Barcelona coach continues to rile up his troops with moderately-paced middle of the road rock

As they cruised to a historic treble last season, Barcelona revealed the secret to their success: a love of Coldplay.

Pep Guardiola is a huge fan of the band, and regularly plays their hits to inspire his players in the dressing room beforebig matches. It clearly worked, and Xavi revealed his particular fondness for unofficial Barca anthem ‘Viva La Vida’, a song that is frequently played through the PA at the Camp Nou:

“Viva La Vida is a sophisticated piece of grandiose orchestration that motivates and gives us luck.”

Despite his considerable ears, teammate Dani Alves wasn’t quite so enthused:

“That song does not motivate me because I do not understand what he says.”

regardless of Mr Alves’ opinions, Spanish paper Sport report that fanboy Guardiola will achieve one of his dreams next Friday, as the Viva La Vida world tour brings Chris Martin and co to Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium. The international break

Manchester Utd star reveals admiration for cartoon character

On the campaign trailer for his new digital magazine Mambo Number Five, Rio Ferdinand took time out of his busy merking schedule to speak to Channel Bee, the website run by Spoiler fan Tim Lovejoy.

In the frank interview, we discover that Rio’s all-time hero is He-Man, and that he loves The Temptations enough to break into an a capella version of one of their ditties. We also find out the most famous person in his phone is Bono, a man he knows so well he pronounces his name “Bone-o”.