FCBARCELONA.CAT

26.10.2009 12:21

Training focussed on Cup

Marc Guillén / Vanessa Forns

Monday morning’s training session featured six players from the reserve squad in place of the six players granted an extra day’s rest after the Zaragoza win. Next up is Wednesday’s Cup debut against Cultural Leonesa.

The players began their preparations for Wednesday’s Cup match on Monday morning.

Messi, Puyol, Xavi, Piqué, Ibrahimovic and Iniesta were all absent from training today with the permission of the manager and will not travel to Leon for the match. Instead they will train here in Barcelona.

Recovery work for Keita

Today’s session was a little unusual in that a number of first team regulars were given the day off. The hat trick hero of Saturday’s dismantling of Zaragoza, Seydou Keita, concentrated on recovery exercises apart from the main group.

Valdés attends award ceremony

Víctor Valdés was also absent from training in order to travel to Madrid to collect his Zamora goalkeeping award for last season.

Six players from Barça Atlètic

Josep Guardiola included six reserve squad players in today’s session – goalkeeper Jordi Masip, defenders Iván Benítez and Andreu Fontàs, midfielder Jonathan Dos Santos and forwards Jonatan Soriano and Gai Assulin.