The Weekly Review: Week 12 FC Barcelona's Hunger for More

First things first, according the FC Barcelona’s official site Eric Abidal is already on his way to recovery. Although at best, it will take Abidal a couple of months to regain full strength, we are already looking forward to see Barca’s no. 22 back in action.

But the football gods have been quite generous this week, FC Barcelona’s hyperactive Brazilian wild child, Dani Alves, has extended his contract with Barca until 2015. It would have been quite a shame if FC Barcelona had to sell Dani Alves had he not signed an extension with the club. Perhaps this is incredibly biased but personally I do believe that Alves is the best right back in the world. At the very least Dani Alves is among the best in his position.

Continuing with the best theme, Lionel Messi is the best paid player in the world. Well, as long as he is ranked above Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo that’s fine by me. In addition, Barca’s new boy, David Villa, has officially shattered Raul’s all-time goal record for La Furia Roja in the 2-1 victory against the Czech Republic. The new record now stands at 46 goals. While it took Raul 104 games to score 44 goals, it only took David Villa 71 games to set a new benchmark.

David Villa * All Goals * Spain vs Czech Rep. [2:1] 25.03.2011 Euro 2012 Quali

It is safe to assume that Raul’s appearance record by an outfield player for the Spanish national team will be broken very soon as well. In that very same game, FC Barcelona’s Xavi has become only the 2^nd Centurion (outfield players) in the history of Spanish football.

Nevertheless, FC Barcelona squad isn’t only made up of Spanish nationals, although one could mistake La Furia Roja for the Blaugrana. FC Barcelona’s winter addition, Ibrahim Afellay, not only gave a very interesting interview, he also got among the scorers in Holland’s victory against Hungary. Still, even though he has just arrived on the shores of Catalunya he is already been linked with a transfer to Liverpool FC.

Yet, not everything is going as smoothly as it should. For instance, there is absolutely no indication that the 30^th match day of the Primera Division will happen. The looming strike has put next weekend’s La Liga action in doubt. Therefore we are forced to "enjoy" the international break.

So there’s the international break, a possible La Liga strike and the likelihood of four Clasico’s in the month of April. Hmm, I guess there is a flipside to everything.

Visca el Barca

Yours truly,

Sebastian

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