That would be spectacular but seriously, if there's a position open at RM the lure will be too great for zidane. Plus i heard he wanted to work with children, so the castilla job would fit the bill.
While nothing is impossible. Zizou rejected taking a job with Real after talking with Calderon because (both president and sa majeuste stated the same reason): He has commitments(commercial) and wants to finish them so he can give his entire time to his job when he does take it and he plans to use this time to spend with the family. Not taking a Real job only to take one in QPR is not impossible but is not logical as he has a year or 2 with Adidas/canal +/....
^^ Santander, I think I've read at a couple of places now, that Raul definitely won't be going to next month's Euro. Phil Ball also mentioned it today. Have I missed something? Has Aragones made it this clear?
He wasn't on the short list I think and all of the Spanish players on there had to take some vaccination shots for the Euro in Switzerland and Austria and Raul didn't took em. And that Guiza guy is now pichichi and it's him or Raul for Aragones presumably.
You have to take vaccination shots to go to Austria and Switzerland? Somehow I just don't believe that .
There is some sort of tick bourne viral infection around those countries during the time of the Euros and UEFA have asked that national federations inoculate their players/possible players....Spain have done this to 30 or so possible players (iirc) and Raul is not one of those. It is not a question of 'needing shots' to go to these countries. EDIT: Sorry Achilles beat me to it.
Ha! In the forum attached to Sid Lowe's article in the Guardian this week, somebody reminded Lowe of his pre-season predicitions: [Extract begins]Sid..did you have a look lately at your early season predictions? Champions..Barca Team most likely to win CL...Madrid Cup Winners..Zaragoza Dark Horse...valencia.. relegation...almeria and racing.. I really hope that you didn't put any money on your bets... hehehehheehe[Extract ends] Brilliant.
Yeah - I note Sid didn't pick up on that in his reply to the forum - too embarrassed? But then, who would have put any money bacn in August on Racing fighting for a CL spot and Almería in witha shout for the UEFA cup? Not me.
Can't imagine the person who had their money on that. If it was me I'd probably be crazy by now. I mean...wow..... I pity that guy.
according to graham hunter Sergio Ramos and Mahamadou Diarra are our unsung heroes "Diarra and Ramos put their bodies on the line every single week and in some ways Ramos is the leader of this squad, he does everything for the team. His attitude is: 'myself second and the club first'." http://www.skysports.com/tv_show/story/0,20144,12385_3529980,00.html
It's true, and never more apparent that the winning goal against Osasuna. Diarra took a body shot from someone and got put on his ass, while Ramos didn't stop his run forward to get the ball into Higuain, also looking like he took a knock at the same time. This in the final few minutes after a very tough game, down to 9 men at the time, not to mention Heinze with his finger hanging off, kneeling on the ground in absolute agony. The whole sequence summed a lot up for me. Also for the first time in my life, I liked a comment in a Goal.com article after the game. Ramos has had an up and down season, but when we need him he is ready willing and able. It went something like: I also like the fact that Ballague mentioned Hleb in that article. He would come relatively cheap-ish, and I think his style and ability would suit the league perfectly.
I remember the day these predicitons came out in August, we all knew they were BS. I think Levante was an easy pick to go down, can't believe he missed that. I'll overlook the Almeria prediciton, but picking Racing to go down? Sure, they don't play the sexiest football but they've been consisitent over the past couple of years. Valencia, IMO were never in contention to compete for the league, they added Ivan Helguera, Nikola Zigic, Arizmendi, Juan Mata, and Alexis during the offseason, basically a group of supporting players who were promptly given starter's roles. Helguera is way past it, Juan Mata and Alexis need time to grow, Arizmendi SUCKS, and Nikola Zigic is really tall and didn't fit Valencia's system. Sid Lowe's knowledge of Spanish football is pretty average, or maybe he secretly roots for Barcelona. Phil Ball (Real Sociedad supporter) and Guillem Balague (Espanyol supporter) are far superior.
I like Sid Lowe actually. His article are always a good read, and I listen to him on the Guardian Unlimited podcast every week. There are far worse journalists out there than Sid.
Manuel Fernandes was brought in after a fairly successful loan spell at "the best and strongest and biggest League in the world".Then you have Sunny who was kind of rated, Alexis who was also rated after perfoming quite well under Schuster.Caneira joined the squad as well, and Hildebrand was a decent transfer in my opinion. On paper, those are some decent transfers. Helguera was a laugh though.On the other hand, Marchena hasn't really been 'superior'.
Problem is that the Spanish league is nearly impossible to predict, next season I can say that Real Madrid and Barcelona will again be competing to win the league. But thats about it. I'll throw in a prediction for England aswell, top four will be... Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool
Phil Ball is a pretentious twat. His articles try to give a "social" read on the sport, but he doesn't know as much about Spain as he likes to pretend (like that article where he said Rafa Nadal was a Barcelona fan). His knowledge of what goes on in the world of soccer beyond Spain is actually quite sub-par, I remember he wrote an article saying Messi could still play for Spain 3 full months after he had already played a senior international for Argentina. He is the best writer of the lot, though, but as a source of information he is not worth much. Sid Lowe is OK. Balague is by far the best journalist, in the sense that he has good sources, connections and so on. Neither Lowe nor Ball could ever break a story or get a scoop, and Balague can.
Meh, if I were to write on Ball's inconsistencies and unaccuracies I could do a weekly thread with all that stuff.
Soldado is going to be on loan at Sampdoria next season http://www.goal.com/en-US/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=687324