here’s to 500 more

Another great article from Luis Martín, this time on occasion of Puyi’s 500 career games with Barcelona.  Even though it’s about his club, there are some great quotes from his national team compañeros, so I’ve done some translating!

Xavi: you know that nothing bad can happen (when he’s around).  Puyi makes you a better player and a better person.  Seeing him on the field, behind me, keeps me calm; having him by my side obligates me to be the best.

Iniesta: he’s a perfect professional, since he takes care of himself 100%.  Puyol is a superhombre.

looking ahead to the Portugal friendly

After all the fun stuff, there was a training session, to prepare the team for Wednesday’s encounter against Portugal.

The bad news was that Juan Mata left the team due to the injury to his right knee sustained against Getafe.  He had tests done at the Cemtro clinic earlier, which confirmed the injury.  Poor Juanín!  I’m sure he didn’t want to return this way!  VDB won’t call up anyone to replace him.

Meanwhile Sergio Ramos and Fernando Torres stayed in the gym.  The rest of their teammates, wrapped in heavy coats and hats to stay warm in the low temperatures, held a training session.  They played a couple of practice games and had a lot of fun.

Tomorrow, the team will leave at 11h from Barajas for Lisbon.

The starting line-ups for the game has been confirmed as well.

Spain – Iker, Sergio, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Cazorla, Villa, Llorente.

Portugal – Eduardo, Joao Pereira, Pepe, Ricardo Carvalho, Fabio Coentrão; Raul Meireles, João Moutinho, Carlos Martins, Nani, Hugo Almeida, Cristiano Ronaldo.

such nostalgia!

I don’t know if it’s good (that I’m such a big fan of La Roja) or bad (that I’m old enough to have done this) that I recognized the majority of the Spanish internationals (well, the ones that can walk without assistance and still have most of their hair) in these pictures from the RFEF of the players mingling.  And I might have squealed a little bit each time I saw someone that added to the nostalgia that I’m feeling!

Here is my selection from the gallery; as you can see, for you all I’ve chosen the players you should recognize, even if you’re just a casual La Roja fan.

My favorite is the first one – Pepe and his dad Miguel!!!  How cute are they???  My second favorite is the one of players that play in the province of Valencia, especially for Bruno’s shiny suit and Marcos Senna!  Plus, Aritz is looking quite hot back there!

I do a “Xabi Alonso pose section™” over on the game recap (aka ICYMI) posts over on the Madrid blog, and this picture of Xabi is PERFECT for it.  Look how great he looks, and how at ease he is.  That’s hard.  Plus, I’m liking the sweater vest.  It makes me think of Xabi as a professor, and there are one or two things that I have in mind that I’d like him to teach me.

a foto, an award and more on the shirt!

The other events of the big celebration at Las Rozas today included the foto de familia, the AEFI award and the presentation of the new camiseta.  Plus, some other things of interest…

One. First, the photo.  The theme was, “thanks to everyone, our dream came true.”

That’s a lot of players, no?  The World Cup looks so minuscule!

The World Cup winning team is clustered in the center of the third and fourth rows.  I like how most of them wore red ties!  And why was Raúl Albiol wearing a very pale tie?  Sergio and Javi opted for dark shirts, and yay, Jesús is there!  And now, I have to go rest my eyes because I’ve been squinting at the picture for about five minutes, trying to see who else I can recognize (Madrid fans, can you spot Aitor Karanka?).  I hope the RFEF provides a bigger version of this picture.

the new shirt – the commercial

While watching the first 30 seconds or so of this commercial, I kept thinking, those marketing people at Adidas are genius!!!  I love them!  WHAT A CAMPAIGN!!!

After all, these were the images.  Beautiful, no?  The images and the boys.

Iker & David fight for footballers

(Unfortunately, there probably won’t be images like these when they get together with the AFE.)

This morning, Iker and David Villa were presented as members of the board of directors of the Spanish Footballers Association (Asociación de Futbolistas Españoles, or AFE).

During the presentation, Iker talked about the upcoming Barcelona-Madrid game:  “Villa and I were together for half an hour this morning and we didn’t talk anything about the game.  Outside, there is a lot of morbo, but here it’s not important because there are other games before that one.”  He also touched upon Pep Guardiola: “Guardiola is a wonderful as a coach and as a person.  He’s one of the best in Europe and is an example for all of us.”  Meanwhile, when Villa was asked about Mou, he said, “go look in the archives because I’ve answered this question 20 times.”  And como que no, Iker talked about David: “David has had such a great career that you don’t need to worry if he doesn’t score for a while.  His numbers are impressive.  I’m happy for his success and that he’s doing well in Barcelona.  I hope that he’ll have a great derby.”

Iker is in a class all by himself.

Anyway, as members of the AFE board, they’ll be tasked with working to improve football in all categories in Spain, including the rights of the players.  Iker said with respect to this, “it’s a real pleasure” to be part of the board and promised to “do the best possible,” while David said “it was important for the AFE to have two players from the national team, from Barcelona and Real Madrid, to help out those players not only in the first and second divisions… There’s a lot of football under those two levels.  When I was in Segunda B, I would have liked to see on the board a player with these characteristics.”

first look: the new shirt

The new shirt is here, and with all the goodies showing that we are the champions of the world!  What do you think?

When I first saw it, I didn’t like it too much (I wasn’t sure about those blue lines down the sides), but when Fernando Llorente, David Villa and Xabi Alonso are modeling it, it looks 100 times better!  And it does indeed look like Fernando is wearing the tight version!  Hopefully more players will follow his and Javi’s examples…

Anyway, the yellow line on the neck is supposed to bring to mind the Spanish flag, and inside the neck, it says “campeones del mundo 2010.”  See a close-up here.

The players will wear this shirt for the game against Portugal.