summer odds and ends

A random compilation of interesting (to me) news items about our Madrid:

One. With the departure of Raúl & Guti, the captaincy will go to Iker, who will have Sergio, Diarrá and Marcelo as his deputies.  It appears that Xabi Alonso will take the “14” of Guti, and Cristiano Ronaldo has expressed an interest at taking the “7” of Raúl.  So does that mean…

Two. … the “CR7” clothing line will be making a comeback???  I hope not!  Cristiano was seen in CR7 clothing during his last days of vacation.

I think we can all agree, we don’t ever want to see this again.

Or this (I put it as a link instead of embedding it in the post because I am concerned for your eyes).

Three. And speaking of Cristiano, he returned to Madrid’s training sessions one day before he had to officially check in.  As expected, he looked quite hot in the sleeveless training shirt.  And he was hot in other ways as well: water+sexy footballer is never a bad combination.

Marcelo must be the happiest guy out there – first he gets Pepe back early, and now Cristiano.  He’s only missing his Kaká….

Four. … who was busy hanging out instead with Mickey at the Magic Kingdom.  The U.S. has been a popular vacation spot with the Madrid players this summer: Iker, Albiol, Kaká and Cristiano all chose to spend some time there.

Five. And speaking of the United States, the team will travel to Los Angeles today to continue with their pre-season.  Five of the canteranos – Tébar, Nacho, Juanfran, Álex and Morata – will travel with the first team.  In California, Madrid will play a friendly against Club América in San Francisco on Aug. 4 and against the Galaxy in L.A. on Aug. 7.  For those living around Los Angeles – the team will be staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

It looks like Kaká, Pipita and Ángel di María will rejoin the team on July 31, and the six players who participated in the World Cup final on Aug. 2 (will Iker join directly from Los Angeles?), and Sergio Canales probably also on Sunday, since he is on national team duty until Friday/Saturday.

Six. And on the subject of Sergio, did you see this play in the European U-19 Championship semifinal against England?  Spain will play France in the final on Friday!  Let’s hope Spain can continue with its recent hegemony in sports…

Sergio is playing very well in the tournament, and I can’t wait to see what he will do with Madrid!

And in an interview with Marca several days ago, Sergio said that he has a lot of desire to join Madrid, and that his goals are always dedicated to “the same people” – his parents, his family, his girlfriend and his friends.  Sergio also says that he would have liked to play alongside Raúl (“an example for everyone”) and Guti (“the things he does are marvelous”).

He’s also currently reading the book that his girlfriend gave to him as a gift on their vacation.  Awww…

Seven. And as expected, Guti signed with Beşiktaş (he looked like a referee at the presentation) and Raúl with Schalke.  ¡Mucha suerte chicos!