In the beginning of the 2001 season, River Plate was selling Javier Pedro Saviola to Barcelona for a stunning £15.7m fee. Age: 19. After playing three years for the team he was loaned to AS Monaco, respectively FC Sevilla. This season he returned to Camp Nou and he managed to score a goal every 60 minutes, mostly coming in the game as a substitute. If we were to compare him to Ronaldo he wouldn’t seem to have done such a great job for his club. For example in the 2002-2004 seasons Ronaldo has played a total of 63 matches for Real Madrid and has scored 47 goals, while Saviola played 69 and only scored 30 times. His contracts ends in 2007 and some sources report that Real Madrid might have already offered a contract to this player. Given his current form and considering the fact that The Galacticos already have two Argentineans in the line-up this doesn’t seem like a bad move. Barcelona are reluctant to renewing his contract unless Saviola accepts a salary cutback and the player has recently declared:

“I’m crossing my fingers that I can stay, but if I don’t I’m open to all offers, be they from Real Madrid or abroad, I’ll make my own mind up. I have to respect all teams so I can’t exclude any club”

The situation is pretty uncertain at the moment and it will probably remain this way until the end of the season. The reason for that is easy to spot… if he wants to join Real Madrid, Barcelona’s fans will be the last to know.

It’s only January and Real has already been dropped from one competition. On the return leg against Betis Real continued to be in sudden good form with Gago as the defensive backbone and organizer. He’s amazingly fit well into the role in just a few matches, probably the only player to come in the past 3 years and play well as opposed to dropping out of form. Robinho scored early in the match as Betis gave him to much space on the edge of the area. Real controled most of the match couldn’t make good on any of it’s chances. Betis made one nice play and scored the equalizer.

Ruben de La Red came on in the second half as well as the cantero, Nieto (forward). Torres repeated as right back (and is doing an excellent job) and Canvarro came on in the second half for injured Raul Bravo. A clear penalty on Robinho wasn’t whistled and later Real had 2 goals called back for offsides. They also had several agonizingly close chances at the end of the match and the ball just wouldn’t cross the line. 1-1 Tie - Betis goes through on the away goal. It was quite a dissapointment but the Bernabeu actually applauded the good form and effort of the team.

Real’s president got himself into a pickle making some critical comments towards players and fans this week. He was giving a talk in a private classroom where someone actually taped what he said and sent it to the press. Many things were taken out of context and he semi-successfuly explained some of them later in a Marca interview. A few them were:

• Mentioning the difference between Casilla’s salary of 6 million/year and Diego Lopez’s salary of just 300,000.
• Describing Guti as the eternal promise (As if he never lived up to expectations, although he later explained that he did not mean it in that way)
• Calling players uneducated (Later explaining it saying he was giving examples of how successfull one could be without formal education)
• Calling the Bernabeu a theatre (Also later explained as the importance of putting on a good show at Real Madrid)
• Saying Beckham was going to LA to be a half-actor (Explained to be not a critisizm but a reality as Beckham apparently has an acting project on the table with good friend, Tom Cruise
• Saying some players have big egos or something to that effect

He later met with the squad to discuss it and try to smooth things over. Raul did a prense conference this morning talking about being united and briefly reviewing what was discussed. 

According to Real Madrid president, Ramón Calderón, David Beckham had already signed with Los Angeles Galaxy when he was still negotiating his contract with Real Madrid and for this reason the club decided he would no longer play, even though half the season remains at the ‘white house’.

They are also upset that he announced the deal in middle of the season instead of keeping quiet and leaving at the end of the season. It’s probably not something you could keep quiet anyway, especially since the MLS wants to sell as many tickets and get as much publicity as possible.

Rumer has it that the MLS New York Red Bulls are preparing an offer for Ronaldo, but I don’t think he’s going to follow in Beckham’s footsteps and give up football at the highest level yet.

Out with the old, in with the young. The face of Real Madrid is changing. While it’s sad to see old players go, it’s wonderful to see new players perform.

Real looked like a brand new team tonight and with Raul injured after 14 minutes the transformation was complete. Gago, Higuaín, Torres (leftback from the cantera), Reyes, Robinho, Diarra.. looked like a completely different team than the one we have seen all season and the last 3 years.

Gago does well defensively while distributing well in offense. Diarra was excellent recovering balls. Higuaín is very involved and pacey and set up the only goal to Van Nistelrooy. De la Red also came on late in the match and had a free shot on goal wich was blocked by Real’s X-keeper, Cesar. This looked like the Real of Madrid of old.. the Madrid that dribbles, dominates posession, and creates lots of scoring opportunities. I can’t wait to see young left back Marcelo thrown into the mix.

Best of all, even with all the problems and chaos (and the help of losses by Barca and Sevilla), Real is only 2 points from the top. David Beckham watched from the stands, which is a bit unsettling, hopefully the situation won’t stay that way,

Next up - second leg of King’s cup quaterfinals in the Bernabeu. Loss or tie = out of tournament. 

Beckham has made a media splash in the US with his suprising announcement to sign for the MLS Los Angeles Galaxy (ironic the name). I think I can understand why he wants to go (Good friends with Tom Cruise, is drawn to Hollywood, wants to have a historical effect on American soccer, his wife was probably excited by the idea as well…) but I’m a bit suprised. At only 31 and with a few good football years left in him put an end to his career at the top level? His desire for fame must be greater than his desire for more football glory. And that’s ok if that’s what he wants, it’s not a critism. Good luck to him, hopefully he will have a big impact on the sport.

Capellos has apprently announced that Beckham will no longer play with Real Madrid since he has signed with another club. I respect Capello and his decisions but that’s no way to treat a player who has given his all in every match for the club (unlike other players who still get first team action). Also, this is the last chance for Beckham to win a major trophy with Real and he’ll be deprived of that opportunity. That’s not fair at all, not a way to treat players who have been great professionals.

Ronaldo is supposedly on his way out (and in the winter transfer window) also but Capellos hasn’t formally said it, he’s just made the comment that Ronaldo trains ‘regular’ as usual (in other words, without much effort) and that he wasn’t called up for the Cup match because of a slight knock.

Thursday’s match ended in a 0-0 tie against Real Betis. Betis is in danger of relegation and not in great form. Real played a much more intense match and staying organized in defense. Unfortunately it had virtually no offense and is really struggling to string more than a few passes together. It’s now 3 straight matches with scoring. The youth team right back Torres did an excellent job and should be considered for promotion to the 1st team. Roberto Carlos was injured after 10 minutes and will be out for a month (Marcelo is already out for 6 weeks) leaving Raul Bravo as the only backup. Hinguaín put up a pretty decent performance making some chances for himself. Gago improved from his first appearance. Robinho didn’t show up. (What happened to the whiz kid from Santos?)

For some odd reason, the worst things get for Real Madrid, the more I feel like talking about it. So I decided to ditch my blogger account and install Wordpress. You can check out the old blog here.

It’s pretty much chaos at this point. The last match was terrible. Ronnie didn’t get much playing time, Robinho was left in the stands (apparently a disciplinary action, although no one is really quite sure why), Guti was injured after just a few a minutes, Sergio Ramos played left back, Casillas is no longer invincible and Real Madrid fans and the Spanish press are in an uproar.

 It’s actually quite funny. I laugh because after 3 years of the same, well what else can you do? There’s something strange lingering in the locker rooms of the Bernabeu. It’s like a curse that causes all new signings, no matter how good they used to be, to completely drop out of form. They just keep falling, the latest example being Fabio Carnavarro. Fifa World Player and Golden Ball award winner and is now playing probably his worst football ever. Can you blame him? I don’t, he’s victim of the curse. Maybe it’s the galactico curso that Florentino set upon the club. 

I don’t believe in curses, but there is definitely something languishing in the air and there’s no clear solution in sight. If you understand Spanish and surf over to the AS blog, you’ll find over 500 posts from after Sunday’s match! Mostly whining, complaining, critisizing… the things we do by human nature. Lots of critism of Capello (none of his predecessors faired better…Quiroz, Camacho, Garcia Remon, Luxemburgo, Lopez Caro) and mostly critism of the older players, new and old ’sacred cows’ as they call them.

 Raul is getting bashed big time. Truth of the matter is, either play him in his natural forward roll or put him on the bench, but he doesn’t usually do much in the midfield. Salgado, Helguera, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Beckham, Emerson are all getting blamed as well. Everyone says, “Bring on the cantera!” (Youth team players). I somehow don’t feel the solution lies in axing another coach before he has time to figure things out or dumping all the ‘old’ players for youth team players.

But one thing is very clear. These players (most, not all) do not give their best effort. I don’t believe this crap that they are all millionares and don’t care about winning football matches, but I can see that they don’t put enough pressure on the other team when they lose posession. They don’t play with intensity, strong desire, the will to win every game as if it were their last.

I would also stop buying expensive players. Make a great team and create great players, don’t buy them just for them to drop out of form upon arrival and collect big paychecks. For many players it’s a blessing for them to leave Real so they can shine on other squads like Diogo is now at Zaragoza. (He is quite a boxer as well.) When will be the next time someone shines at Real?