After the victory against Mallorca, Josep Guardiola gave his players a day off on Sunday but 13 first team players turned up at the training centre yesterday to either work out or undergo treatment. This action on part of the players may have to do with the fact that the team has three matches – against Valencia, Zaragoza and Arsenal – to play in a week. Preparation for the next game against Valencia was to start on Monday, but Bojan, Maxwell, Abidal, Adriano, Mascherano, Keita, Milito, Pedro and Dani Alves came for a voluntary training session at Ciutat Esportiva on Sunday. Pedro and Adriano received treatment and did recovery work, while the injured Puyol, Jeffren and Valdés also did some recovery work. The good news was that for the first time since being injured Barca’s midfield maestro, Xavi, trained a bit on the pitch.

On Monday, the entire first team gathered for a morning training session to prepare for the game against Valencia on Wednesday. The first team players were training for the first time in the new kits featuring the name of Qatar Foundation. First 15 minutes of the session were open to press.

Without a doubt, the most important news of the day was that two players, Xavi and Jeffren, who were missing in action because of injury, exercised with the group. Meanwhile, Puyol and Valdes continued recovery work. Nolito and Miño from the reserves also participated in the session with the first team players.

The next training will take place tomorrow at 11am at the the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper. Then, coach Josep Guardiola will take questions from the media at a press conference.

Sunday voluntary training session:

Monday training: