Cristiano Ronaldo

When Spain fell to the hands of Switzer­land in the open­ing match of World Cup 2010, the vul­tures sud­denly appeared from the sky and cir­cled around their “dying” car­cass.  No team has ever won the World Cup after los­ing its first match.  The ghosts from yes­ter­year are ris­ing from the dead and haunt­ing this current […]

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Through­out Barcelona’s two-year run of ground­break­ing excel­lence, Josep Guardi­ola i Sala role as a tac­ti­cian tended to be under­val­ued.  He rein­sti­tuted the “Total Foot­ball” con­cept that Johan Cruyff, Guardiola’s for­mer man­ager at FC Barcelona, instilled when he was a player and a man­ager at the club, and he changed the cul­ture inside the dress­ing room. He […]

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A gigan­tic ban­ner cov­ered one end of the Esta­dio San­ti­ago Bern­abéu before the match.  On this ban­ner, the Grim Reaper and other scary crea­tures from movies and sto­ries past sprawled across, and there was a mes­sage for their Madrid neigh­bors to the south, “Noche de Derby.  Vues­tra Peor Pesadilla.” In Eng­lish, this means, “Derby night.  […]

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The Almería — Barcelona match had not con­cluded when Real Madrid took to the pitch, but a few min­utes into their match with Sevilla, they knew that Barça slipped at the Esta­dio de los Jue­gos Mediter­rá­neos and dropped two points with a 2–2 draw against Almería.  Expec­ta­tions were that Real Madrid would not have the […]

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Can Kaka Build On Villarreal Showing?

by Rami Soufi on February 24, 2010 · 0 comments

Brazil­ian Kaka has been the sub­ject of crit­i­cism due to his per­for­mances which can be described as incon­sis­tent at best. There are a num­ber of issues to be con­sid­ered before judg­ing whether Kaka’s sea­son has been a fail­ure or a rel­a­tive suc­cess. In terms of the team’s results, Real Madrid are clos­ing in on Barcelona […]

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A half-empty sta­dium.  A run­ning track sur­round­ing the pitch that places the fans fur­ther away from the action.  Sup­port­ers that cre­ate less noise and din than those at the Van­cou­ver Olympic Cen­tre, where the Olympic Curl­ing com­pe­ti­tion is con­tested.  The ONO Estadi hardly con­sti­tutes as an intim­i­dat­ing atmos­phere, but RCD Mal­lorca has man­aged to maintain […]

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Will Real Madrid Sell Karim Benzema?

by Rami Soufi on February 13, 2010 · 1 comment

The lat­est reports in the Press have indi­cated Real Madrid are grow­ing impa­tient with striker Karim Ben­zema despite the fact he has yet to com­plete his first sea­son in Spain. The Span­ish giants signed the French­man in the sum­mer for €35 mil­lion with the fee ris­ing to €41 mil­lion based on per­for­mances related with achiev­ing certain […]

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