sporting

The Champions League victory is one of the candidates to win 'Best Sporting Moment of the Year'

Messi (2) and Suárez on target as Barça get all three points from their game in hand and go a mighty six clear at the top of the Liga table. The Argentinian put Barça ahead with a goal which wasn’t ordinary; It made him the first player to ever score 300 times in La Liga. With the goal, the game flashed into life. Just moments later, Carlos Castro got on the end of a nicely-worked move to get Gijón back level and a smoothly worked move between Suárez and Messi ended with the latter beating Cuéllar for the second time in six minutes. The Uruguayan skipped through the Sporting defence and lofted a fine left-footer into the net. Barça 3-1 up with 23 minutes left to play.

It's finally time to play that game in hand, which offers the chance to move six points clear at the top of the Liga table. FC Barcelona travel to Gijón to play the game originally postponed due to their participation at the Club World Cup in Japan. It’s now thirty games that Barça have strung together without losing, the longest unbeaten run in the history of Spanish football. We need to go all the way back to October 1994 to find the last case of a Sporting victory over Barça. Gijón is the town where Barça’s coach Luis Enrique grew up and Sporting is a club that shall forever be close to his heart. “Whenever I go back to El Molinón, it's special” he said on Tuesday. “But tomorrow I'm going back as a coach and I want to win” he stated. The Barça boss and Sporting’s coach, Abelardo Fernández have known each other since school, and the latter also spent part of his playing career at FC Barcelona.

Barcelona Olympic Ring will become the home of the first theme park in the world entirely dedicated to sports, called Open Camp Sportainment. According to the company responsible for the project, the 66.000 m² theme park will offer a "unique" show involving technology, family and sports. The new attraction will occupy the current Olympic Stadium, the Palau Sant Jordi sports hall, the Olympic Museum, the Bernat Picornell swimming pool, the telecommunications tower designed by Santiago Calatrava and the INEFC sports faculty. All these facilities will combine their regular activities with those of the theme park, which will be open from April to October. The project expects 7,000 visitors per day and an annual economic impact for Barcelona of 53 million euros.  

The Brazilian FC Barcelona player reckons that Barça’s win against Sporting will strengthen their aim to: “keep on fighting until the last day of this league season”. “We won’t be giving the League away”, he stated. Adriano also talked about the Pique’s red card in the FC Barcelona vs Sporting de Gijón game and the news that the referees technical committee wants to take the centre half to the Spanish Federation’s disciplinary panel for his comments after the game. Adriano explained: “he and the ref were talking about it after the game and they cleared things up”.

Barça put in a gritty performance to see off an ultra defensive Sporting team despite playing most of the second half with ten men after Piqué was sent off. Late goals from Keita and Xavi sealed the win after Iniesta had opened the scoring in the first half.

After their hard won win in Gijón, FC Barcelona top the Spanish League. If we look back over the last few years, Guardiola’s team have certainly got the experience to stay up there.

An early goal from Adriano gave Guardiola’s men the three points in Gijón which take them to the top of the Spanish League’s table for the first time this season. On the negative side, Abidal was forced off with an injury.

FC Barcelona picked up a valuable point at El Molinón thanks to a beautiful finish from Villa just ten minutes from the end. Barça had trailed for the whole game after Barral’s early opener.

Barça's coach has given his first press conference since extending his contract by one more season and used the occasion to speak about motivation. “The day I lose my passion and strength, I’ll leave” he said.