Here are some bits and pieces left over from the game this weekend, plus a bit of other news from the last several days.
First up, a couple more moments from Sunday’s game. While Mesut Özil was being attended to by the medical staff, Sergio took advantage of the moment to rehydrate himself, and have some fun with the girl on the cart. As you can see, he sprayed some water on her back, and then smiled mischievously and used the water to clean his face and smooth back his hair. And that is some lucky water bottle – first Sergio drinks from it, then Marcelo, then Pipita.
Meanwhile, Xabi showed concern for Mesut while posing fiercely. What a man.
Other moments: a manly celebration – look at Xabi with the chest bumps -, the bench applauding Pipa’s goal, and Cristiano’s skills.
As you know, Gonzalo Higuaín went home with the game ball after his hat trick against Espanyol. On the way back to Madrid, his teammates signed the ball, and here are a few of their dedications. Álvaro Arbeloa wrote, “congratulations! Today you didn’t have osteoarthritis.” Xabi wrote, “boludo pelotudo” (love the use of “Argentinian”!), Marcelo wrote “Mr. Alegría” (Mr. Happiness; but isn’t that Marcelo?) with a huge smiley face, Adán wrote, “it’s about time, vinagre,” while Iker simply wrote “congratulations” and Cristiano “congratulations, friend.”
This is the conversation between Mou and Mauricio Pochettino as they headed down the tunnel arm in arm.
MP: No! I saw that you were coming!
JM: thank you very much!
MP: thank you! How is everything, good?
JM: everything’s good.
The image was better than the actual words.
Last Thursday, Cris went to the San Cristóbal de Los Ángeles neighborhood in the south of Madrid, which is best known for producing one Raúl González Blanco, to visit Rulo’s old school, the Colegio Navas de Tolosa. The school has created a center for adults and children with intellectual handicaps, and that’s where Cris was headed. His presence was a surprise, as the teachers hadn’t told their charges beforehand that Cris was coming, prompting reactions such as “oh my God, that’s Cristiano Ronaldo!” Cris greeted all of them, saying, “how are you all? Do you support Madrid?” One kid replied, “Cristiano, I support Atleti, but you’re the best.” During his visit around the installations, Cris said to Jorge Mendes, who had accompanied him there, “Jorge, this is really tough, but these kids are incredible. They deserve everything that’s being done for them.”
The best moment came when Amador, one of the students at the center, told Cris, “look Cristiano, you’re number one, better than Messi. But tell me please, are we going to beat Barça this year?” In response, Cris put his arm around Amador and told him, “it’s okay friend, this year we’re going to beat Barça.” This made Amador so happy that he told his 51 classmates, “now we’re all going to sing Madrid’s hymn.” And that’s what they did, with Cristiano joining in. This promoted Mendes to say, “it’s been a while since I’ve seen Cristiano like this. He’s also a big kid and this type of thing makes him emotional.”
On Monday, Marca handed out the awards for the Liga for the 2010-11 season. Cris won the pichichi award for being the top goalscorer of the season, while Mou took home the Miguel Muñoz award for being the best coach (it’s a subjective award), and Mou’s favorite referee Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz won the best referee award.
During the trophy presentations, the winners were interviewed. Mou said, “each time I see the newspaper on Monday, there always one point for me, so I don’t know how I ended up winning this award.” He also called last season “fun and amazing.” Mou also joked about how he should stay away from the Champions League, since Madrid has won both of the games this season without him, and was seen larking around with José Ramón Sandoval, Rayo’s head coach, who had won the best coach award for the second division.
Meanwhile, Cris said, “I have to thank my teammates for making this possible, I also have to thank my coach and his assistants… they’re the ones who pass to me, I do the same for them, when they’re in the best position to score, they help me, I help them, only in this way as a team can we win.” As to whether he’ll break his own record of 41 goals in a season, he replied, “nothing is unbreakable in football, everything is possible, we’ll see what happens during the next few years.”
In an interview with Le Parisien, Zinedine Zidane praised both Karim Benzema and Rafa Varane. Regarding the former, Zizou called him “the most talented player in France.” And with regards to the latter, our first team director said, “what surprises me about Varane is that he doesn’t feel fear, despite his young age. He behaves in Madrid as he did in Lens and that’s important for his future.” As for his son Enzo, Zidane said, “it’s not difficult being the father of Enzo” and that “no decision has been made as to whether he’ll play with Spain or France.”
Speaking of Zidane, he’s currently enrolled in a two-year master’s degree course given by the Centre de Droit et d’Economie du Sport on how to become a general manager of a professional sports team. The school has said that Zizou requested that they treat him like any other student. The course includes an internship at a sporting entity – I wonder where Zidane will do his??? Here’s his ficha.
And speaking of Karim, he was checked out by France’s doctors in Paris on Monday and his injury was confirmed, so he was excused from France’s next two games, Euro 2012 qualifiers against Albania and Bosnia.
I’m organizing my files, and I found this, which I had forgotten to post earlier. These are Marcelo’s boots, which say “Pedro & Enzo, my reason to life.” I love it. For those who don’t know, Pedro is Marcelo’s beloved grandfather, and Enzo his beloved son. Go watch his Real… interview to find out more about these two important people.
Over on twitter, Álvaro Arbeloa re-tweeted some fun things that people had to say about the FIFA 12 game, such as “in FIFA 12, if you sign Pinto, the game becomes Street Fighter 12 and you play without a goalkeeper” or “each time you beat Barça with less possession than them, you unblock a phrase from Xavi.” Jajaja! Álvaro was busy on twitter during his free day, as he also found time to comment on this picture that little Álvaro (MFC) posted of him and his dog, saying “what a great couple you two make…” Little Álvaro also re-tweeted a picture of him as a kid – can you tell which one he is? It’s not too tough, since he doesn’t seem to have changed much, posing- and expression-wise!
And in this type of thing needs to stop already news, Atlético de Madrid had to ask Sevilla for forgiveness after some of their fans chanted some extremely unfortunate things during this past weekend’s game between the two clubs. The fans changed, “ea, ea, ea, Puerta se marea” (ea, ea, ea, Puerta feels sick) in allusion to Antonio Puerta. Absolutely disgraceful. These are the same fans who chant “illa, illa, illa, Juanito hecho papilla” (illa, illa, illa, Juanito broken up into pieces) in the seventh minute of their games as an insult to Madrid. Atleti’s communique said, “Atlético de Madrid regrets the chanting against Antonio Puerta during the game on Oct. 2 in the Vicente Calderón. Our club expresses its rejection of these chants and asks for forgiveness from the family of the footballer, Sevilla and football in general. We support respect in football and we hope that these types of actions won’t occur again in our stadium or any other football field.”
On this subject, our former player Manu Adebayor was subject to chants of “it should have been you, it should have been you, shot in Angola, it should have been you” from Arsenal fans during an Arsenal-Tottenham game. Both clubs have denounced this.
I’ll say it again, this type of thing needs to stop. What is wrong with these types of fans? Do they have no human parts to them?
To avoid ending on a negative note, here’s one of the most positive things there are (and it’s nice to start and end on Sergio, no?).
