More mischief and made-up stuff from Marca
Monday 26 May 2008 22:13
Last Thursday, Real Madrid's Sporting Director, Pedja Mijatovic was settling into seat 1D of his Iberia flight from Moscow to Madrid.
As the Prince of Darkness reapplied his hair gel and nibbled on a spider he had found scuttling across the floor of the executive lounge, Pedja was looking forward to a quiet flight home, plotting how he could make Sir Alex Ferguson's face even redder with more Ronaldo related naughtiness.
That was until Marca's Roberto Gomez collapsed into seat 1C, next to him, and proceeded to spend the seven or so hours of the flight kissing his Montenegrin behind.
"It was a pleasure to reacquaint myself with someone that I admired as a player and respect as a sporting director," gushed Gomez like a giggling schoolgirl in his column on Friday.
Good for him thought La Liga Loca until it remembered the ramblings of Roberto from May 17 when he whined about the job being done at the Bernabeu by the technical team, complaining that there were "too many foreigners at Real Madrid."
Meanwhile his paper and AS have been in tag team action and spent the last week doing a George Lucas by writing absolute gibberish on the unbelievably tedious Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid affair.
If you are to believe this pair of porkie producers, the Portuguese pouter will be moving to the Spanish capital this summer for either a) 40 million euros and Robinho, b) 50 million euros and Robinho, Ramos and Diarra or c) 20 million euros and Ramón Calderón's head on a platter.
The war of words between the Real Madrid president and the terror of Old Trafford went up a notch over the weekend when Fergie responded to Calderón's ridiculous claims that slavery had been abolished with an entertaining barb about General Franco.
And this has just encouraged the Spanish press who now feel that Real Madrid are winning the tremendous tug of war over the winger by getting under Fergie's furious skin.
But none of this is of particular interest in the Kingdom of Catalunya where they are desperately trying to get excited over the signings of ex-culé Gerard Piqué and Seydou Keita from Sevilla.
As yet, they have no manager to present them once they put pen to paper as Pep Guardiola is still busy with Barça B business and has yet to agree financial terms on his own contract, claim AS.
The other big story in Laportaland is the campaign by Oriol Giralt to gather 5882 signatures from bad-tempered Barcelona members. Once that is achieved, a referendum will have to be called within a month on the competency of the club's board.
Valencia's Juan Bautista Soler has waddled before the press to say that he has no intention of selling his shareholding in the club and to place the blame on the fans for the sacking of the Benfica-bound Quique and the appointment of Ronald Koeman - "90 per cent of the supporters wanted Koeman," barked the ex-president.
Meanwhile, Unai Emery is about to embark on a Mestalla clearout of epic proportions as he looks to reduce a bloated roster of 41 players down to a lean and mean 22. And he is also learning the ropes of the madhouse in Mestalla.
"I'm an adaptable trainer and I'll adapt to the idiosyncrasies of Valencia," said the club's latest victim.
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About Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot
When he isn't fighting the evil forces of flamenco or attracting libel actions for La Liga Loca,
Tim Stannard is building his media empire in Madrid. As well as contributing to Football365 and doing odd jobs elsewhere, Tim also works in the glamorous world of television as a producer, script writer, news editor, coffee boy and stand-in fluffer.
Simon Talbot? Well, he's a man of mystery.