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Goals from Suárez and Sandro give Barça a 2-2 draw over 90 minutes against Chelsea, but the shoot out does not go the Catalans’ way (4-2). FC Barcelona and Chelsea FC put on a spectacular show of football on Tuesday night at FedExField just outside Washington DC in a friendly clash between European giants that had to be decided on penalty kicks. With the score tied at two after 90 minutes of play, Chelsea aced all four of their spot kicks to emerge with a victory in both teams’ final game on United States soil in the 2015 International Champions Cup. Both sides will play one final game in the summer tournament back in Europe. For Barça, the defeat wraps up a US tour that included a first-game win over the Los Angeles Galaxy followed by consecutive losses to Manchester United and Chelsea. Despite the less-than-optimum results, Barça head coach Luis Enrique has made it clear that the purpose of the preseason is to get his team in shape for the games that count.

As was expected, the Constitutional Court has accepted the Spanish Government's appeal against the Catalan Law on External Action and Relations with the EU, which was approved last November and was already foreseen in the 2006 Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The Court's acceptance of a Spanish Government appeal automatically represents a temporary suspension of the legal measure for an initial 5-month period. The temporary suspension does not mean that the law will ultimately be suspended, but that there are enough reasons to study whether the Catalan law fits within the Constitution or not. According to the Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, the law goes beyond the Catalan Government's attributions and invades the Spanish Executive's exclusive powers regarding international relations and the direction of Spain's external policy.

FC Barcelona will go on a tour of the United States of America and Mexico in the summer four years after their last pre-season tour of the continent. Despite dates not yet being confirmed, the Catalan club has made official the news that the blaugranes will be returning to American soil for the fifth time in the last twelve years (2003, 2006, 2009 and 2011).In 2012 the team took part in various pre-season games across Europe and in 2013 they toured the Asian continent. In 2014 with Luis Enrique installed as coach, the squad enjoyed a pre-season training camp in Birmingham in the United Kingdom before playing in three friendly matches in Nice in France, Geneva in Switzerland and Helsinki in Finland.

Next March, L’Escolania de Montserrat, one of the oldest music schools in Europe and one of the most famous children’s choirs, will carry out its first ever tour in the United States. On the 13^th, 14^th and 16^th of March 2014 the choir will sing in concerts in the cities of New York, New Jersey and Washington, respectively. Following this landmark tour they will continue to offer performances throughout Catalonia and then they will begin the recording of their new album. The last time the choir group sang in the Americas was in January 2004 when they played in Puerto Rico. L’Escolania de Montserrat is based in the Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat, located in the centre of Catalonia, and has produced many prevalent composers and performers down the years.

The Alstom factory in Barcelona will build the 22 new tram cars that will serve the English city of Nottingham. This order completely guarantees the viability plan for 2012 and 2013, as the factory will be working at full capacity for the next 2 years. However, the French multinational has warned about the fact that no new orders have been placed in Spain since 2009. This has forced Alstom’s factory to focus on exports and has been building underground trains for Santo Domingo, Lima, Panama, London, Washington and Rabat.

In three weeks time, Barça begin their pre-season with the prospect of more than 20,000 kilometres of travel ahead of them, including visits to Split, Munich, Washington, Miami and Dallas.

This summer will be FC Barcelona’s third consecutive visit to the USA as European Champions, following their trips in the summer of 2006 and 2009.

A tribute concert to the internationally renowned Catalan cellist and conductor Pau Casals took place in Washington DC. The memorable concert brought Marta Casals back to her husband’s performance in the White House in 1961, in front of President John F. Kennedy.