It sounds like the very worst of Spain's liberal attitude to drink driving, but even in the paperwork-happy Catalonian capital you wouldn't catch a policeman pulling Pep Guardiola for controlling the league after six cups. That's probably because the country effectively shuts down over the extended Christmas period, but that's besides the point.

After an 'Abu Dhabi do' of which Fred Flintstone would be proud, F.C Barça can look back at 2009 as their best year in living memory. The auxiliary Super Cups boosted their total to six trophies, and although half of those honours were token competitions, you wouldn't deny Celtic of their right to boast about being Scottish champions...

2010 starts with a home fixture against Villareal, and with not too many injury worries for the Azulgrana. The brief festive break has allowed the stars to heal, continuing a relatively lucky streak for the squad that hasn't been experienced by their counterparts in Madrid.

We will only really get a better picture of 2010 on Sunday night, when the league could conceivably start again from scratch. Madrid are within touching distance and ready to turn over a new leaf, so it should be a storming start to the decade.

'Messi Christmas and a Xavi New Year' was the message that dropped into my inbox last weekend. I couldn't decide if it was a brilliant pun, a sad reflection of the insular nature of Barcelona society, or that the writer's English was so poor that she had written it faux-phonetically. Likely all three.