Morte is the technical director of Barcelona's academies across the Middle East. His trip is being arranged by former Socceroo Gerry Gomez, who runs a Barcelona backed training academy in Sydney called Sydney Soccer Football Academy.

It endorses and uses Barcelona's Spanish-based training programme called Plan Marcet and is a football talent recruitment programme for the reigning European champions.

The Costa Rican born, Spanish speaking NSL stalwart has visited Barcelona three times this year with various players from his programmes in Australia and Japan.

There, he's had players train at the club's "Scuola" program at the Nou Camp - an open programme for kids from around the world that includes study and training. It works as a breeding ground for the cream of the crop to potentially move into the club's academy.

"Barcelona is a very serious club," Gomez told au.fourfourtwo.com. "They spend so much time developing these kids. The training sessions are very organised. The clearly have a programme, a pathway.

"There's a structure with the aim that you become a first team player for Barcelona. I saw their academy team play, and honestly, it's a different football. It's almost too good to be true."

 Lismore will be the first stop on the Barca coach's tour starting January 24-25. This will be followed by Melbourne on the 27th and Sydney on the 28th of January. More information can be found at http://www.soccerschools.com.au.

In other tour news, Red Star Belgrade's planned tour early in the new year has now been cancelled.