At lunchtime on Wednesday, FC Barcelona announced that Pep Guardiola will continue as first team manager next season.

After several days of rumours and counter rumours, FC Barcelona has confirmed that Josep Guardiola will be continuing as first team manager next season. The clamour of support for the young Catalan manager – from the Club offices, from the fans and from Facebook – was unanimous.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday morning, Club president Joan Laporta and technical secretary Txiki Begiristain, together with Josep Guardiola himself, confirmed that Guardiola would remain in charge of the team next season.

A fantastic record

Josep Guardiola came up through the youth ranks of FC Barcelona and became reserve team coach on 21st June 2007. In his first season with Barça Atlètic, they finished top of the division and won promotion.

In Rijkaard’s shoes

His excellent campaign with the reserves earned Josep the chance to replace Frank Rijkaard . He was officially unveiled as first team coach on 17th June 2008 and, once again, he needed just one season to win everything going: Cup, league, Champions League.

In his second season in charge of the senior squad, Josep Guardiola has already won the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup and the World Club Cup, putting a final flourish to an unforgettable 2009 . Guardiola – the Barça manager of the six Cups.

Manuel Pellegrini spoke about Pep Guardiola’s contract renewal in a press conference on Wednesday evening and he had some words of praise reserved for the Catalan born trainer.

“What Guardiola has achieved in his first season as a professional coach is ’spectacular’. Winning six titles in his first year is incredible. If he has renewed, its because he totally deserved it,” Pellegrini said in a press conference.

Next to appear on the press conference were Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo, who preferred to be more distant, when asked about the renewal of the Barcelona coach.

“We do not want to talk about it, what interests us is our coach. We do not care what happens in other teams, we are interested in what happens in ours,” said the Brazilian player.

Ronaldo, meanwhile, simply said he ’supports’ the words said by his companion.

Real Madrid landed in Tirana, a few hours earlier to play in a friendly match against Gramozi, a modest team of Albanian first division, owned by oil tycoon Rezarta Taci.

1. Contract signing as first team coach

On June 5th 2008 Josep Guardiola signed on the dotted line as the new first team coach, taking over from Frank Rijkaard from June 30th.Right then, the main concern for Guardiola, who was still the Barca Atletic boss, was to ensure promotion with the play off game against Barbastro coming up.

2. “We’ll keep on fighting”

On August 16th 2008 during the presentation of the team at the Nou Camp, Guardiola promised: “I don’t know if we will win, but I give you my word that we will try our very best – we’ll keep on fighting, so fasten your safety belts and get ready for the ride!”

3. “The Tourmalet” first test of fire

The new boss and his team faced a number of tests over the first few months, with the hardest undoubtedly the series of games against the league’s top teams – Seville, Valencia, Real Madrid and Villarreal -dubbed “the Tourmalet”. The team came through with flying colours and threw down the gauntlet to their closest rivals.

4. The Santiago Bernabéu kneels down to the Champions

2nd May 2009 will go down in the club’s history as the day the Santiago Bernabéu accepted Barca as the best team in Spain. The historic 2-6 thrashing virtually wrapped up the league title for Guardiola’s men and inflicted the most painful of defeats on the eternal rival, something that the Barca fans will never forget

5. Stamford Bridge

The image of Josep Guardiola celebrating Iniesta’s winning strike at Stamford Bridge has to take pride of place in the manager’s photo album. What a moment that was –the 92nd minute of a goalless Champions League Semi-final and Iniesta fires Barca into another European Final!

6. The Spanish Cup –the first leg of the treble

The Spanish Cup may not have been the most important title of the season, but it was the first Guardiola won with his team after a thrilling 4-1 win over Bilbao at the Mestalla.

7. The player pay tribute to Guardiola

Villarreal’s win over Real Madrid on May 16th confirmed that the league title was Barca’s even before they played Mallorca at the Ono Estadi. A week later at the Nou Camp following the game against Osasuna, the team celebrated their double title winning season in front of their own fans. The image of Guardiola being lifted up by his players was a wonderful image and demonstration of the appreciation the squad had for the manager’s fantastic work.

8. Cup, League… and Champions League. An historic treble.

The Champions league gave us the best possible final with the reigning Champions facing the exciting new challengers and it was Guardiola’s Barca who saw off Sir Alex’s United thanks to goals from Messi and Eto’o on that memorable night in Rome to seal an historic treble. But the story didn’t end there of course…….

9. Two titles out of two to start the new season

Barca’s fantastic run didn’t finish in Rome, as they took the first two titles of the 2009-10 season. Guardiola had insisted that it would be impossible to match the success of the 2008-09 campaign, but his players did their best to prove him wrong taking the Spanish and European Super Cups to make it 5 out of 5, surely that had to be the end of the story!

10. Guardiola’s tears

No it wasn’t ! Guardiola still had another card up his sleeve taking the team to their first ever World Club Cup title. Barca beat Estudiantes 2-1 in Abu Dhabi to make it six titles in just over six months, the first team to ever win so much. It was all too much for the boss, who just couldn’t hold back the tears at the end of the game as the full magnitude of his and his team’s achievements hit home.

Catalan sports paper Sport claims it will take around one year to build the new La Masia and construction will start in February according. The new perimeter will be given the name Masia del Barcelona situated in Joan Gamper Esportiva Ciutat de Sant Joan Despi. The building will have a modern look and will cover all the needs of the young Barcelona players.

The construction of the new academy has been put on hold for some time, as the club have waited for the sale of some areas in Ciutat Esportiva. Barcelona has finally managed to sell 7531 km/2 for 21 million Euros which has financed the building for around 9 million Euros. Barcelona had hopes that the building would be finalized ahead of the next season, 2010/11, but negotiations took more time than expected and they will now have to wait a whole year before the youngsters can move in to the new building. The new Masia will have an area of 20.000 km/2, and they have plans to include a shopping center in it.

This is a simulation of the new building:

Barcelona Atletic players, Gai Assulin and Victor Vazquez have yesterday returned to the reserves after gaining some valuable experience with the first team. Guardiola had called up four players from Barca Atletic to the first team in January as cover for the absence of Keita and Touré who left for the African Cup of nations and Jeffren who suffered an injury in the friendly match against Sporting Kazma last month.

Thiago Alcantara (18), Jonathan dos Santos (19), Victor Vazquez (22) and Gai Assulin (18) were the four youngsters chosen by Pep Guardiola, and were primarily expected to get minutes in the Copa Del Rey. Yet Barca’s unfortunate elimination from the Copa, the impending return of Keita and the speedy recovery of Jeffren, have all led to Gai and Vazquez early return to the reserves.

Both players had yesterday trained under the command of Luis Enrique in the Ciutat Esportiva and could help strengthen the team in next Sunday’s game against Benidorm. Gai is the most unbalancing Barça Atlètic winger and his presence could prove vital, while Victor Vazquez could add a few minutes to gain form and match fitness after having been out for almost ten months because of a knee injury.

Meanwhile, Thiago and Jonathan continue to train with the first team while the medical staff check the physical condition of Keita; Guardiola may use one of them in order to bolster the midfield as both Sergi Busquets and Yaya Toure are out of the match against Valladolid.

The offcial website of uefa.com recenty conducted a poll to select the ‘Team of the Year 2009‘ and the results have been announced, as expected it was dominated by players from the all-conquering European champions FC Barcelona.

Four million votes

More than 4m votes were cast by 320,000 users (a 30% increase on last year), and the resulting dream team features five members of the Barça side that conquered Europe last season, plus another who has joined since. Daniel Alves and Carles Puyol line up at the back, with Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta in midfield behind a front pairing of Lionel Messi and summer signing Zlatan Ibrahimović. For good measure, the man who enjoyed such a memorable debut campaign at the Blaugrana helm, Josep Guardiola, oversees this talented blend.

Spanish flavour

The Spanish flavour continues with Iker Casillas named goalkeeper for the third successive season and Real Madrid CF team-mates Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká are deployed in an attack-minded midfield. The Liga monopoly is broken by a pair of English-based players. Manchester United FC’s Patrice Evra is at left-back and Team of the Year mainstay John Terry, of Chelsea FC, partners captain Puyol at the heart of the defence. UEFA will present a cheque for €100,000 to one member of the team, to be donated to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

uefa.com users’ Team of the Year 2009:
Iker Casillas (Real Madrid CF & Spain);
Daniel Alves (FC Barcelona)
John Terry (Chelsea FC & England)
Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona & Spain)
Patrice Evra (Manchester United FC & France);
Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United FC/Real Madrid CF & Portugal)
Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona & Spain)
Kaká (AC Milan/Real Madrid CF)
Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona & Spain);
Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona)
Zlatan Ibrahimović (FC Internazionale Milano/FC Barcelona & Sweden).

Coach: Josep Guardiola (FC Barcelona)

Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo reports that Pep Guardiola and his family attended a concert at the Palau de Música to listen to one of his favorite groups, “Manel,” which is renowned for it’s mix of pop and traditional music and is a great success in  Cataluña.

His presence did not go unnoticed by the press, the public, or the performers, however. During the performance, the group and some of the spectators improvised part of a song for the Barca coach.  They sang about the Champions League, the final in the Bernabéu, and also sang asking Guardiola to continue on the Blaugrana bench.  It would seem that the clamour for Pep to renew his contract continues to grow.

Watch a video after the jump!

El Mundo Deportivo has supplied a video of the improvised performance, and Guardiola’s reaction:
http://www.tv3.cat/videos/2428669 

The new president of Barça and Pep will decide on the terms and conditions,” was the statement made by FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta at the special press conference held to announce Pep Guardiola’s renewal today, and it was welcomed by every one of the four presidential candidates interviewed by Spanish news agency EFE.

Professor Jaume Guixa emphasised that Pep “has again demonstrated his intelligence for the good of the whole of Barcelona and the club, since by doing this, his image will not be used during the election, a process that could hurt him, and destabilize the team.”

Jaume Ferrer, FC Barcelona’s assets administration vice-president, meanwhile is satisfied with the conclusion of the matter as he thinks the playing field can be levelled further: “Because Guardiola is an asset of Barcelona (the club), I am very happy with the way it has been done, and as such no candidate can seize on it now.”

Another presidential candidate, Agusti Benedito, a lawyer by profession, believes that the Santpedor-born coach had taken “one of the best decisions possible by providing the club with the stability that the team needs to maintain their level, and to distance themselves from being used as pawns in the club’s elections.”

A surprising short response was however given by the leading presidential candidate, Sandro Rosell, through a statement read out by his spokesman: “The decision that Pep had taken are good for us (candidates).”

There’s a few pictures, from the press conference where it was announced that Pep Guardiola have signed an one-year extension to his current contract.