all set for Deportivo!

The pregame, preview post.

They almost look like speedos.  And I love that fist bumping between Sergio and Álvaro.

Madrid trained yesterday afternoon before traveling to A Coruña later on that evening.  All 22 of the healthy players (Higuaín and Khedira are the only injured ones) worked out on the field.  As you can see, it was a lot warmer in Madrid yesterday than it has been recently, meaning the gloves, hats and mufflers were noticeably absent!  Several of the players even wore short-sleeved shirts for first time in a while (I can’t wait until it’s warm enough for them to break out the sleeveless tops!) and some were in shorts as well.  And as you can also see, Cris didn’t waste any time in hiking up his shorts to expose his legs once again (one of many examples).  Too bad MFC wasn’t around to witness this.

A tattoo of his number?  Why does he have a glove tan?  And that’s quite a grip that the Benz has on Esteban.

The list of the players called up for the game against Dépor is as follows.  Sergio Canales suffered a sprain to his left ankle during the training session, so he was absent, while Pedro León was once again left off due to the coach’s decision.  Cristiano made the cut, and Iker also made his return after sitting the last jornada out due to suspension.

Goalkepeers: Casillas, Adán, Dudek.

Defenders: Carvalho, Pepe, Sergio Ramos, Albiol, Arbeloa, Garay, Marcelo.

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso, Özil, Di María, Lass, Kaká, Granero, Gago.

Forwards: Cristiano, Benzema, Adebayor.

On the other side, we won’t get to see a player I really like, Juan Carlos Valerón, as he injured his right leg during his team’s training session and didn’t make the final cut.

During his press conference, Mou was his usually witty, ironic, straightforward self.

Regarding the scheduling of games, he said, “I speak, I speak, I speak… but since I’m not anyone, I don’t have the power to influence decisions and what I do say will make them laugh, so it’s not worth it to talk about it… some have it easier, because it appears they choose when they want to play.  However, we’re not friends of whoever it is that decides the times.  And you know it as well as I do.”

When asked why his team is one of the most carded in history, Mou replied, “it’s very easy to card our players.  There’s no uniform criteria and for identical actions, there are teams with many cards and those that are more protected.  For us, what would normally merit a yellow card is red, and what merits nothing is yellow, and if orange cards existed, we would receive those too.”

The love affair between Mou and Álvaro Arbeloa continued when the coach complimented the defender as “a player the coach can always count on.  He’s always available and prepared to play minutes.  He’s never the best player on the field, but that’s not his role.  He controls his direct rival completely and he’s a team player, and I like that a lot.”  He added that he likes all seven of the defenders at his disposition, although he will have to choose four to play, two to be on the bench and one to watch from the stands.

And as for summer signings, Mou gave us this pearl:  “next year, we’re going to have to buy another first division team so that everyone can play.  Mateos will be the 25th player, Morata will be here and be the 26th, [José] Callejón the 27th, [Javi] Márquez the 28th, Javi Martínez (!!!) the 29th, [Fernando] Llorente the 30th, Kun the 31st, [Cesc] Fàbregas the 32nd, [Dani] Parejo the 33rd, [Borja] Valero the 34th, [Didier] Drogba the 35th, [Diego] Milito the 36th… in June we’ll have more than 50 players on the squad, so we’ll have to buy another one.”

Part of the press conference was in English.

Madrid then traveled to A Coruña (a wonderful place!), where they will play Deportivo at 22h tonight.  They arrived in the Galician city at around 20h in the afternoon, where they were greeted by a group of fans.

Not only is he carrying a purse, he’s also carrying it like a woman.

Sergio Ramos and Jerzy Dudek were tasked with meeting the fans, and from the photos, it appeared that the fans were mostly kids and babies!

And Sergio tweeted some pictures from the team’s dinner, including a photo with Fernando, the team’s bus driver.

I like how all the Spaniards ate together!  And how Ricardo Carvalho is holding a slightly eaten orange in the other photo!  These are the kinds of tweets I want to see!  And especially with no – that’s right, no – thumbs up in sight, despite Sergio having made it a trademark in tweets involving his teammates!

Meanwhile (since some of you mentioned this), two days ago, Álvaro Arbeloa talked about his stone eating dog, Bauer (the tweets have since been erased).  He tweeted, “I have a dog who eats stones.  Do you know what happens next?”  A couple of people answered, “he shits stones,” to which Álvaro replied, “yes, that!”  He also said he would build a house if it were bricks.  Álvaro also revealed that Bauer was named for 24‘s Jack Bauer.

And a picture of Bauer, the stone eating dog.

Emmanuel Adebayor and Pepe are both celebrating their birthdays today; it will be 27 for Manu and 28 for Pepe.  The latter said that it was partly okay that they were celebrating this day on the road, far from their families, because “we’re with the rest of the players and we are a family.”  As for birthday gifts, both of them said a victory against Deportivo would be nice.

But what’s with Pepe’s arm-full of bracelets, as you can see in the training picture above and these?  It makes him look like Sara Carbonero, and she’s definitely not a style idol.

Interviews:  Mesut Özil spoke with La Sexta; he had some interesting things (Zidane was his idol and Cristiano is the perfect player) to say but I was riveted by the backwards cap.  No, no and no.  He looks super silly.

Meanwhile, El País had a nice article about former Deportivo player Álvaro Arbeloa.  In it, his coach during his time at Dépor, Joaquín Caparrós (current Athletic coach, and also the coach who gave Sergio Ramos his debut in the first division while with Sevilla) said of him, “he’s the prototype player that every coach wants to have, for his qualities as a person and for his consistency.  And because he’s very smart; he knows what each coach expects of him.”  Caparrós went on to say, “he’s one of those footballers who, at the beginning, doesn’t form part of your plans.  But he ends up creating a spot for himself due to his consistency.  He knows what the conditions are and he exploits them.  It happened with me, with Rafa Benítez, with the national team and now with Mourinho.”

In his press conference yesterday, Mou said of Arbeloa, “I like Arbeloa a lot because whether he plays one minute or 90, he always does it with the same concentration.  He’s a team player… he controls his rival and never lets him win.”  And Arbeloa has even convinced Mou to start him over Marcelo and Sergio Ramos at points during this season.

Meanwhile, Dépor’s Alberto Lopo recalled their times together:  “we lived in the same building in the center of A Coruña, me on the sixth floor and Álvaro on the second.  He would either come up to eat or I would go down.  We used to play a trivia videogame and he knew all the answers because he always likes to stay informed.”  As for his footballing skills, Lopo says, “he has such a high level of concentration that even if he has a bad day, you can’t tell.  It’s a virtue that not all footballers have.”

And when we last played Dépor in El Riazor, Guti of course had a spectacular taconazo that led to a Benzema goal (we won that game 1-3, behind a goal from El Pirata and two from Karim; it was Madrid’s first win at the Riazor in 19 years).  It ended up being his last assist with Madrid, and something that has defined him.  El País took a look back at that play by interviewing the man responsible.  Guti told the newspaper that he wasn’t trying to play pretty football, but just that a backheel pass was the easiest and most practical option at the moment to get the ball to Benzema.  He added that he will always remember this goal because it reminds him of his “last great moment with Madrid.”

José María also says he’s bohemian, because a bohemian is “someone who likes to stay at home [then how is GUTI a bohemian?], a solitary person who shies away from crowds, someone who can feel satisfied and happy two hours after feeling like the most unfortunate man in the world.”

Guti will provide commentary on the game tonight on SER’s “Carrusel Deportivo.”