A bunch of canaries or bananas? And lucky Jorge…
Real Madrid held the first of two training sessions for today this morning, after the players got Monday off to recuperate from their U.S. trip, and get over jet lag, although Pepe, Marcelo, Esteban Granero, Sami Khedira, Hamit Altintop and Sergio Ramos voluntarily worked out / did recovery work at Valdebebas on Sunday. José Mourinho had 23 players, including eight canteranos, as his disposal. The eight canteranos were made up of those six from the U.S. trip, plus Omar and Denis. The injured players – Sergio Ramos (back problems), Sami Khedira (right foot pain) and Nuri Sahin (sprained left knee) – were absent, as they continued recovering. Sami and Nuri were seen doing some jogging.
One word: boss.
Meanwhile, Peter Lion and Royston Drenthe, despite being healthy, weren’t allowed to train with the group. Instead, they worked with one of the fisios on another field, and Mou paid them a visit and spoke to them for a few moments while the “chosen ones” were warming up and stretching.
The second session of the day took place at 17h, with Sami Khedira rejoining his teammates, the 23 players from the earlier session, leaving Sergio and Nuri as the only absences. Following that, Mou released the list of call-ups for the friendly against Hertha Berlin on Wednesday. Sami made it, along with four canteranos, while Esteban Granero is out due to a bruise in his left quadriceps.
Goalkeepers: Casillas, Adán.
Defenders: Carvalho, Pepe, Marcelo, Coentrão, Varane, Arbeloa, Albiol, Nacho, Casado.
Midfielders: Khedira, Xabi Alonso, Callejón, Özil, Kaká.
Forwards: Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema, Joselu, Jesé.
Germany, Brazil and France.
Drenthe has a new hairstyle – the dreads are gone! It’s reminiscent of Manolito Adebayor’s transformation, no? And by the way, Drenthe also has a new rap video out, although his daughters steal the show. But what possessed him to show up in the video in boxer shorts???
And we got a player press conference too! Mesut Özil spoke to the press. He did so in German, so we’re still not able to see how far along he’s come with the castellano, although Mesut did say that he understands Spanish, is trying to speak and has no problems communicating with his teammates, but he’s still not able to speak “perfectly.” Other than that, he told journalists that Kaká is “a very important player for us” (and that they have a good relationship), that “the team is much more mature this year and we’re going to fight for all the titles,” and that he felt sad for Peter Lion and Drenthe, so he hopes that they can resolve their situations as soon as possible. Mesut told the media that he didn’t want to talk about wearing the number “10” (and the responsibilities that come with that number).
Earlier that morning, Marcelo Sunshine (I’m going to call him that from now on – look at that adorable, sunny smile!) went to swear his loyalty to the Spanish constitution, as he now has double Brazilian and Spanish nationalities (he got his Spanish passport back in February). Marcelo said, “it’s a very special day for me. It’s a big step forward. I’ve always wanted to be here and I’m very happy.” For the team, this means that Marcelo will no longer occupy a non-European Union spot on the roster, leaving Ángel di María as the only non-EU player. Each team in the Liga is allowed to have only three non-EU players.
Now I don’t know how many of you would find this interview interesting, but I enjoyed it a lot. AS spoke with Camela (a Spanish “techno-rumba” group) vocalist Dioni Martín, who is from the San Cristóbal de Los Ángeles neighborhood in Madrid, the place where another famous madridista grew up, Raúl.
(Today is also the one-year anniversary of Raúl’s announcement that he was leaving Real Madrid.)
Dioni tells the newspaper that Raúl is one of his biggest idols, so he’s very proud that they share their origins. He says they always knew that “Raulito” would triumph, that during recess at Raúl’s school, they could always hear the noise of a ball slamming into the wall and people saying, “that’s Raúl with the ball,” and calls him a “máquina” and “la leche.” He’s dedicated a song to Raúl, with the lyrics going, “here’s the music of Camela and the shirt of Raúl that he gives so much for, all the children dream about it, this is his world and he’s never going to change San Cristóbal de Los Ángeles, this little piece of Madrid, for anything.” Dioni loves José Mourinho because “he often says what el madridismo feels. I’m a Mou fan,” and his favorite signing this year is Coentrão.
We also find out at San Cristóbal is a madridista neighborhood, where people are “muy blancos.” And Dioni adds, “I travel 250 days out of the year through Spain and I see more Madrid supporters than Barça supporters. People support the team of their city, but the majority then have Madrid in their hearts, although Barça is a bit more in fashion now. Camela sang the hymn of Madrid and we continue to sell lots of records. And in Cataluña we’ve filled concert halls with people wearing the shirt of Madrid. And we’ve also seen that in Chile, Colombia, Mexico. They’re “white.” Not even Shakira can prevent that.”
Sí.