagram page has shared some of the best and most exclusive photos of FC Barcelona with its more than 200 social network followers across the globe.

It’s not just the Club itself which has grown on Instagram, over the last few months many of Barça players have seen their followers numbers shoot up and the total number for the whole squad is now 15.803.000. 

Neymar Jr and Leo Messi are the most popular with nearly 8 million between them, followed by Dani Alves and Cesc Fàbregas, with 3 million.

All members and fans can follow the latest Club news with the “Barça Instagrammers” through the official photos and those of the players via the special page dedicated to  Instagram and if you wish to join in and enjoy the exclusive images, just follow the  official  FC Barcelona profile and watch out for the hashtag  #igersFCB.

Over the last few months, FC Barcelona has promoted a series of competitions to strengthen the Barça community across the globe who use this social network. 

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Sergio Busquets feels positive about the league

Sergio Busquets spoke to the press today, two days before another crucial league game, this time against Getafe at the Camp Nou (Saturday at 4.00 PM). 

With Real and Atlético both in stronger positions than Barça, nothing but all three points will suffice to keep the title dream alive. 

Busquets has stated: “We know that things are out of our hands and that it’s going to be difficult, but we still have hope. We have to use every chance we have left.”

Barça will be facing Atlético Madrid on the final day, a side that is currently top of the Liga table and that has just qualified for the Champions League Final for the first time in forty years. With this respect, Sergio commented: “They are there on their own merit. They are a team in capital letters. All we can do is to keep fighting to win until the last minute of the last game.”

Asked for a general review of his club’s season, he admitted that “we still have to see what happens in the league, but in terms of results it hasn’t been a good season for us.”

Last week, Barça staged a dramatic comeback to beat Villarreal, a game played when the players were clearly affected by the recent death of the manager Tito Vilanova. Busquets said: “We are people like anyone else and it was hard to play that game, but we had to put it all behind us and go out and fight for the three points. Tito will be on our minds in all the games we have left.”

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A new mobile communication channel has been opened by FC Barcelona

The Club is launching its official channel on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), to share all its content on one of the fastest growing mobile platforms in the world. 

Channel FCB on BBM reaffirms the Clubs Digital commitment, as this is a new communication channel for smartphones and tablets to be able to communicate with fans all over the world. BBM is a free application and available for mobile devices with operating system iOS , Android, and BlackBerry (RIM), which has over 85 million active users worldwide and currently has more than half a million channels.

In its first phase, the channel will be available in Catalan, Spanish, and English, and it soon members and supporters who have installed the application, that they will have at their disposal some exclusive stickers of FC Barcelona players.

The Barça BBM channel will allow users to follow what’s going on at the Club, be aware of the latest news, and receive notifications straight to their mobile device with special and exclusive promotions.

According to Didac Lee, Director of Media and Communications, and also head of New Technologies, he stated: "In the first four months of the year FC Barcelona has reached over 25 million new followers on social networks. These figures show the passion with which fans around the world live Barcelona, and in real time. Now, with our official channel on BlackBerry Messenger, Barcelona fans will be able to enjoy Club news even more, and at all times".

During 2014, Barça has consolidated its leadership as the World's top sports club in the 2.0 area, with over 115 million fans on the World’s major social networks.

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