The Barcelona Courier
Match10 Oct 2026
Barcelona tear Girona apart
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Girona, and it could have been more.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Both of them Gabriel Jesus's — 8.36
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.36, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad12 Oct 2026
13 Barcelona players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 13 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Match10 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Barcelona do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Barcelona
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Frenkie de Jong was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market12 Oct 2026
One of our own: Daniel Castro joins the Barcelona first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Daniel Castro is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Andreas Christensen in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barcelona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A masterclass from Frenkie de Jong
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Lamine Yamal gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lamine Yamal is on it.
In brief
- The dugout The view from the dugout
- The dugout Roony Bardghji gets it from the manager
- Player ratings Pedri was immovable