So, La Liga is starting two weeks late as per usual. There are some positives though. I'm back from any holidays in time to watch it for one. Teams also start with there full squad, rather than half the Premier League teams who look to buy in players in the last two weeks of the window. The english scum who go to places like the Costa del Sol and Benidorm are out of the country. Click to continue reading...

The Futbolitis blog is an excellent resource for those interested in a deeper analysis both of tactics and the politics of football, without many of the rumours ans sensationalism associated with more traditional media. As the articles are written in Spanish, I thought I would share some of the highlights of the item that was published earlier today regarding one of Ramón Calderón's broken electoral promises when he became Real Madrid president: Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, better known the World over as Kaká. Click to continue reading...

ANDREW ZARATE

The View From A Professional Lens . . . Click the Thumbnails to enlarge

TOMMY WONG

A View From ESC / Sams Army in 101 . . .

MY VIEW

Some midfield sights for you .

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It's been 18 years since we won back to back LA LIGA Championships, so it's unfortunate that I had to miss the REAL MADRID victory over OSSASUNA. I'm sure my fellow NYC MADRIDISTAS were full of joy and celebration and smoked several cigars in honor of us being crowned LA LIGA champions for the 31st time! Click to continue reading...

Given the week-long gap between games at this stage of the season, press reports on Real Madrid during the greater part of the week have been concentrating on possible transfer movements during the summer. I normally don't bother reporting 90% of this stuff as it's more often than not concocted out of thin air, so I tend to wait till it's either officially announced, or the buzz is so insistent that there's a good chance it will happen. Click to continue reading...

Schuster played conservative and paid the price. Real Madrid's 'jefe' could have fielded a much more attack minded group but instead went with a strategy that eliminated any effective play from the right or left flanks.(Heinze & Salgado were horrible on the offensive side) This left the bulk of the responsibility to Guti to manufacture plays. Click to continue reading...

Robinho was Inspirational in Real Madrid's 3-2 defeat of Recreativo Huelva

With three games being broadcast simultaneously(Atletico Madrid vs. Barcelona & Sevilla vs. Deportivo La Coruna being the other two) NYC MADRIDISTAS broke with tradition and actually gathered at THE IRISH ROGUE instead of our usual soccer watering hole NEVADA SMITHS.

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Robinho's absence due to an abdominal muscle tear he suffered against Valladolid a couple weeks ago is casting a huge shadow over the Santiago Bernabeau. Real Madrid is in shambles, not just the midfield but the entire team has been exposed as nothing but one dimensional unimaginative old men(raul, ruud van nistelroy, guti, salgado, cannavaro, heinze), hard working uncreative strong men(Baptista, Diarra), injury prone saviors(Pepe, Robben), frustrating but promising youngsters(Drenthe, Marcelo, Higuain, Balboa, Torres) and the quality players who hold it all together(Sergio Ramos, Casillas, Sneijder, Gago). Click to continue reading...

Sure Madrid could have scored 3 or 4 goals easily in the early part of the first half, but once the initial euphoria of Drenthe's early goal wore off, Real was down 2-1 in another scrappy fight against a team that is battling relegation and should have been blown off the map by the LA LIGA leaders. Click to continue reading...

In the latest twist to the problems afflicting Real Madrid central defenders Metzelder has suffered a relapse of the plantar fasciitis he had nearly recovered from. All told, he's been unavailable for selection through injury or lack of fitness for most of the season, featuring in only 7 of 21 league games so far, and runs the risk of going the way of Jonathan Woodgate (though not quite as expensive). Click to continue reading...

Real Madrid showed a refreshing lack of complacency and bags of self belief to beat Villareal and extend their lead at the top of the standings to 9 points. Contrast this with their closest rivals, Barcelona, who failed to hold onto their one-goal lead in Bilbao and ended up dropping two points. All the participants agree that the championship is not yet over (Real had an even bigger lead over Barcelona in 2004 and ended up throwing the league title away), but the way the players pick themselves up when things don't go their way is very encouraging. Click to continue reading...

Lionel Messi made a return to the starting lineup for Barcelona; Internazionale stumbled at the top of Serie; Carlos Tevez helped take Manchester United through to the 6th round of the FA Cup, whilst Javier Mascherano did likewise for Liverpool, where he may soon be joined by Pablo Aimar. Lionel Scaloni, meanwhile, has already moved to [. Click to continue reading...

Sergio Batista named the 15 under-23 players to represent Argentina at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday, but what with putting up three other stories last night, I thought I'd leave it until now to publish the list. One of those players, River Plate forward Marco Rubén, has now become Villarreal forward Marco Rubén, in what [. Click to continue reading...

It's been a mixed pre-Christmas weekend for Argentine footballers in Europe. On the good side, we had Gabriel Heinze and Fernando Gago included in the Real Madrid side who beat Barcelona 1-0 in the Camp Nou, and the irony of two ex-River Plate players, Julio Cruz and Esteban Cambiasso, scoring to down the side who [. Click to continue reading...

ROBINHO SCORED & CONTINUALLY THREATENED MURCIA

The game started at a frenetic pace as the NYC Madridistas witnessed a tremendous goal which began with a Gago pass into the right corner of the penalty box to Guti who one touches a wondrous cross to Robinho who calmly heads in the games first goal(9" min. Click to continue reading...

NYC MADRIDISTAS RUN NEVADA SMITHS(except during premier league games)




An excited Schuster does the Soulja Boy, dat Superman dat Ooooh!!

The NYC Madridistas celebrated vociferously with every lead change and yet in spite of the topsy turvy nature of the scoreline there was an odd sense of calm and certainty that no matter how many goals were scored against our weak defense(Torres & Cannavaro take a bow) , we knew we would score at least one more. Click to continue reading...

NYC MADRIDISTAS NEVER GIVE UP, HALA MADRID!!!



Alves delivered a beating to anyone in his path and somehow
managed to avoid a much deserved red card for his efforts


The inability of the referee to get control of the game early on would have disastrous consequences on a REAL MADRID team that as a whole basically got bullied off the pitch. Click to continue reading...

With Gago getting a lot of valuable playing time in his absence, many were concerned with how Schuster would solve the midfield puzzle upon Mahmadou Diarra's return from injury. Although Real Madrid has been on an offensive roll lately their defense has left much to be desired.

With a stroke of genius, Schuster gambled with the infamous ‘doble pivote' and it paid off.

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It's been many years since Valencia lost by such a margin of goals at home (1933, in fact), but then, it's been many years since Valencia played with a diamond formation in midfield and the defensive line pushed forward to contribute to attacking duties. They didn't play like that under Cúper, or Ranieri, or Benítez, or Quique. For years the Valencia side has been a byword for solidity in defence. Click to continue reading...

Mahamadou Diarra captained Mali to a 2-0 victory away to Togo on the weekend, ensuring the national side's qualification for next year's African Cup of Nations in Ghana. The competition, which runs from the 20th of January to the 10th of February will leave Real Madrid without their key defensive midfielder for at least the whole of January, given that players have to be available to join their national sides 15 days before the start of official competitions. Click to continue reading...

This is the list of 21 players who have been called up for the friendly against Australia, to be played in Melbourne (in the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground) on the 11th of September:

Goalkeepers: Roberto Abbondanzieri (Getafe, Spain), Oscar Ustari (Getafe), Sergio Romero (AZ Alkmaar, the Netherlands)

Fair enough, given the situation with Carrizo (which I'll touch on below). Click to continue reading...