Since Pep Guardiola announced he was leaving his post as Barcelona manager, many rumors have started filling the front pages of the Catalan media, mostly focusing on how newly-appointed Tito Vilanova will develop the team further and, inevitably, which players he has identified as main targets this summer.

In a properly bold font, Sport claimed on its website that 35,000 spectators jammed into the Camp Nou - as if that would fill it up - in order to see the official presentation of Cesc Fabregas. Sid Lowe, writing in The Guardian, claimed 20,000, but it doesn’t much matter. It’s the narrative that appears important here, the closing of a saga eight years in the making.

It would be virtually impossible to fail to be excited about Cesc’s inclusion in the squad. When taken at face value, the move makes sense: giving Cesc, one of the better midfielders in the world, time with Xavi before the latter retires and also to let Guardiola coach the kid who grew up idolizing him and dreaming of one day wearing the number 4 in blaugrana. That the transfer became a saga instead of a business transaction is everyone’s fault; now that it’s over it’s hard to imagine a world where every summer morning doesn’t include a glazed over eye rolling while perusing the day’s headlines.

All players are brilliant; they’re magnificent and they’re just plain good people. Or at least ours are. The others, we’re not so sure about. So it’s always somewhat sad to see those chicos flit off into the “real world”—by which we mean dingy and allegedly corrupt—not only because they’re no longer our boys, sporting our colors, but also because we’re kind of duty-bound to dislike them.

Only I can’t really dislike our recent quatrain of departures. Oriol Romeu evokes the least nostalgia simply because he hasn’t done anything. Hopefully he’ll become a world beater and return to us for what we all agree is a bargain basement price for such a fantastically well-rounded player. Bojan Krkic and Jeffrén Suárez too make moves to Roma and Sporting Club with hope of a brilliant return. Do well enough abroad and we’ll see what we couldn’t before; you’ll break into the first team, for sure.

All players are brilliant; they’re magnificent and they’re just plain good people. Or at least ours are. The others, we’re not so sure about. So it’s always somewhat sad to see those chicos flit off into the “real world”—by which we mean dingy and allegedly corrupt—not only because they’re no longer our boys, sporting our colors, but also because we’re kind of duty-bound to dislike them.

Only I can’t really dislike our recent quatrain of departures. Oriol Romeu evokes the least nostalgia simply because he hasn’t done anything. Hopefully he’ll become a world beater and return to us for what we all agree is a bargain basement price for such a fantastically well-rounded player. Bojan Krkic and Jeffrén Suárez too make moves to Roma and Sporting Club with hope of a brilliant return. Do well enough abroad and we’ll see what we couldn’t before; you’ll break into the first team, for sure.

The wait, that arduous wait for a major Barça signing, is over. I was able to relax this summer thanks to the seemingly endless rumours flowing through Twitter and the daily sports rags—and yes, I'm pretty impervious to Cesc Fabregas rumours—but now my holiday is over and it's time to welcome Barça's first ever Chilean signing.

Benvingut Alexis Sánchez, a 22-year old winger slash all-purpose player capable, if his Copa America performances are anything to go by, of filling gaps in the front five. His transfer fee is a €26m deal with an additional €11.5m in performance-based variables while the contract itself is a five-year deal.

I’ve previously written about Barça’s homegrown striker, defending him from unfair attacks, but with his impending move to Roma, there is little left to say except thank you and goodbye. Goodbye for now, anyway.* The number 9 shirt is open again, but what has the club lost?

Bojan Krkic was born in Linyola, Spain, in what must have been 2008 from the way fans talk about him, but which was actually 1990. His father, also named Bojan Krkic, was a Red Star Belgrade player who immigrated to Spain while his mother is Catalan. He joined the club in 1999 at the age of 8 and rose rapidly through the club’s youth ranks, scoring more goals than anyone in the history of the academy. Some say a thousand, but that smacks of Romario-esque number inflation. He made his debut for the senior squad under Frank Rijkaard in 2007 as the youngest player to make a league appearance for Barça. He scored 10 league goals in his first year and 12 overall.

It’s easy enough to get lost in the rumours. The current one, first reported by Dutch sports magazine Voetbal International, is that Barcelona are negotiating with PSV Eindhoven for the January signing of Ibrahim Afellay. What’s intriguing about this rumour is not the player (a solid, dependable player) or the low price (€2-4m), but rather who is behind the scenes.

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.

The Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, named for Barça's founder, sits in Sant Joan Despi, a small city of about 32,000 on the western outskirts of Barcelona. It is here that most of Barça's training takes place and where this week several of the players have returned after their vacations. The first team members currently working out with Guardiola are Jose Manuel Pinto, Maxwell, Gabi Milito, Adriano, Víctor Sánchez, Seydou Keita, Alexander Hleb, Bojan Krkic, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Jeffren.

What's more notable at the moment is the inclusion of 14 Barça B players (their team having been renamed once again from Barcelona Atletic this summer). Those players are goalies Oier Olazábal, Rubén Miño, and Jordi Masip; defenders Albert Dalmau, Sergi Gómez, Armando Lozano, and Marc Muniesa; midfielders Ilie Sánchez, Jonathan dos Santos, Martí Riverola, Tello, and Sergi Roberto; and forwards Cuenca, Benja, Jonathan Soriano, Edu Oriol, and Nolito. Defender Andreu Fontàs and forward Víctor Vázquez are both currently injured, but are also training on the margins of the group.

The Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, named for Barça's founder, sits in Sant Joan Despi, a small city of about 32,000 on the western outskirts of Barcelona. It is here that most of Barça's training takes place and where this week several of the players have returned after their vacations. The first team members currently working out with Guardiola are Jose Manuel Pinto, Maxwell, Gabi Milito, Adriano, Víctor Sánchez, Seydou Keita, Alexander Hleb, Bojan Krkic, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Jeffren.

What's more notable at the moment is the inclusion of 14 Barça B players (their team having been renamed once again from Barcelona Atletic this summer). Those players are goalies Oier Olazábal, Rubén Miño, and Jordi Masip; defenders Albert Dalmau, Sergi Gómez, Armando Lozano, and Marc Muniesa; midfielders Ilie Sánchez, Jonathan dos Santos, Martí Riverola, Tello, and Sergi Roberto; and forwards Cuenca, Benja, Jonathan Soriano, Edu Oriol, and Nolito. Defender Andreu Fontàs and forward Víctor Vázquez are both currently injured, but are also training on the margins of the group.

Hello and welcome to the new Barcelona Correspondents page here at Soccernet. The Powers That Be at the Worldwide Leader have been kind enough to allow my humble voice to be projected here for the foreseeable future. I'll obviously be talking about all things FC Barcelona with a smattering of league-wide thoughts.

I've been blogging about Barcelona for more than 3 years now and am currently a writer over at Barcelona Football Blog where I cover upcoming matches and occasionally dabble in editorial pieces. Here at ESPN I'll be covering some of the more mundane things, like results, injuries, transfers, etc. Did I say mundane? I meant the reason I wake up in the morning.