Morning Papers in Madrid 6.15

Marca.com
Real Madrid: 30 Mil for Kaka: The player: "I'm not going, I'm not going." A huge offer from Inter for the Brasilian. Leonardo has asked for him specifically. Moratti wants to deal an effective blow to Milan. There have already been contacts between clubs. Real Madrid are pushing for a minimum of 40 million euros. Atletico Madrid: Manzano counts on Forlan for his new project. He has asked the club to let him continue. Granada and Elche: adding them up and its 57 years since they were in the first division. Barcelona: AC Milan's defender Thiago Silva reveal that they have been negotiations with Barcelona.

Reaction: Right now any money for an injured commodity is better than paying him to sit. Cut the losses. He came two years too late. He'll never be the player he was. Let him return to the slower pace of Italy where it suits him.

As.com
Real Madrid: Neymar Tangle: "With Madrid I have nothing signed." In Italy they have the case practically sealed and signed for five years. Bronzetti (his agent) called it closed at first then cleared himself. Santos and the player deny it and Real Madrid aren't talking. Atletico Madrid: Nilmar and Guiza as alternatives to Osvaldo. Atletico like the Brasilian but the Spaniard is more attainable.

Reaction: the more I think about it, the more I'm taken back to the signing of Robinho out of Real Madrid six years ago. Similar players, flashy and with mad-skills, but slow to fit into the team structure and the refereeing of European Football. Plus, other than the fact that they'd like to hide young players and keep them from the Champions League rivals, I see no use for him.

Transfer Alert: David De Gea to Manchester United

It´s not a new story, not by any stretch of the imagination, but Onda Cero in Spain are reporting that a 5 year/20 million euro deal has been struck with Manchester United, sending the promising keeper to Manchester effective this Summer. Atlético de Madrid at first were denying it stating that they would welcome a bid if and only if the player asks to leave and his 25 million euro buy-out is met. Later on with Jose Ramón de la Morena on Cadena Ser´s radio program El Larguero, Managing Director Miguel Ángel Gil Marín admitted that a bid had been received but noted that there was also an offer from Chelsea on the table and that they had not given up on keeping the player.

United, set to lose veteran goal-keeper Edwin Van der Sar, are still looking for a long-term solution, one they have struggled to fill really since the days of Peter Schmeichel. Bosnich, van der Gouw, Culkin, Taibi, Rachubka, Barthez, Goram, Carroll, Ricardo, and Tim Howard all tried and failed to step into the Dane´s very big shoes at Old Trafford. The question is, can De Gea do it? Can he make the transition to the very big stakes of the English Premier League and to arguably its biggest club?

Off the pitch he will need to initially settle both culturally and linguistically, but England has plenty of players to make him welcome whether at the club or around the league and he´s a cosmopolitan kid like Fernando Torres or Cesc Fabregas. It is much easier to assimilate if you are already familiar with living in a big city. On the pitch, he´s big and athletic for sure, a great shot-stopper, and won´t be at all intimidated by the likes of John Terry coming in on a cross, but people have to realize that he is still very much a kid in goalkeeping terms. He won´t be 21 until well into November and that is practically embryonic. Most keepers don´t settle until their late 20´s. Tim Howard didn´t until after he left the pressure cooker that is Manchester United. 

Do I think he´s ready for it? No, he´s risking a very bright career, but I see the pull. If you don´t play for one of the big two in Spain, you will inevitably reach that glass ceiling. He´s not going to displace Casillas at Real Madrid. Ditto for Valdez at Barcelona, so he is going to have to get the big bucks and win trophies elsewhere.

Atlético de Madrid 2-3 RCD Espanyol

Two teams, both ¨from the same side of the tracks¨ as one would say here in the States, one from Madrid and the other from Barcelona, both struggling for the same place on the table, direct rivals if not traditional rivals geographically you might add, and they were facing off this particular weekend and you might have assumed that it was el gran clásico match between Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona, but this was the other match between those two cities. Call it the clásico menor, the lesser derby match between the two often forgotten clubs, overshadowed by their bigger neighbors, but this was anything but a lesser game. What a game.

Excuse the fact that I am a steadfast Espanyol supporter, with my own side-project on Espanyolusa.info as head of the soon-to-be formed Espanyol Supporter´s club of Los Angeles, but this was one of best games I have seen all year. Just look at the goals:

Luis Garcia takes a penalty in the 20th minute, another in a long line of made penalties for the Espanyol forward that stretches five years since his last miss. Yes, the penalty call was a bit off, Reyes did have his hands close to his face for protection and shouldn´t have been carded on it, but the rebound also produced a shot that grazed Simao´s hand, so in the grand scheme of things I wouldn´t be so quick to call that the reason that lost Atléti two points. In fact that was the call that woke Atléti up. Diego Forlan, playing deeper than he usually does for the colchoneros but more in the manner that he plays for Uruguay, started creating havok in the Espanyol defense.

In response, I´m afraid to say, we started kicking some ankles. It turned into card-fest for a time until just before the half, when Espanyol keeper Carlos Kameni stopped two point-blank shots from Godin, but couldn´t stop Atleti midfielder Tiago Mendes from poaching a goal from the rebound. After the break the game opened up even more. Both clubs, who often suffer from overly cautious coaching, played out of their minds. When it was 1-1 the consensus on twitter was that Quique Sanchez-Flores and Pochettino both former defenders would clamp down on their squads and play for the point, but nothing could have been further from the truth. They came back from the break with no changes until Osvaldo, who played alone up front for the periquitos, made space for himself on the left-wing and as three Atléti defenders converged he rifled a shot that DeGea blocked but couldn´t stop Joan Verdú from tapping in. Quique´s men responded however with a perfectly lobbed pass over the defense from Forlan to Agüero who slotted it past a diving Kameni at the 65 minute mark drawing the teams level at 2-2. There were some calls for Agüero being offside on the goal, but the inexperienced Jordi Amat, who had a great game nonetheless, played the Argentine onside on the goal. The twitter-heads were expecting both teams to play for the point from then on but the action continued. The goal of the match, if not the weekend so far, came from a perfectly lobbed cross from Luis Garcia on the right to Osvaldo who snapped a speculative shot from a pretty severe angle himself on the right past a diving DeGea.

The match devolved into handbags as time ran-out, Sanchez-Flores will probably be sanctioned for losing his temper at Espanyol midfielder Javi Lopez for wasting time at the death of the match and being tossed out of the game, but overall, you couldn´t have done better than watch two evenly matched teams fight it out in La Liga. This is what the Spanish League is all about. I would hope that Monday´s clásico between the more glamorous clubs from these two cities would be as entertaining if not more than this match, but I highly doubt it.

Keeping Up with the Joneses Part 3

Keeping Up with the Joneses Part 3 – Attendance & Stadium Ownership

This is the third part in a series where we look at areas where the Spanish League can improve and learn from football leagues and other sports abroad. In part 3, we take a look at attendance and stadium ownership.

Spain pales in comparison to the German and English top leagues, is in the area of game day attendance. German stadiums are the best attended games in Europe. Their games are well attended and the price of a ticket is very affordable. England on the other hand is well attended, yet the price of the ticket is very expensive. The English league is more of a franchise that is concerned about the business and merchandise side of the game, whereas the German league still stays true to it’s grassroots and concerns of their supporters. True, football is more of a religion or way of life in Germany and England than in Spain, but much can be learned from how they are able to bring in a constant stream of revenues from game attendance, especially in smaller to mid-size cities.


To read more please go here:

La Liga Round-Up

Important life lessons, fatalism is good for you and God exists all in this week’s La Liga roundup.

Every once in a while the humble La Liga offers a life lesson. No not that a pigs head doesn’t make a good missile nor even that its probably not a good idea to spend nearly a billion euros on a squad of players then bugger the pitch they play on by infecting it with a BP style oil spill. No, rather that some things, like Paris Hilton going to jail or the Tories being out of power are too good to last. Alas, Atletico de Madrid’s title challenge of 2010/11 is no more.

After three months of unparalleled success including two European trophies, a cup final, somehow keeping one Uruguayan legend called Diego, then gaining another and after two victories which meant three weeks worth of opportunity to look at the table and see themselves atop it, Atelti fans are back to that familiar feeling of disappointment.

In fairness they were never even in the match and their potential challenge for the title was not the story. The story of the evening was scandal. Pep Guardiola wanted to reflect on what he described as a ‘scandalously good’ Barca performance, a first victory for him in three league visits to the Calderon. However, the ‘scandal’ that covered pages, front and back, across the planet on Monday morning was the sight of poor, little, defenceless Leo Messi’s ankle buckled under caveman looking Czech Thomas Ujfalusi’s studs. A sight so distressing that Argentina Football World described it as killing Bambi or Bambi’s mum, either way you get the point.

Ujfalusi immediately claimed the injury was down to bad luck rather than malice and apologised to Messi (via the phone of team-mate Kun Aguero) but the shocking images of Messi’s ankle blown up to thrice its normal size does again raise the issue of protection for small, skilful players. It is an interesting observation that when incidents like this happen in Spain the mainstream press immediately call for double-digit match suspensions, whereas in England, when an Arsenal player’s leg is snapped in half Arsene Wenger is criticised for ‘whinging’ about player protection.

Thankfully, Messi’s injury will only keep him out for around two weeks and with home fixtures against Sporting Gijon and Mallorca followed by an international break it is only on the tricky trips to the San Mames to face Athletic and to Russia for a reacquaintance with Rubin Kazan that Messi should be missed.

Messi’s injury also overshadowed what was in truth an absolute mauling. The Champions have responded in Champions fashion with two sublime performances since the amazing defeat to Hercules.

On the bright side for Atelti there were some obscure positives to take form the game.

1.They wont play Barca every week.

2.In days gone by Atleti might have collapsed and lost by a barrow load. See 5-2 and 6-1 defeats to Barca in the past two years and a 6-0 humiliation at the Calderon in 2007.

3.The reason Atletico didn’t collapse was David De Gea. The 19-year-old was fantastic and gives Los Rojiblancos the solid base they have been lacking for years (not mentioning any names………Leo Franco)

4.Expectation is Ateltico’s worst enemy. What is worse than being constantly disappointed? Being constantly disappointed when you don’t expect to be let down. For years Atelti fans have developed a sense of fatalism, a sort of constant anaesthetic to the inevitable pain. Hence, the ‘Daddy, why do we support Atelti?’ ads. The successful end to a overall poor campaign last season followed by an impressive summer transfer window and a bright start to this season had seen Atleti fans get way too far ahead of themselves. Now with a giant Catalan pin having been stuck in the balloon of hype and optimism, Atelti can concentrate on more realistic goals. Principally, Champions League qualification and a stab at retaining their Europa League crown.

Challenging Atletico for third place behind the big two will be Valencia. At the start of the season I couldn’t see how they could maintain their status without their two stars called David. However, they still have the flair and goals that many teams in La Liga lack. Two more screamers from Mata and Pablo Hernandez proved that at the weekend as they overpowered (sorry couldn’t resist) Hercules. They will struggle with playing twice every week from now on and will inevitably have the Valencian mid-season slump but at the moment they look well on track to qualify for the last-16 of the Champions League and be strong contenders to compete in it again next year.

Real Madrid won 2-1 at Real Sociedad. Real were pretty fortunate to come away with all three points and not just because their winning goal was so fluky even Ronaldo was disgusted with his effort as it cannoned off Pepe’s (fortunately restored shaven) head and looped over Claudio Bravo. Even better news for ‘San Cristiano’ (Marca have relegated him from God to just a saint after a dodgy start to the season) were the words of everybody’s favourite WAG, Sara Carbonero “Cristiano Ronaldo siempre ha sido así, egoísta e individualista en el campo y el Real Madrid ya le fichó así"….’Cristiano has always been an egotist and an individualist’…finally a female football journalist who knows what she’s talking about, take note Sky Sports girls!

The good news for all La Liga fans is the return of Sociedad to the top league. As Sid Lowe says this week a proper team in a proper stadium with proper fans. From my one solitary visit to Anoeta I have to concur.

Surprisingly, Depor and Getafe played out a cracker, sort of, in La Liga’s latest unenthusiastic version of Monday Night Football. If only they had the technology of Andy Gray and Richard Keys….oh wait that was meant to say Thank Christ they at least don’t have Andy Gray and Richard Keys. In the words of LaLigaLoca‘The earth rumbles and lions lie down with lambs! A goal for Depor. Not a proper one mind. A penalty converted by Guardado’ x 2. And just when everyone had finished booking their eye-tests having seen ‘Depor 2’ on the screen Arizmendi scored a beauty for Getafe! The pope was right on secularism there must be some explanation to all this.

In slightly less surprising news Osasuna still haven’t scored this season (oh the thought of Osasuna-Depor this season. That’s 180 minutes that should be put to some use like as a prison sentence or even better make those bloody bankers watch it then terrorise them with the thought that if the fuck up again we’ll fix the draw for the Copa Del Rey and make the bastards watch it again…that’ll teach ‘em) anyway at least Jose Antionio Camacho can still show his face in public…sort of

This week’s results in full

Espanyol 1-0 Almería
Mallorca 2–0 Osasuna
Sporting 2–2 Athletic
Real Sociedad 1–2 Real Madrid
Hércules 1–2 Valencia
Racing 2–0 Zaragoza
Levante 1–2 Villarreal
Atlético 1–2 Barcelona
Málaga 1–2 Sevilla
Deportivo 2 – 2 Getafe

By Kieran Canning