Archive for the ‘Real Madrid’ Category
Friday, April 18th, 2008
Last week José María Gutiérrez Hernández (also known as Guti) signed a new contract of renewal with Real Madrid, the team he has played in during his whole career. The 31 year old player succeeds to extend his contract until June 30 of 2011 and it will be renewed year by year once it finishes if both Guti and Real Madrid desire this. It will be a clause of auto-renewal if he plays a minimum of 30 official matches per season. Also, his salary will be of 1.8 million euro, a bit lower than his current one (2.1 million euro) but we can’t forget that this new contract will be for life.
With this agreement, Real Madrid expand to three their number of players with a contract for life - Iker Casillas and Raul González signed their contract last February 14 - and prevent other teams to tempt them. After thirteen seasons at Real Madrid, Guti is now recognised as one of the Spanish team’s emblems as stated by Ramon Calderón. This means they are part of Real Madrid, even after they retire from playing football.
Essential or not, the truth is Guti renewed his contract and he promises to bring Real Madrid as many victories as he can while he is still an active football player. Against FC Barcelona, he has sworn to not be merciful.
Tags: Tickets
Posted in FC Barcelona, Real Madrid | No Comments »
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
When maximum only 7 or 8 Day matches must be played, let’s have a quick glance over the Major European Leagues to try to bet on which could be the future champions in the different national leagues. In Portugal, Scotland, France and Holland the final results are almost decided whilst in Germany, Italy, England and Spain the final decision must wait. To better understand the above mentioned quick information, we provide hereunder detailed situation of Major European Leagues.Portugal (Liga bwin): After Day 24 matches out of 30, Porto is first with 60 points followed by Benfica and Vitoria G both with 44 points.Scotland (Premier League): After Day 32 matches, Glasgow Rangers is first with 74 points followed by Celtic Glasgow with 68 points. France (Ligue 1): After Day 31 matches out of 38, Olympic Lyon is first with 67 points followed by Grindings Bordeaux with 58 points.Holland (Eredivisie): After Day 31 matches out of 34, PSV Eindhoven is first with 65 points followed by Ajax with 60 points.Germany (1 Bundesliga): After Day 26 matches out of 34, Bayern Munich is first with 54 points followed by Hamburg with 47 points.Italy (Serie A): After Day 31 matches out of 38, Inter is first with 69 points followed by Rome with 65 points.England (Premiership): After Day 32 matches out of 38, Manchester United is first with 76 points followed by Chelsea with 71 points.Spain (Primera Division): After Day 30 matches out of 38, Real Madrid is first with 65 points followed by Villarreal with 59 points.If we make any prediction we will only need to wait a few days to know whether we get right.
Tags: Glasgow Rangers
Posted in Chelsea FC, General, Real Madrid | No Comments »
Friday, March 28th, 2008
The Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid will host the 2010 UEFA Champions League final and the Arena Stadium in Hamburg will also host the 2010 UEFA Cup final. The UEFA Executive Committee confirmed the selection of the two stadiums after its meeting in Liechtenstein on Friday 28th March but postponed a decision on the venues for the 2011 finals to allow members more time to consider the bids. The home stadiums of Real Madrid CF and Hamburger SV were chosen on the basis of capacity, facilities, accommodation and security among other considerations.Now boasting a capacity of 71,569, the Santiago Bernabeu has staged three previous European Champion Clubs’ Cup finals. Real Madrid won the first of them, beating AC Fiorentina 1-0 in 1957, before AC Milan had a memorable night in the Spanish capital when they defeated AFC Ajax 4-1 in the 1969 edition. More recently, Nottingham Forest FC overcame Hamburg 1-0 in the 1980 final.Seating 51,680, the Arena Hamburg opened in 2000 on the site of Hamburg’s old Volksparkstadion and was the setting for matches at the 2006 World Cup. The Volksparkstadion also hosted group-stage games at the 1974 World Cup and the semi-final of the 1988 UEFA European Championship, where West Germany lost 2-1 to the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the Executive Committee confirmed that the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Super Cup matches will be played at the Stadium Louis II in Monaco, as is the custom. The 2010 UEFA European Under-19 Championship was awarded to France, and the same year’s U17 event to Liechtenstein, while Nyon will stage the 2009 UEFA European Women’s U17 Championship.
Tags: Santiago Bernabeu
Posted in General, Milan AC, Real Madrid | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
According to British newspaper Daily Mirror, Rafael Benitez is expected to become the new coach of FC Barcelona if Rijkaard leaves Camp Nou at the end of the season. This newspaper also insists Johan Cruyff, president Laporta’s closet adviser, has already made a report urging the club to ignore the options of Jose Mourinho an instead pursue Benitez to replace Rijkaard, who could leave Barcelona this summer. So far, Mourinho is the candidate that vice-presidents Ferran Soriano and Marc Ingla defend.If the Spanish manager decides to leave Anfield by the end of the season to come back to Spain, he could choose between Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid or Valencia, the club that Benitez left to join Liverpool.Anyway the Liverpool coach has frequently maintained he wants to stay at Anfield for the foreseeable future and still has more than two years remaining contract. But Barça president Jan Laporta has placed Benitez at the top of his wanted list to replace Frank Rijkaard as coach because despite guiding Barça to the Champions League quarter-finals, Rijkaard’s future at the Camp Nou is under threat because is behind Real in the Liga for the second successive season. However, any move for Benitez will only take place if Laporta himself remains at Barça beyond the end of the season.While there is a perceived lack of respect in England for his achievements at Liverpool, Benitez is one of the most sought-after coaches in Europe after leading the Anfield outfit to two Champions League finals in three years.
Tags: Rijkaard
Posted in FC Barcelona, Liverpool, Real Madrid | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Since 1966, Ricardo Pastor, a veteran sports journalist, predicts in detail the final position in the league table for First Division clubs in Spain. Everyone use to do the same every Sunday along the season but the merit of Ricardo Pastor is that he announces his predictions when still 10 Day matches must be played and also the most important is that in 42 years predictions he has only gone wrong 4 years and, honestly, the failures have been due to completely unusual performance of most of the clubs during the last matches of the league. One example was last season (2006/07) when FC Barcelona squandered his advantage over Real Madrid during last matches (unforeseen points looses at home in front of Betis and Espanyol among others abnormal results of both Barça and Madrid). In the predictions of Ricardo Pastor there is a lot of objective study about the performance of clubs along the season and overall doing a rigorous study and prediction for the results to be achieved during the last 10 matches. 90% success in 42 years in the variable world of football is a fantastic percentage very difficult to obtain.
His predictions for the present season, made on 20th March, are as follows: Real Madrid with 81 points will obtain the championship followed by FC Barcelona with 77 points, Villarreal with 71 points, Sevilla with 65 points (all 4 teams will obviously play next Champions League next season), Atletico Madrid with 64 points and Espanyol with 59 points (both will play for UEFA Cup). Ricardo also predicts that the three clubs that will go down to Second Division will be Valladolid with 42 points, Murcia with 37 points and Levante with 29 points.
So in eight weeks time or even less we will know the grade of success of above advanced predictions. Wait and see!
Tags: Ricardo Pastor, Spanish League, UEFA Cup
Posted in FC Barcelona, Levante, Murcia, Real Madrid, Sevilla FC, Valladolid, Villareal | No Comments »