I guess I’ll have to make do with my usual Basque trio this weekend, Aitor and Xabi (plus Iker – very cute gifs of him below!!), instead of them plus an entire team. And Marcelo is the world’s cutest Brazilian bunny, no?
Madrid returned to training yesterday with a session at Valdebebas, preparing for Wednesday’s Trofeo Santiago Bernabéu, as there won’t be any Liga football this weekend. Nineteen footballers worked out, with the Supercopa starters doing recovery work while the others had a more normal training session. Meanwhile, Sami Khedira worked out in the gym and Sahin, Altintop and Granero continued working to recover from their respective injuries. The team will be back in training today at 18h.
Meanwhile, the Real Madrid photographers completed FAILED with this photo. I mean, you get to work with Iker Casillas and get paid to photograph him and company, and this is the best photo you could come up with? His side? Normally, I wouldn’t complain, because I love that profile, but all we get in this picture is the back of his head. And if they wanted to take a picture of the back of his anything, then it should be his one of his best assets, his actual backside.
Speaking of Iker, we once again got confirmation that he really is a saint. Onda Cero’s “Al Primer Toque” program reported last night that Iker Casillas called Xavi and Puyol on Thursday, with the aim of calming things down. They said that Iker took the initiative and called Xavi first, but he did not answer (there were various reasons to explain this, among them that Xavi had a family issue or that Iker didn’t have Xavi’s newest number), so Iker called Puyol and spoke with him, also taking the time to congratulate him for winning the Supercopa and asking him to extend that sentiment to all his teammates. He also apologized for saying that Cesc had acted (remember, Iker made that comment right after the game, while he was still on the field, before he saw any replays). When Xavi found out about Iker’s attempt and called back on Friday, Iker was in the midst of the training session, so he missed the call. Finally, they ended up texting each other. Journalist Fernando Burgos said, “Iker took a step forward so this issue wouldn’t fester and get worse.”
But even The Saint gets sleepy and flubs up his lines once in a while, as we can see in these outtakes from the Liga BBVA commercial that he did. Iker is so, so, so adorable.
While there isn’t any first or second division football this weekend, we still have Castilla, who will be in action along with some of our youth teams. Castilla will start their league campaign against Sporting B at home on Sunday (12h), so here’s a very tiny update of the squad for this season. In terms of departures, there were eight over the summer. Three of them were starters: Sarabia (Getafe), Juan Carlos (Zaragoza) and Fran Rico (Granada), and the rest were secondary players: Cristian, Luis Hernández, Juanan, Goni (who returned to Zaragoza) and Rubén Ramos.
As for arrivals, there are two. One is José Antonio Ríos, who came from Sevilla Atlético. Pedro Mendes (below) is the other one. He’s a Portuguese fullback who played for Servette in Switzerland before joining Castilla. He already knows the right things to say, as he told the club’s web site, “being in Real Madrid is a dream… I’m going to give it all I have and dedicate myself completely. My teammates have welcomed me and my integration is going perfectly. I’m very happy here.”
Several players have also been promoted from the lower categories: Lucas and Óscar Plano from RMC, Omar and Jesé from Juvenil A. They join the likes of MFC ABMM, the Fernández brothers, Denis, Jorge Casado, Joselu, Jesús and Tomás…
Meanwhile, Juanfran has renewed his contract for one more year, linking him to Madrid until 2013, despite having many “suitors” during the summer. Juanfran made his first team debut when Pellegrini was in charge, two seasons ago. Last season, he played one game in the Copa del Rey, against Levante.
