Fans show great support for campaign
Foodstuff collections as part of the “Sweep away Hunger” campaign were held this Saturday at the Nou Camp and the Estadi Lluís Companys and the Barça family showed its commitment to solidarity.
Organisations involved
The campaign is sponsored by Pastas Gallo, Arròs Montsià, Oli Borges, Sorli Discau and Llet Nostra and also has the support of The Love Comes Foundation.
Foodstuffs moved to warehouse of the Banc dels Aliments
In a marvellous display of charitable action, the fans donated hundreds of packets of rice, pasta, milk, oil and so on at the collection points set up by volunteers from the Fundació Banc dels Aliments, who then delivered the foodstuffs to the central warehouse of the organisation. A number of people also made donations in money, which the Fundació FC Barcelona will use to buy foodstuffs with to help the most needy families in Catalonia. Donations can still be made
Although there will be no more collections, the campaign continues until the Spanish Cup Final on April 20th and you can still make a donation, and take part in the sweepstake for the prize of a dinner with ex-Barça players at La Masia, at www.envienlafamalaporra.org, where you can also consult the total amount of foodstuffs donated so far. Concern for local problems
The campaign arose out of the Fundació FC Barcelona’s concern for problems which directly affect Catalan society. There are currently 1.325.000 people living below the poverty line in Catalonia and the Banc dels Aliments de Catalunya helped 52.000 families in 2008, 90.000 in 2009 and 165.000 in 2010 – a figure which continues to grow and underlines the need to support the Banc’s efforts to enable it to continue its important social work.
On Tuesday, in the pre-match press conference, Messi declared that he was not "obsessed" with the record. Obsessed or not, Messi showed this Saturday that he lives for goals. In fact, he hadn’t scored since his 2 goals in the second leg of the Champions League quarter final knocked out Arsenal. So, he’s broken the little bad run and now has 47 goals this season (29 in the League, 7 in the Cup, 8 in the Champions League, and 3 in the Spanish Super Cup). 
Just next week in Madrid the league’s top two scorers will come face to face. Messi, with his 2 goals against Almeria, and Cristiano Ronaldo with his goal against Athletic Bilbao are tied with 29 goals each at the top of the leading scorers table. 
The absentees are the injured Puyol and Bojan, who on Saturday suffered a partial rupture of the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee that will keep him sidelined for between six to eight weeks, plus Abidal, and also Iniesta, suspended for accumulation of yellow cards. Barça will travel with three goalkeepers - Valdes, Pinto and Oier probably because Pinto, despite playing against Almeria, is still suffering with his left ankle sprain. 
As usual the day after a game, the players who played against Almeria completed a light recovery session at the Joan Gamper training ground, to help them recover from last night’s effort. Puyol, Abidal and Bojan, meanwhile, received treatment. In addition, nine reserve team players took part in the training session: Thiago Oier, Miño, Saul, Tello, Planas, Benja, Ilie and Armando.
Pedro warned that "It's ninety minutes, anything can happen, as they have a very strong team, with fast players like Douglas Costa and Luiz Adriano”. Thus, he predicts a "tough and complicated" game, although he’s very clear that "We won’t change our style of play. We will play with tension and concentration against Shakhtar”. 
With his goal in the 63rd minute, Thiago Alcantara turned the game that at that time was evenly matched. It was an important goal in helping to get the three points against Almeria. One of the protagonists of Saturday's game, Thiago went onto the set of Barça TV’s “El Marcador”, where he spoke of the opportunities he has to play first team football, as well as the state of grace that Barça B is currently in . 
From very early on Pep Guardiola has confided in the players from Barça B to strengthen his squad. The youngsters from the reserve team are aware of the opportunities given to them by the manager. Thiago recognises that being with the first team is a “a reward" and said: “I’ll take the opportunity with everything I have". 
This season Thiago Alcantara has scored two goals for the first team. His first was in the return leg of the Spanish Cup against Almeria, and the second against the same team, but in the league. In both cases he scored the goals with his head. Thiago believes that it’s just "a coincidence....I’m not a specialist scoring headed goals. I’ve been fortunate that the two goals were against Almeria”. 
The other games he’s missed this season have all been in the Cup competitions and Barça have always got through despite his absence. Iniesta has been an ever present in the league so far this year and he’s only missed out on the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup, a Champions League Cup game and four Spanish Cup matches. 
Bojan was the latest squad member to be ruled out after the injury he picked up on Saturday night and Zubizarreta commented: “April and May are vital months and we hope to be at the level we have to be at. What I find most positive is the way we are dealing with the absences through injuries. I prefer to look back at what we’ve done so far this season and see how well we have done. We are eight points ahead in the league, into the Cup final and with a good chance of making the Champions League semi finals again”. 
After their victory in the first leg, Barça have to be favourites to make the semi final, but the big win in the Nou Camp makes relaxation the big danger in the return game. The squad have been very focussed on avoiding that and they know that an away goal is the first step to really making sure that a last four berth is theirs. Away goals have been relatively easy to come by so far this year though, with the team scoring in every single game on the road this season. 
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