Twenty players have been called up for Zaragoza, including two canteranos, Álvaro Morata once again (fingers crossed he finally gets to debut) and Fernando Pacheco, coming in for the injured Jerzy Dudek. Watch the training video here to see Pepe, in his capacity as canterano cheerleader, welcome these two boys!
The surprise was the exclusion of Sergio Ramos, who is suffering from a sprained right knee and will be out for two to three weeks (!!!). But even if he were available, he wouldn’t start, because according to Mou: “Arbeloa was going to be a starter tomorrow, he knew he would play in Zaragoza two days ago, not because Sergio Ramos can’t play, but because Arbeloa deserves it for how he’s been playing. The substitutes are playing very well… and we always have to leave the door to starting open to them, to let them know that the situation isn’t fixed. This is what happened with Arbeloa.” That’s certainly great for Álvaro, since he’ll get to start the one game in his hometown!
Some Mouisms from the press conference:
on Claus Bo Larsen saying that Cristiano is football’s biggest diver: he’s an intelligent referee because intelligent people know how to get themselves into the spotlight. One of those ways is to talk about Cristiano and it appears that Larsen understood this. CR is a top player, but the referee in question is very normal, no one will remember him when he retires.
on Dani Alves saying that people speak of Mourinho as if he had invented football: we have to learn from intelligent people. Einstein couldn’t have said better what Alves said. A Portuguese discovered his country, but he’s right, it wasn’t a Portuguese that invented football.
on whether he’d go for a trivote once more: I have a big problem: with the injury to Higuaín, there’s only one forward, so I can do two things. If I start Benzema, I won’t have another forward on the bench and if I leave Benzema on the bench, I have to change the system and play with three in the middle. It’s like hunting with a cat. Obviously, if you go hunting with a dog you’d catch more and if you do it with a cat, less. But you’d still go hunting and in the same way that I haven’t cried during the six-month absence of Kaká, I’m not going to cry now because of the absence of Higuaín.
Anyway, the list looks like this:
Goalkeepers: Casillas, Adán, Pacheco.
Defenders: Arbeloa, Pepe, Albiol, Mateos, Carvalho, Garay, Marcelo.
Midfielders: Lass, Diarra, Granero, Xabi Alonso, Özil, Di María, Pedro León.
Forwards: Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema, Morata.
This is Pacheco’s second call-up with the team (the first time was against Sporting). He’s 18 years old, the starter of the Juvenil A team, and in his fourth year at Real Madrid. He was born in Puebla de Obando (Badajoz, Extremadura).
Meanwhile, Iker will play his 400th Liga game tomorrow in La Romareda! This will move him into ninth on Madrid’s all time list, and before the season is over, he should move past legends such as Míchel (404), Camacho (414) and Pirri (417) to sixth place.
And La Romareda has been a good, good field for Madrid. Some of the recent lasting memories:
Oct. 29, 1994: Raúl made his debut with Real Madrid. He ended up scoring 13 goals in 26 games against Zaragoza, including his 100th goal in the Liga.
Aug. 20, 2001: Zidane made his debut with Real Madrid, in the Supercopa, which ended 1-1. Madrid won the trophy in the second leg at the Bernabéu, behind a Raúl hat trick.
June 9, 2007: The score was 1-2 in favor of Zaragoza, with the Liga on the line. In the 88th minute, Ruud van Nistelrooy scored his second goal of the game. At the same time (the stars must have aligned), Tamudo scored for Espanyol at the Camp Nou, tying the game up at 2-2 as well. This meant that for Madrid to win the Liga, they had to beat Mallorca at home. They did. What a magical, crazy night that was!!!!!
April 24, 2010: Fittingly, Raúl made his last appearance in the Liga with Real Madrid against Zaragoza. He scored in that game, which Madrid ended up winning 2-1, despite being injured. Figo and Míchel also said goodbye to Real Madrid at La Romareda.