La Liga
Barcelona bid farewell to emotional Pique with Almeria win
Barcelona enjoyed a 2-0 win over Almeria on Saturday but the night belonged to defender Gerard Pique’s who was playing his last game at the Camp Nou after he announced he will retire from soccer when LaLiga breaks for the World Cup next week.
Barca, who won with second-half goals from Ousmane Dembele and Frenkie de Jong, climbed to the top of the standings on 34 points from 13 games, two ahead of Real Madrid who have a game in hand and will visit Rayo Vallecano on Monday.
After missing several chances in the first-half, including a penalty for a handball that Robert Lewandowski put wide, Dembele broke the deadlock right after the break, slotting a precise shot into the bottom corner from a counter-attack.
In the 62nd minute, De Jong was well positioned inside the area to score off a rebound from goalkeeper Fernando Martinez and wrap up the points for Barcelona.
At a sold-out Camp Nou where everything surrounding the game was about the long-serving Pique, including the Barca players’ shirts which carried the word “Sempr3”, “Forever” in Catalonian, with Pique’s number 3 replacing the letter E.
The 35-year-old Pique, who started the game as captain, won 30 trophies, including three Champions League and eight LaLiga titles, with Barca.
He played well and almost scored in the first-half with two towering headers from corners against a defensive Almeria side who only had one shot on target in the match.
Pique was substituted in the 83rd minute, walking off the pitch in tears to a standing ovation from the 92,605 fans – the highest attendance at the Camp Nou so far this season – who packed the stadium to say goodbye to a club great.
He was thrown in the air by his team mates at the end of the match and gave an emotional speech to the adoring crowd.
“After a relationship of so much love and passion, I think it was time to give ourselves some space,” Pique told the Barca supporters who stayed behind for several minutes at the end of the game to honour their idol as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I am sure that in the future I will be here again. This is not a farewell, I already said it when I was 16 years old when I went to Manchester United and came back. As my grandfather says, I was born here and I will die here. Visca Barca!”
Pique joined the Barcelona academy when he was 10 years old but left as a teenager to join United, where he made his professional debut in 2004.
He played one season on loan for Real Zaragoza before going back to Old Trafford where he was part of the team who won the Champions League and Premier League double in the 2007-8 season before heading back to Barcelona at the end of that campaign.
In 15 seasons at the Nou Camp he has become the player with the fifth highest number of appearances in the Spanish club’s history (667) after Lionel Messi (778), Xavi Hernandez (767), Sergio Busquets (694) and Andres Iniesta (674).
Regarded as one of the best centre backs of his generation, Pique collected 36 trophies during his 18-year career, including a World Cup and European Championship with Spain.
-Reuters
Barcelona said their request for a permit to return to the Camp Nou for Sunday’s LaLiga match against Real Sociedad has been denied, with the city council highlighting safety and security issues with the revamped venue.
Barca had been hoping to return to a reduced-capacity Camp Nou with 27,000 spectators but have failed to obtain the necessary permits from Barcelona City Council.
Barca will instead host the match at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium in Montjuic, where they played during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons with renovations at Camp Nou now nine months behind schedule.
“We have spotted different elements that need to be fixed and have an impact in the safety and security of the stadium,” chief of civil protection Sebastia Massague said at a city council meeting.
Barca had to begin their LaLiga home campaign at the Estadi Johan Cruyff in their own training complex, where only 6,000 fans attended their match against Valencia on September 14, after a Post Malone concert left the Lluis Companys pitch in poor condition.
“The club is currently working on the new amendments that the council has shared today,” Barca said in a statement.
On Friday, the Catalan club also announced that their Champions League group stage match against Paris St Germain on October 1 would also take place at the Lluis Companys.
Barca are second in LaLiga, trailing leaders Real Madrid by five points but having played a game fewer.
-Reuters
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Villarreal midfielder Thomas Partey on Wednesday appeared in a London court and pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and sexual assault involving three women.
Partey, a Ghana international, is accused of five counts of rape relating to two women, plus a charge of sexual assault against a third woman, between April 2021 and June 2022.
The alleged offences took place when Partey played for Premier League soccer club Arsenal. He left the club this summer and signed for Spain’s Villarreal.
The 32-year-old appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court and spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth and enter his not guilty pleas.
Partey was released on bail ahead of his trial, which was listed for Nov. 2, 2026 and is due to take between six and eight weeks.
He was signed by Arsenal from Atletico Madrid for 50 million euros ($59.2 million) in 2020 and became a key member of the English side’s first team, before his contract expired at the end of June.
Partey played for Villarreal in their Champions League game against Arsenal’s bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday night.
He came on as a second-half substitute and was booed loudly by the Spurs fans every time he touched the ball.
-Reuters
Villarreal and Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey, who has been charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, walks outside Southwark Crown Court, in London, Britain, September 17, 2025. REUTERS/Maja Smiejkowska
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Real Madrid on Tuesday denounced plans to stage a LaLiga match between Barcelona and Villarreal in Miami, warning the proposal could undermine football’s competitive balance and vowing to petition global governing bodies to block the move.
The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) on Monday approved the December 20 fixture at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, which could become the first LaLiga match held abroad and the first European league fixture staged in the United States.
“Real Madrid wish to express to its members, supporters and football fans in general its firm rejection of the proposal,” the club said in a statement, revealing they have already urged FIFA, UEFA and Spain’s Higher Sports Council (CSD) to intervene.
The club accused the RFEF of making its decision “without informing or consulting the clubs participating in the competition” and argued that staging the match in Miami “violates the essential principle of territorial reciprocity” in home-and-away league formats.
Real further stated that the move would “alter the competitive balance” and grant “an unfair sporting advantage” to the clubs involved.
The club also warned that approving the proposal could compromise sporting integrity and “set an unacceptable precedent,” insisting any change of this nature should require “the express and unanimous agreement of all the clubs participating in the competition”.
The plan still requires approval from UEFA, US Soccer, CONCACAF and ultimately FIFA before LaLiga President Javier Tebas can realise his long-held ambition of taking Spanish football to the U.S.
-Reuters
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