Ronaldinho and Henrik Larsson scored in a 2-0 win over Real Zaragoza and extended Barcelona's lead to nine points at the top of the Primera Liga.
Barcelona were knocked out of the King's Cup after Zaragoza registered a 5-4 aggregate victory.
Lionel Messi may lack a World Cup for Argentina but his 10 years with Barcelona have seen him rewrite the history books and become symbolic with the club's golden era.
The World champions beat the host nation 3-2 to enter the Confederations Cup final.
Twice in arrears the Asian giants rallied to hold the World champions 2-2 in the Confederations Cup.
A team led by Brazilian Ronaldinho will face a side captained by Andriy Shevchenko in the match to raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami.
Ronaldinho converted two first-half penalties as Brazil beat Paraguay 4-1 on Sunday to close in on a place at the 2006 World Cup.
The last time Brazil played Ireland, in a friendly on the same ground in 1987, they lost 1-0.
"More than the 4-0 scoreline, the most important effect of our win is the psychological blow," said Ronaldinho.
Brazil registered a 3-1 win over Bolivia in their World Cup qualifier on Sunday.
Barca are top on 72 points, Real have 66 and Sevilla, who lost 1-0 at home to Osasuna on Saturday, are a distant third on 52.
There is only one team in the world which can rest high profile players and still win.
Barcelona crushed Slovakia's Puchov 8-0 at the Nou Camp to go through 9-1 on aggregate.\n\n
Primera Liga leaders Barcelona produced a sparkling display of fluent, attacking football to outclass arch-rivals Real Madrid.
Turkey lined up a semi-final with holders France after knocking the world champions out.
Little more than a year has gone by since Tite took over as coach of a Brazil side still reeling from embarrassing exits in the World Cup and Copa America but in that short time he has transformed the team into favourites for Russia 2018.
Everton's Pickford made his England debut seven months ago and had only three caps before the World Cup but Southgate let him know he would be his first-choice.
The 28-year-old Argentine has scored seven goals from direct free-kicks in this year's La Liga, the latest in Sunday's 5-0 triumph over Espanyol.
He is certainly not the first to say this but World Cup and Ballon d'Or winner Rivaldo too feels India should follow the 'Japan model' in order to improve the standard of football in the country.
India, hosting its first ever FIFA tournament in the U-17 World Cup, will set the record of having the farthest distance between two venues in the event's history.
