As most of you know the Liga de Football Profesional (LFP) don't usually announce kick off times until 8 or 9 days before the game is played. I've criticised this many times before on the blog as it makes it difficult sometimes for fans to organize their lives. Anyway, as with last season I will do my best to post the kick off times as soon as they come out (it's usually on a Friday). As expected next week's home game against Racing Santander has been brought forward to the Saturday (kick off 8pm local time) to give Barça an extra day to prepare for the Champions League game at home to Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday 16 September.

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Joan Segarra Iracheta, ex-captain of Football Club Barcelona has died at the age of 81. Segarra played a total of 528 games for Barça between 1949 and 1965 and was captain of the famous Cinco Copas team. Only Migueli, Rexach, Rife and Amor have played more times for the club.

I'm afraid even I am too young to have seen Segarra play, if there's anyone out there who did see him play please send a comment.  

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Unless there is a major surprise in the next couple of hours, the only last day transfer activity at Barça has seen the departure of one of our most promising youngsters Iago Falqué Silva who has signed for Juventus. The 18-year-old has signed a four year contract for the Italians.

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Barça began the new league campaign with a horribly disappointing 1-0 defeat to newly promoted Numancia. Barça never recovered from an early goal from Mario, and as we have seen so many times before, the team lacked patience in the build-up which led to wayward passes and fruitless dribbles. Numancia packed their defence leaving little room for Barça's forwards and when the chances came we were guilty of poor finishing.

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Barça begin the league campaign tomorrow against newly promoted Numancia at Los Pajaritos, kick off 7pm local time. The good news is that Leo Messi will be back in the team and apart from the long-term injured Gabi Milito Barça will be at full strength. Rafa Marquez who missed the Wisla Krakow game on Tuesday is also back in the squad while Sylvinho and Pedro have been left out.

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Young striker Bojan Krkic today signed a new contract which will see him stay at the club until 2013. Bojan, who turned 18 yesterday, will have a new release clause of €80 million. It's been an eventful week for Bojan as he has also been named in Spain's under-21 squad along with Gerard Piqué and Pedro for the coming matches against Kazakhstan and Russia. There had been rumours that Bojan would be called up for the full squad, the intention being to play him to ensure that he would be a Spanish player as Radimir Antic, coach of the Serbian national team, has been trying to tempt Bojan to opt for Serbia.

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Barça will have no complaints after being drawn against Sporting Lisbon, Basel and Shakhtar Donetsk in the group stage of this season's Champions League. With the likes of Juventus (who are in Real Madrid's group), Roma and Bayern Munich as possible rivals we have to admit to a relatively easy group. As I write the full calender has not been announced but the first games will be played on the 16th and 17th of September and the final games take place on the 9th and 10th of December.

Group A
Chelsea
Roma
Bordeaux
CFR Cluj

Group B
Inter Milan
Werder Bremen
Panathinaikos
Anorthosis Famagusta

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Barça qualified for the group stage of the Champions League tonight but the alarm bells will be ringing after a poor performance which saw the first defeat for the team under Pep Guardiola. A goal from Brazilian defender Cleber gave Wisla a 1-0 win on the night though Barça go through 4-1 on aggregate.

There were few problems for either goalkeeper early on, but Wisla had the better chances. On 12 minutes mistakes from Abidal and then Puyol led to a shot from 25 yards from Diaz which went straight at Valdés. Then after 20 minutes Valdés made a mess of a Piqué backpass and ended up clearing straight to the feet of a Wisla forward who chipped the ball back in only for the ball to drift wide of the far post.

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