los secretos – la porra de Puyol II

Today’s advent treat!

In part two of the chapter on the porra (part one can be found here), we get to see some of the results!  Were they what you expected?

In Austria [2008 Eurocopa], Iker and Pepe both played individually, and teamed up as a duo, although their predictions as a duo were a complete failure.  Sergio García won the first prize that summer, attributing his win to his head, and a bit of luck.  He had predicted that Spain would win all their games and that Villa would be the pichichi.  All in all, that summer was quite the success for Sergio García, because he won the porra (pocketing €1,050), he won money playing pocha and Spain won the Eurocopa.  Rubén de la Red was second (winning €630) and Pedro Cortés came in third (taking home €420).

In South Africa for the Confederations Cup, Vicente del Bosque & Paco Jiménez jointly shared the first prize of €1,150, while Antonio Limones was second, winning €690 and Xavi came in third for €460.

For the World Cup porra, the winners were Piqué and Mata (tied for first) and Capdevila (third).

And now, some anecdotes about the porra:

– Arbeloa: these types of things make the day to day more enjoyable.  We tease those in the last place a lot, so it’s worth it to carefully think about the results because later on, it’s really hard to endure the teasing of some of the guys…

– Mata: I remember that one the first day in South Africa [for the Confederations Cup], when I went down to eat, I found a sheet of paper on the table.  I thought it was the agenda for the day, but when I started to read it, I saw that on the paper was a list of all the games of the competition, group by group.  Next to each game were two boxes [dos casillas in Spanish, which unfortunately DOES NOT mean two Ikers], one to fill out the result and the other to fill in who would be the winner of the game.

– Las Supremas: Fernando Navarro gave this nickname to Paloma Antoranz, Esther Gascón (director of the cabinet of the secretary general of the RFEF) and Silvia Dorschnerova, and they competed using this name in Austria.  Their strategy was the following: Spain always won, and for personal reasons, Germany and the Czech Republic as well, according to Silvia.  Paloma: we filled out the rest randomly – we would cover the boxes and see what would come out.

– the fisios and the doctors: the physiotherapists participated using the name “Eficacíssimos” during the Eurocopa and as “Fisiorum” during the Confederations Cup.  “Los Cracks” were the doctors during the Eurocopa.

– Luis Aragonés: “I didn’t like it and so I didn’t participate.”  However, according to Pedro Cortés, Luis participated with him, took charge of the entire thing and didn’t let him fill out a single result.  Pedro Cortés: “he took the sheet of paper and filled it up with scribbles.  If I told him I was going to an “x,” he would protest and tell me, “you have no fucking clue… put a ‘2’!  How the hell are you going to win that way?”  Later on, he asked me, “what did you put for the Germany-Croatia game?”  I said, “an ‘x.'”  “Put Germany as the winner…” “Do it yourself.”  “You do it, I don’t want the boys to know that I’m also playing.””  

[In case you don’t know, in this game, a “1″ signifies the home team will win, an “x” signifies a tie and a “2″ signifies a win for the visiting team.]

Despite the arguments, this team finished third in the Eurocopa, as mentioned above.  Puyol knew that Aragonés was a participant, but he didn’t let the rest of the team know.

– Albiol: Raúl Albiol was the person the other players went to if they needed help with their predictions.  Silva: “Albi [how cute!] is obsessed with football and he always knows what’s going on.  When he played at Valencia and you wanted to know how a game ended, the best thing you could do was ask him.  He’s checking the Internet during the entire day from his mobile.”  Marchena: “Albiol did my porra, but I think he made some bad bets.  I ended up in the middle.”  Albiol: “I do other peoples’ porras very carefully, but later on they yell at me if they don’t place well.”

Puyol on Albiol: “I’m surprised that people keep going to Raúl, looking at his bad results up to now.”  In the Eurocopa, Albiol ended 22nd and 10th in the Confederations Cup.  Those whose porras he filled out (Silva, Marchena, Güiza) did even worse – Marchena was dead last in South Africa.

– Güiza: during the Confederations Cup, everyone got the pichichi right, except for one person.  That person was Dani, because Raúl Albiol had filled out his porra and put Dani as the pichichi.  According to Dani: “I didn’t think it was a bad idea… In the beginning, I got a lot of results right and I was even first at one point.”

– Iniesta: “I did horribly.  But they say those who don’t have luck in this…”

– Juanito: “And they say footballers are the ones who know most about the game.”

– Villa: “It’s difficult to guess correctly who will be first and who will be second.  By the third match day, I already knew I wouldn’t win.”

– Vicente del Bosque: in the Confederations Cup, he didn’t fill out who would be the pichichi because he felt bad favoring one of his forwards over another.  [I seriously love this man!!!]  So, he left that blank when he turned in his sheet to Puyol.  Puyol told him that he would be losing a lot of points by doing so which could be decisive in the end, and advised him to put a non-Spanish player.  So the míster ended up putting Luis Fabiano as pichichi, and got it right.

The chapter ends with the final results of the Eurocopa and Confederations Cup porras.

And as we can see, Puyol is even holding porras for the Liga season via his web site.

There are four more chapters in Los secretos, but they focus more on history and technical aspects, so I’ll probably do one more post on the book, combining the fun anecdotes from those chapters.