Fernando Llorente

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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On Tues­day, the goal­keep­ers and defend­ers were dis­cussed, and Wednes­day, the mid­field­ers were dis­cussed.  With all of the cre­ative tal­ent in the mid­field, that will bring the pres­sure on the for­wards to con­vert the mul­ti­tudes of chances that Xavi, Xabi Alonso, etc. will cre­ate for them.  Obvi­ously, the two start­ing men up front would be […]

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Sevilla failed to show up against a des­per­ate Real Val­ladolid side.  Mal­lorca could only muster a draw against Real Zaragoza at La Romareda.  Ath­letic Bil­bao knew that a win against Valen­cia on Thurs­day would ascend them to within one point of Mal­lorca for the final Cham­pi­ons League spot. Sure, Ath­letic has not won away from […]

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While Real Madrid and Barcelona run away from the rest of the field in the strug­gle for the La Liga title, the tus­sle for the next four Euro­pean spots is just as fas­ci­nat­ing.  The mix of teams truly runs the gamut from the usu­als to the upstarts. Sevilla and Valen­cia con­tinue to be the consistent […]

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The use of war imagery for the head­line may not be appro­pri­ate dur­ing these sen­si­tive times, but it aptly describes Deportivo La Coruña’s predica­ment as they con­clude the first half of their sea­son tied for fourth place, the final UEFA Cham­pi­ons League spot, with Mal­lorca on thirty-four points (Mal­lorca holds the tiebreaker over Depor with […]

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Ath­letic Bil­bao would have no prob­lems with the pro­posed UEFA plan of man­dat­ing eight home­grown play­ers in the squad of eigh­teen for every match or the the­o­ret­i­cal 6 + 5 rule, where six play­ers of the start­ing eleven would have to be eli­gi­ble for the national team of their club’s coun­try.  Ath­letic Bil­bao refuses to […]

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