Real Madrid in Murcia

The delegation from Madrid arrived in Murcia around noon today, and from there, they took a bus to Lorca, where they were received by the mayor in their visit to the city hall, and visited the Las Viñas neighborhood, the area most affected by last week’s earthquake.  The players will rest in their hotel until the game, which will take place at 19h in a sold out Nueva Condomina, with the exception of the captains and Cristiano Ronaldo, who visited some of those people injured during the earthquake in the hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca.

Several canteranos traveled with the team: Castilla’s Mandi, Dani Carvajal and Pablo Gil (who is from Murcia), as well as RMC’s Óscar Plano.  The first team is without the injured players, Marcelo and the three Argentines who have already returned to Argentina (Higuaín, Garay, Di María).

If you want to find a canterano, just look for Pepe!  As expected, Pepe stuck close to the canteranos, since he is their biggest cheerleader (along with Marcelo).

At city hall, the delegation posed with signs saying “Todos con Lorca” (“we are all with Lorca”; several members of the delegation including FP also put on stickers with those slogans on their jackets), signed the guest book and a few shirts, and spoke to and waved to fans from the balcony of the city hall.

Poor Esteban looks like he wants to join in, but just doesn’t quality for Four Musketeers status.

Chendo is from Murcia too, and how adorable are our players? 

Iker told them, “we want to thank you for this welcome.  Actions are above everything else, including players and teams; that’s the most important thing.  We want to help you to forget what happened.  You all need it and you all deserve it.  We are all very happy to be here with you.”  Meanwhile, Sergio told the crowd, “I want to give my condolences to all the families who lost someone.  We’re here with affection and a desire to help you all.  We want things to turn out right and we hope you recover as soon as possible.”  But the most acclaimed player was of course Murcia native Peter Lion, who said a few emotional words to his paisanos: “although not as much as all of you, my family in Mula also felt the earthquake.  We’re with you, because we know how you feel.  Every Sunday you support us, now it’s our turn to support you.”

The team also signed autographs, posed for pictures and handed out besos as they headed to and from the city hall.

It looks like the running of the bulls!

After that, the players visited the Las Viñas neighborhood by bus, to see the damage first hand.  And while the rest of the team headed to the hotel to rest, Iker, Sergio and Cristiano, accompanied by Emilio Butragueño, went to the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital to have a visit with those injured by the earthquake.

Is there anyone not holding up a mobile phone to take a picture of Iker? 

It’s also great to see people are using humor to deal with this situation!  FP can certainly afford it.

And I know everyone misses Mou, so here he is.  I like the contrast between the gold and silver hair.

Several players also tweeted about the experience: Álvaro sent a big hug to everyone, Esteban tweeted a photo, and Sergio informed us that he, Iker and Cris are going to make a hospital visit, and also shared some photos (here and here).  And Iker somehow found the time to post a lot of things on Facebook, starting with this adorable photo of him and Pedro León!

However, his English could still use some help.  Here are some of the things Iker wrote: “Let Lorca to make a visit to his people who have suffered a lot these days” and “From the balcony of the City of Lorca we have tried to encourage all my colleagues and me. People showed affection. It’s funny, we come to give us heat and it was they that we have given to us.”  Though there is a wrong choice of word, the part about heat in the latter statement rings true, no?  Iker also managed to make a mistake in Spanish, calling Peter Lion a “marciano” (Martian) instead of a “murciano” (person from Murcia).  He later corrected himself and told us that Peter Lion had laughed at it too.  Take heart!

Some of you inform me that Iker is using Google translate to post in English.  Oh Iker, all you have to do is ask and I’d be more than happy to help you.

And it’s a good thing that some of the players wrote their jersey numbers under their signatures, because some of those signatures are completely and utterly illegible.  Iker’s “Casillas” is recognizable, but if Mesut’s signature did not have the “23” under it, I would think that somehow J. Lo found a way to sign the shirt.