FCBARCELONA.CAT

01.07.2007 10:00

Bayern v Barça on August 15

Roger Bogunyà

FC Barcelona will take on Bayern Munich in a farewell encounter for veteran midfielder Mehmet Scholl on August 15 in the Allianz Arena at 18:00.

With the 2007/08 Spanish league season due to kick off on August 25 and 26, Barça will play the high-profile encounter ten days before as part of their pre-season preparations. Scholl has announced that he will retire this summer and this game will be the last that he plays in the famous red shirt of Bayern.

Last year

The last time the Blaugrana met the Bundesliga giants was just last summer in the Joan Gamper Trophy match. On August 22, 2006 Barça won convincingly as goals from Ronaldinho (2), Samuel Eto'o and Javier Saviola gave the home side a 4-0 victory in Camp Nou.

Season kick off

This year, the game between Bayern and Barça will take place four days after the German's first league game of the season against Hansa Rostock. The following weekend they then face a very tricky trip to Werder Bremen.

Signing on

Bayern have had a busy summer of rebuilding as they have brought in several new sigings. Miroslav Klose has come from Werder Bremen, Zé Roberto from Santos, Franck Ribéry from Marseille, Luca Toni from Fiorentina, Marcell Jansen from Borussia Mönchengladbach, Ernesto Sosas from Estudiantes La Plata, Hamit Altintop from Schalke 04 and Jan Schlaudraff from Aachen.

The eight new arrivals will join a squad that already contains outstanding players such as Oliver Kahn, Lúcio, Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger, as well as former Barça midfielder Mark van Bommel after he moved to the club last summer.

Moving out

The change of personnel came about after the club had a relatively poor Bundesliga campaign last time out and missed out on the Champions League. Roy Makaay has left for Feyenoord, Owen Hargreaves has joined Manchester United, Claudio Pizarro has signed for Chelsea, Hasan Salihamidžić has moved to Juventus, Andreas Görlitz has been loaned to Karlsruhe and Scholl has retired.