weekend leftovers

The Castilla game, tweets, the training session and lots more from the Hércules game, including some bonus moments!

One. My favorite canterano Álvaro Borja Morata Martín (I love his full name) scored a goal in the 90th minute of the Castilla-Alcalá game, his first ever with Castilla.  This helped Castilla to tie the game 1-1 (also the final score), and allowed Castilla to finish the month of October undefeated.  They’re currently eighth in the Segunda División B after 11 jornadas.

I guess the presence of some of the first team players, who showed up for the second half, helped!  Sitting alongside Aitor Karanka were Mateos, Adán, Marcelo, Granero, Canales and Pipita, who appeared at the Alfredo di Stéfano after their training session.

Two. The weekend in tweets.

First, Xabi Alonso.  He tweeted that he was spending his afternoon on the sofa, channel surfing between the Real Sociedad and Liverpool games, and SpongeBob with his family (left).  He then cheered on Real Sociedad and Liverpool (center).  And finally, Xabi managed to fit three languages, three results and cheer on one more team in his last tweet (right)!  That’s why he’s Xabi Alonso.

Isn’t it sweet that he still follows and supports his former teams, as well as that of his brother?

While Xabi was relaxing on his couch, Álvaro Arbeloa was busy watching a movie.  He started out by saying that he was going to the cinema, and asked his followers what they recommended.  He ended up watching The Town at the Kinepolis theaters in Pozuelo, his recommendation for a cinema.

And we also found out what Álvaro would theoretically dress up as for Halloween!  When some fans (of Busi) asked him what he was going to dress up as, he responded, “as a Smurf.”  That prompted someone else to ask, “how are you going to dress up as a Smurf?  This is Halloween, not Carnaval!”  So Álvaro replied, “I’m going to be Assassin Smurf.”

Álvaro Arbeloa’s reign as king of (Real Madrid) twitter should be a long, prosperous and peaceful one.

Three. And indeed, as some of you noted, Sergio and Mou were practicing golf swings here.  You can see other fun moments from the training session here, including Pipita pushing people around, Pepe laughing uproariously and pushing Sergio (seemed to be a theme yesterday!), Sergio pretending to be fishing, Iker and Sergio C. with bed head, and of course, lots and lots of smiles.  José Jr. was also present at the session.

Four. More from the Hércules game:  Mou said that Khedira was the best player out there on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Cuatro posted a nice video about what Mou did at the descanso to win the game.  Iker and Cris said after the game that Mou had given the perfect instructions at the half to make them come out and win the game in the second half.  And we get to see (in hindsight) that Mou also made the perfect substitutions, bringing in an offensive player (Benzema) for a defensive one (Pepe), with Benzema proving decisive in getting Madrid the win.  And once Madrid was in the lead, Mou brought in two more defenders (Albiol and Arbeloa) for two attacking players (Higuaín and Özil) to preserve the lead, calling it “closing the door.”

Watch the video here.

And some of you commented on “the crotch shot” of Mou during the game.  I had actually wanted to include that moment, but there were so many other stellar ones that I had to exclude it (a lot of great moments don’t make it to the final “in case you missed it” post because sometimes there are just too many sometimes!).  But in case you did actually miss it, here’s the gif (see, I had it prepared and all!).

Five. Some bonus moments from the Hércules game.  I’ve said it many times before – I love the moments before the game starts.

Two of the three men on Madrid with Basque first names.  I seriously love all three of them.

UPDATE: since a couple of you asked… assistant coach Aitor Karanka is the third.  Iker has a Basque name, but is not Basque.  Xabi and Aitor are Basque.

Some moments of Cris warming up – that cameraman really loved doing head to toe – or vice versa – shots.

And the moment with the team photo – I guess it didn’t take the first time, so Pipita had to call Mesut back, with the back row doing the same for Cris – look how long it took him to get back, he must have taken off running!  And I really love how as soon as Cris arrives back, the smile comes out, right on demand.

Meanwhile, the bench was having a good time chatting, biting water bottles and receiving towels.

Six. If we needed any more indications that Madrid is a family, consider what happened on the flight back to Madrid from Alacant.  Several members of the board of directors went up to Karim to congratulate him, with FP already having given him a hug in the locker room.

On the flight, Karim was more open than usual (i.e. he was hiding under his huge headphones).  He joked around with his teammates, with Sergio Canales even pulling his nose at one point when Karim was focusing on something else.