Barcelona's new training ground on the outskirts of the city is stunning. Until this year, the team trained on a single small pitch in the shadow of the Camp Nou. Aspiring youngsters watched from their dormitories in the adjacent Masia (farmhouse in Catalan) where players like Xavi, Pep Guardiola and Andres Iniesta once lived. Barca's training facilities were homely and steeped in tradition, but it remained a surprise that one of the biggest clubs in the world trained on a single pitch, especially when their rivals built lavish new training camps.
Barca finally followed suit and the first team moved to the new facility. Named after the club's founder Joan Gamper, it features nine pitches, four with stands seating over 1,000 and enough sporting provisions to satisfy a small city. "It's superb and just a little different to the facilities when I was growing up," states Barca's Ivorian midfielder Yaya Toure. Toure is in the pressroom, built by the club to accommodate the hundreds of journalists who follow Barca's every move. It is the Sunday morning after the night before when he played 90 minutes as Barca beat Getafe. Signed from Monaco for just ?10 million (Dh54m) in 2007, bruising fixtures like Getafe away were the reason he was purchased. Tall and powerful in a way Xavi, Iniesta and Messi are not, Yaya brought strength to a sublime Barca side.
Barca's enforcer comes from a prominent football family. Two brothers have played top-flight football in European leagues, most famously Kolo, now with Manchester City. Yaya is surprisingly quick and versatile, but it was Kolo who he turned to when coach Guardiola entrusted him as an emergency centre-half in the Champions League final against Manchester United. "I prepared by speaking to Kolo," says Yaya. "He gave me good advice on how to play in that position." Sages thought Cristiano Ronaldo could cause Toure, 26, problems. In reality he was one of Barca's best players as they claimed the treble. As his stock rises, Toure is content with Barca's season so far.
"We've got a great team and the challenges come every three or four days," he says. "On top of that, almost every player is an international, so there's even more games and travelling. That's the price you play at a club like Barca. We get two or three days to recover and then we play again." In a break with the overnight custom, Barca flew to Madrid on Saturday, overcame Getafe and returned immediately by a chartered plane.
"It was a good win for us at Getafe," Yaya continues. "It was great for Andres Iniesta and Leo Messi to play their first minutes for us in the league as they are world-class players. If Leo wins the Ballon D'Or, then Andres should come second. Now it's important to gain more confidence by winning." In his non-stop existence, Toure today flies to Italy for tomorrow's game against Inter Milan and the in-from Samuel Eto'o at the San Siro.
"Samuel is a friend and his style is completely different to Zlatan Ibrahimovic [who also faces his former club]," says Yaya. "Samuel may be world class, but we won't be adapting our style to block him. He knows how we play, but we know how to defend." With new signing Chygrynskiy impressive in his Barca debut on Saturday ("he's young, but plays like a veteran, a perfect central defender" - reckons Toure) the Ivorian will not be required to play in defence. However such is his commitment to Barca's cause, you sense he would excel even if asked to play in goal.
Andy Mitten lives in Barcelona and has written about La Liga for more than a decade for FourFourTwo and the Independent @Email:amitten@thenational.ae
