Hi guys! Just a brief note to let you all know that this Barcelona blog has been moved to ESPN FC. Thank you for all your support over the years, you make it all worthwhile. Click here to access the latest on Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez and the rest of our Camp Nou stars. Looking forward to your comments and thoughts. Força Barça!

Today's announcement that Rafa Márquez has agreed with the club to rescind his contract, making him eligible for a move to the New York Red Bulls, should come as no surprise to anyone. Márquez played for 7 years at FCB, amassing 242 appearances and 13 goals in all competitions. His first goal for us was in the 2-1 home win over Real Betis on November 9, 2003 while his last goal was this stunner of a freekick in the 4-0 home win over Racing Santander on February 20 of this year.

I've already written about him a bit here, so instead of focusing too much on him (though he does deserve a fair number of tributes), I'll focus primarily in this article on the club and squad at large.

For those of us who are obsessed with the sport and Barcelona in particular, the offseason is generally a series of barren months. The World Cup this year alleviated much of that pain and left us with less than a month of transfer rumors--a blessed respite from the typical Silly Season nonsense, really. There have still be plenty of Cesc stories to go around, of course, but at least we're only having to deal with this for a few weeks instead of the entire summer.

So it comes as good news for me and bad news for my daily productivity that Barça has just flown out to play their first preseason match. This one will take place tomorrow, Thursday, July 29 at 7pm local time against Vålerenga Fotball at Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo, Norway.