listo para Valencia!

The team held its last training session before tomorrow’s game against Valencia, and the great news was that Cristiano was back in training, and was sporting normal hair (well, normal for him).  Also at the session was MFC Álvaro Morata.  Both made it into the call-up, with the other novedad being Ezequiel Garay, finally back after injuring his right knee against Bayern Munich all the way back in mid-August.  And just in time, because, as you remember, Sergio Ramos (who didn’t attend the session with the permission of the club) and Ricardo Carvalho are suspended for this game.

Goalkeepers: Iker, Adán, Dudek.
Defenders: Arbeloa, Pepe, Albiol, Garay, Mateos, Marcelo.
Midfielders: Lass, Diarra, Khedira, Granero, Xabi Alonso, Özil, Di María, Pedro León.
Forwards: Cristiano, Benzema, Morata.

More from the training session:

I’m going to take a guess here, and suppose that Cristiano was making fun of Álvaro Morata for not having access to the super gel (compare the states of their two hairstyles).

Maybe that’s what they were talking about here, if Cris will share his super gel with Álvaro.  Or, they’re exchanging tips on being an effective forward.  Either way, I’m sure Álvaro will find the information useful.

Meanwhile, the others grouped themselves by nationality, with the A-team sticking together.

Sami looks like he’s in a completely different climate than the others.

TSO said in his press conference after the session that no one is being castigated for their performance in the game against Barcelona.  He didn’t say anything about Gonzalo Higuaín, only to say that he accompanied Pipita to see a specialist in Madrid to get first hand knowledge of the situation, but he couldn’t go with him to see the second specialist (yesterday in Barcelona).  As for who will replace Pipa, Mou didn’t make it clear: “Benzema could play or not.  I can put in Morata, or not have any attackers, but Karim has played well in the last few games.”  And precisely on Morata and whether it was the moment to confide in the cantera, Mou was quite blunt: “it depends on the goals of Madrid.  If they play to win or lose and see what happens at the end of the season, that’s an interesting philosophy.  If the objective is to win titles immediately and not allow the players to grow, then Morata is far from being a formed and mature player.”

And I loved his response to questions on why Xabi Alonso didn’t do the corner kicks in the Camp Nou:  “I know that there is a culture in this club where all you journalists have to know everything, but there are things in my work that I can’t reveal.”

And, Kaká’s back on the field!  It seems like we haven’t seen him in forever, no?  And he looks thrilled to be there!  This new stage of his recovery consists of working on strength and speed to help his knee get back into shape.

He also looks a bit pale…

Well, for every piece of good news, there’s bad news, it seems.  Sergio Canales had an MRI done on his left ankle, after injuring it during yesterday’s training session.  The test showed a sprain, which means he’ll be out 3-4 weeks.