It (normally) only happens twice a year, but today is the day! Not only is Madrid playing Athletic, but I can also write about Javi Martínez (!!!) and plaster his pictures on this blog as much as I want, because it is relevant! He has just renewed with Athletic until 2016, and his buyout clause stands at €40 million, so unfortunately I don’t think we will (and I don’t want to) see him in a white shirt.
He looks just as good from the back as from the front!!!
Tonight, San Mamés will become the first stadium to bear witness to 100 official games between two teams. The first game between Athletic and Madrid there ended with a 4-1 win for the home team in the Copa de España, and since then, 79 Liga games and 19 Copa games have been played there, with a record of 47-18-34 for Athletic, although Real Madrid is the visiting team with the most wins at La Catedral. San Mamés is also of course where Iker Casillas made his Real Madrid first team debut, on Sept. 12, 1999, and the last time Xabi played there, on Dec. 29, 2010 with the Euskal selekzioa, he got booed, because he plays for Madrid (out of all the players called up who play for Spanish clubs, he was the only one not to play for a team in the Basque country).
In his analysis of the game with bwin, Iker said, “we all know how powerful Athletic is in the air… with Llorente in the area, you have to calculate very well to come out. The advantage of being able to use your hands may not be sufficient against those centimeters that he has over you. When we talk about tall forwards, the key is to measure up well against them and stay focused on them. You can’t take your eyes off for a second and you have to stay concentrated in order to decide when you’re going to leave the goal to go for the ball.”
This might be a first, and not in a good way – a triple thumbs-up!
And some more data, this time from Mr. Chip, showing why Iker is concerned about what will go on in the air:
tall guys: Fernando Llorente (1.95 m) is the tallest forward in the Liga, while Manolito Adebayor is ranked fifth (1.91 m). Between them are Lekic (1.93 m), Kanouté (1.92 m) and Rafa Jordá (1.91 m). No midfielder is taller than 1.90 m, although there are three that are that exact height, including Javi Martínez (!!!) (the other two are Iborra and N’Daw). The four tallest players in the Liga are all goalkeepers: Coltorti (1.97 m), Dani Hernández (1.96 m), Diego López (1.96 m) and Raúl Fernández (1.96 m).
Madrid is the tallest team in the Liga, with an average height of 1.83 m. The rest of the top five are Racing (1.83 m), Osasuna (1.82 m), Athletic (1.82 m) and Levante (1.82 m). Barcelona is the shortest team (1.78 m).
using their heads: Llorente has scored the most headers this season in the league, with eight, and Athletic is also the team leader in headed goals, with 16. Fer still has time to break the single-season record of headed goals, held by Alfonso, who scored 12 goals this way in 1996-97. Raúl was the last one to get close, with nine headers in 2000-01.
Meanwhile, Iker, Sergio and Cris got off the plane together, with Iker and Cris sharing a laugh (who says they don’t get along?) as Sergio got accosted by an airport worker. Later on the bus, he was the one accosting people, when he made Crís pose with him for his customary thumbs-up twitter photo.
Does Sergio need some longer socks?
And later on that evening, Marcelo and Pepe signed autographs and posed for pictures with fans at the team’s hotel.
I can’t wait for the game!!! (Those three exclamation marks ought to give you a clue why.) Hopefully someone will want to exchange shirts with Javi (!!!) after the game so he will remove it (if I don’t get there first, of course). Then we can see this tonight! Well, maybe not all of that.
