spanish

The Spanish Government demands an additional budget reduction of 3.2 billion euros to Catalonia, while the Catalan Government claims 3.3 billion owed by the Spanish State. Catalan parties have accused Prime Minister Zapatero of reducing his government’s deficit by increasing that of the autonomous communities. The Spanish Government wants to force Autonomous Communities to pay for the deficit by limiting it through specific laws.

From this Saturday on Barça face a demanding schedule with the three major titles at stake. In 18 days, Guardiola's side will play 6 games, including the Spanish Cup Final and the quarterfinal of the Champions League.

The team gave their stricken team mate Eric Abidal, as well as their fans, a great present with the three points against Getafe that take them one more step towards the title. Alves and Bojan were Barça’s scorers.

The draw in Seville on Sunday was Barça’s 26th La Liga (Spanish League) game on the run without defeat, which equalled the Club record that had stood since the 1973/74 season.

Despite being clearly the better team, Barça had to settle for just a point in Seville tonight after a second half Navas goal neutralised Bojan’s first half strike. Messi had a goal disallowed and Barça also hit the woodwork twice.

After the Spanish Governments announcement to reduce the price of local train tickets by 5% with the aim of fostering public transportation to save fuel, the Catalan Government, which manages the service in Catalonia, quantified in 26 million euros its loss in 1 year. Therefore, the Catalan Executive refused to pay for the measure. The Spanish Government will pay 6.75 million euros for 3 months of the measure.

They deserved more, but Barça had to settle for a solitary Keita goal to overcome Zaragoza on a day that saw the presidential box filled with women. Guardiola’s side has an overnight lead of ten points on Real Madrid. And on Tuesday, it is Arsenal.

FC Barcelona host Zaragoza tonight (20.00 CET) in another important game after winning away to Mallorca and Valencia. The good news is that both Valdés and Jeffren are back in the side.

After tonight’s result at Mestalla (0-1) FC Barcelona broke another all-time record. They have gone 20 consecutive league games without defeat since losing 2-1 at Atlético Madrid last season.

Barça have won three hugely important points in Valencia thanks to a Messi goal in the 76th minute. The team made a huge effort and hardly gave the opposition a chance as they extended their lead in the league table to ten points.

602,611 people were unemployed at the end of February in Catalonia, which is 2.2% more than at the end of January.

Barça go to Mestalla tonight (22.00h CET) for the first of a series of tough away matches. Xavi and Alves are back after missing the Mallorca game, and Guardiola will also travel.

Spain saw 2010 end with 9.24% of public deficit; 4.97% corresponds to the Spanish Government, 3.39% to the autonomous communities and 0.64% to the local administrations. According to the Spanish Government, half of the autonomous communities saw the year come to an end far away from the objective of 2.4% - Catalonia included. The Catalan Government emphasised that the Spanish Government cut down the revenues of the autonomous communities.

Tito Vilanova, the FC Barcelona assistant coach, has confessed to a press conference that Barça never find it easy to travel to Mestalla. “We have always found Valencia hard. We’ve never won there” he said.

FC Barcelona may have been without Valdés, Alves, Puyol and Xavi for the game in Mallorca, but they again demonstrated the depth in talent that Guardiola has at his disposal. Messi, Villa and Pedro were on target in the 3-0 win and Montoya made his first team debut.