Neymar's Barcelona to play Santos in August

This week, FC Barcelona confirmed as part of Neymar’s high-profile move to Barcelona that they will stage a double-header friendly against his old team Santos in the build up to the 2013-2014 season in August.

Following his reported £57 m transfer to Barcelona this week, Neymar’s Barcelona jersey will certainly be in high demand among the Barca faithfuls around the world. As agreed previously, Brazilian club Santos will play FC Barcelona twice and on top of that receive full revenues from both exhibition matches.

With Barcelona well and truly given a footballing lesson by Bayern Munich in the Champions League this season, Neymar’s signing could be just the tonic to help them become world football’s dominant force once again. With an ever-increasing reliance placed upon Argentinian star Lionel Messi, Neymar and his knack to score crucual goals could help take the pressure off the Barca front line.

However, defensively is where most fans would agree Barca have been at its weakest last season, and Tito Vilanova looks to put that right with his club being linked to the likes of defenders such as Iñigo Martínez of Real Sociedad in the transfer market.