UEFA president and French legend Michel Platini has heaped praise on FC Barcelona forward Lionel Messi (22) and believes that he was the only choice to win the Ballon d’Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

“Messi is the star of stars in world football,” Platini told FC Barcelona official website. “When I saw the eleven best players at the FIFA gala in December I knew they were all very good. But Messi was the star of stars and then there was [Cristiano] Ronaldo and kaka and all the rest.”

Cruyff legend

Platini then looked back on the incredible influence that legendary Dutchman Johan Cruyff has had on Barça. “FC Barcelona inspired by Cruyff and, at president, all Dutch coaches are inspired by the Barça team of the 1990’s,” he said. “Louis van gaal, Guus Hiddink, Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, all of them.”

THEY INSIST ON (SIGNING) RIBÉRY

Barça wants to sign the french so will try to tie him in the next weeks.

The crack likes the project and won’t be as expensive as last summer.

Interview with Touré: “We will seize Bernabéu like we did last year”

[Non Barça Related]

The round of 16’s ghost comes back. Madrid went down, failed against Lyon and got its qualification complicated.

Wenger won’t prevent Cesc’s signing for Barcelona

FROM LONDON TO BARCELONA

He said “no” to Madrid to play with Barça, the only team he wants to play with.

Exclusive. That’s how Cesc lives in the “city”.

Result of the technical meeting to assess the causes of the last injuries: The physical load will be reduced.

Iniesta could play this weekend his 300th match with Barça. 11 titles in 8 seasons.

[Non Barça Related]

Olympique Lyon 1 – 0 Madrid. A sad Madrid had a hard time in Lyon.

Milan 2 – 3 Manchester. Rooney finished off Ronaldinho’s Milan

A chart was released by Portuguese marketing agency futebolfinance.com publishing the top 50 player salaries for 2009. Cristiano Ronaldo tops the list with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Lionel Messi completing the top 3 list.

FC Barcelona leads the rankings in the top 50 with 8 players followed by Chelsea (7), Real Madrid & Manchester City (6), Manchester United  & Bayern Munich (4),  and AC Milan with 3 players. Liverpool along with the 3 other big Italian sides (Inter, Roma, and Juventus) have 2 players each in the rankings. Andrei Arshavin is the only player representing Arsenal on the list.

The complete list of 50 highest earners:[/b]

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 13.000.000 € p.a.
2. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (FC Barcelona) – 12.000.000 € p.a.
3. Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) – 10.500.000 € p.a.
4. Samuel Eto´o (Internazionale) – 10.500.000 € p.a.
5. Ricardo Kaká (Real Madrid) – 10.000.000 € p.a.
6. Emmanuel Adebayor (Manchester City) – 8.500.000 € p.a.
7. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) – 8.500.000 € p.a.
8. Carlos Tevez (Manchester City) – 8.000.000 € p.a.
9. John Terry (Chelsea FC) – 7.500.000 € p.a.
10. Frank Lampard (Chelsea FC) – 7.500.000 € p.a.
11. Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona) – 7.500.000 € p.a.
12. Xavi (FC Barcelona) – 7.500.000 € p.a.[/b]
13. Ronaldinho Gaúcho ( AC Milan ) – 7.500.000 € p.a.
14. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC) – 7.500.000 € p.a.
15. Daniel Alves (FC Barcelona) – 7.000.000 € p.a.
16. Michael Ballack (Chelsea FC) – 6.500.000 € p.a.
17. Raúl Gonzalez (Real Madrid) – 6.500.000 € p.a.
18. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) – 6.500.000 € p.a.
19. Kolo Touré (Manchester City) – 6.500.000 € p.a.
20. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
21. Robinho (Manchester City) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
22. Iker Casillas (Real Madrid) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
23. Victor Valdés (FC Barcelona) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
24. Frederic Kanouté (Sevilla FC) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
25. Deco (Chelsea FC) – 6.000.000 € p.a.
26. Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
27. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
28. Francesco Totti (AS Roma) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
29. Luca Toni (AS Roma) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
30. David Villa (Valencia) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
31. Arjen Robben (Bayern Munchen) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
32. Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munchen) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
33. Ashley Cole (Chelsea FC) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
34. Fernando Torres (Liverpool FC) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
35. Gareth Barry (Manchester City) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
36. Patrick Vieira (Internazionale) – 5.500.000 € p.a.
37. Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
38. Andres Iniesta (FC Barcelona) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
39. Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
40. Andreas Pirlo (AC Milan) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
41. Willy Sagnol (Bayern Munchen) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
42. Frank Ribery (Bayern Munchen) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
43. David Beckham (AC Milan) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
44. Wayne Bridge (Manchester City) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
45. Lassana Diarra (Real Madrid) – 5.000.000 € p.a.
46. Dimitar Berbatov (Manchester United) – 4.800.000 € p.a.
47. Andrei Arshavin (Arsenal FC) – 4.800.000 € p.a.
48. Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea FC) 4.800.000 € p.a.
49. Ryan Giggs (Manchester United) – 4.800.000 € p.a.
50. Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus) – 4.800.000 € p.a.

The FC Barcelona official website reports that Andrés Iniesta is just one game away from making 300 first-team appearances for the club and should reach the milestone this weekend against Racing Santander.

The midfield playmaker has come a long way since making his debut for the Blaugrana at the age of 18 during the 2002-03 campaign. That day he played against Club Brugge in a Champions League encounter in Belgium. Now at 25 Iniesta has become a world-renowned player after 299 matches for Barça and is fourth in the current squad in terms of appearances behind Xavi (510), Carles Puyol (470) and Víctor Valdés (339).

High praise

Following Iniesta’s debut against Club Brugge, the media all predicted that he had a great future ahead of him as he was praised for his technique and tenacity. While Barça went on to win that match 0-1, Iniesta himself did not look back and has gone on to become a key figure in the club’s success in recent season.

Vital goal

In official matches Iniesta has scored 16 goals for the club but none have been more important than the one that he scored last season against Chelsea in the second leg of the Champions League semi finals at Stamford Bridge that put Barça into the final. His first goal for the club came on January 14, 2004 .when he netted a in a 3-1 victory over Levante in the Copa del Rey.

Key player

After making his debut under coach Louis van Gaal in the 2002-03 campaign, Iniesta has been a key member of Frank Rijkaard’s squad and now is seen as vital to Pep Guardiola’s plans. While being seen as a central midfielder in his early days, the star has played in several different positions for Barça including in a defensive midfield role and out on both flanks supporting the main striker.

Iniesta has won no less than 11 trophies with Barça during a glittering career. He has won the league title three times, the Champions League twice, the Copa del Rey once, the Spanish Super Cup three times, the European Super Cup once, and the World Club Cup once.

Iniesta’s 299 games

League: 201
Champions League: 58
UEFA Cup: 3
Copa del Rey: 30
Spanish Super Cup: 3
European Super Cup: 1
World Club Cup: 3

The Racing squad that will face FC Barcelona on Saturday will be without several key first team members, according to Spanish daily Sport. Attackers Mohammed Tchité, Pedro Munitis, and midfielder Gonzalo Colsa will all miss the clash at the Camp Nou because of disciplinary suspensions.

Articles in all three major Spanish dailies today suggested that Racing coach Miguel Ángel Portugal instructed his players to deliberately go for bookings against Malaga in order to ensure their presence in the team for the game against Almeria, a direct relegation rival. At the moment, Racing hover six points clear of the drop zone.

With Racing losing 0-3 last weekend to Malaga, all three players were involved in incidents in the last 10 minutes of the match. Munitis and Colsa “successfully” provoked yellow cards; Tchité, on the other hand, seems to have been overeager, and was shown a direct red card for implying that the referee was in need of glasses.

In the post-game press conference, coach Portugal defended his players, asserting that he “didn’t believe that the cards of Munitis, Tchité and Colsa were deliberate.” Racing will appeal the red card given to Tchité later this week.

Former Barcelona legend Carles Rexach has written an article for Catalan sports paper ‘El Mundo Deportivo’ discussing Sunday’s defeat to Atletico Madrid. Some excerpts:

We have won so much and so well, it takes so long doing that, that winning had become routine for the fans. Hence Sunday’s loss against Atletico, who have inflicted the first Barca league defeat in 22 games, has caused more catastrophic readings of the situation than it deserves. It hangs in the atmosphere. People ask the whys with a depth that sometimes football does not know. Because the first thing to say is that in football, however good you are, it is normal to not always win. Barca’s first defeat came at the second half of the league, so statistically one might say that it was coming.

That said, I will comment on some things I think were important in Sunday’s game. For starters, although they say that statistics are to be broken, if Atletico have won several games against Barca over the recent years is it not something we should expect.

On the other hand, Barca win all their games usually, completely dominating the midfield and eventually break down the opponent who usually falls by pure attrition, almost bored. The Calderon did not go in for that. Keep in mind that in football, if you dominate the midfield areas, you have mastered almost all livestock.  And in Sunday’s game who dominated the areas that mattered was the team that was surprisingly serious and effective in defence and attack, which was foreseeable what with Kun and Forlan. Barca, however, was not right either at the back or going forward, so there is another explanation for the defeat.

Another detail to note is that Barca usually play a precise brand of football which they could not on Sunday. We gave the ball away far too often and against a team like the Red and Whites you will pay for that.

As for individual performance there is not much point entering discussion,  criticising this party or that party, it is logical to admit that this time the whole team didn’t work, and as I say, this is normal, it happens. In fact what is not normal is always to win, so what we’re doing at Barca under Pep Guardiola is extraordinary. It is good to know the value in it from such a measure.

So people should not burn everything achieved all for one loss and we should rely more on this team, they have earned it.

Dutch midfielder,  Clarence Seedorf, (33) played down any talks that the “Rossoneri” are among the favorite clubs to conquer Europe this year. The player believes that neither AC Milan nor Manchester United have a real chance at winning this years Champions League after seeing the recent performances of Barcelona and Chelsea:

“The English side is going through a transition period caused by the sale of Cristano Ronaldo. We are in the same boat, having lost Kaka and Paolo Maldini and arriving in their place new players and a new coach. Anyway, we will do everything we can to arrive at the end” quoted PremiershipTalk.com him as saying.