Moany Mourinho, amazing Arizmendi
Tuesday 21 September 2010 15:14
Saturday 2 a.m in the departure lounge of Vitoria airport and José
Mourinho was spouting off to a gaggle of excited, thrusting press types.
Had he persuaded the Israelis to suspend settlement building
after a 27 hour negotiating session? Was the Special One’s charisma
saucy enough to coax the Iranians into giving up their nuclear
ambitions?
No. The Real Madrid manager was talking about his non-existent answer to a non-existent job offer.
The
whole tornado in a thimble began last Thursday when some old geezers
from the Portuguese FA came to Madrid to talk to Mourinho and his agent -
and have a fine lunch in the process, of course - with the possibility
of dearest Mou taking over the somewhat struggling national side for two
European Championship qualifiers in October featuring somewhere on the
agenda.
Mourinho had apparently made approving noises to his
would be suitors, but admitted a day later that “the Madridista family
would see me (having two jobs) in a negative way.” “If it was up to me,
I’d go to Portugal for nothing,” he added.
After Saturday night’s
2-1 win over Real Sociedad, the Madrid manager spoke to a Portuguese TV
crew and complained that there had not even been talks between Madrid
and his country’s FA about the idea of filling in for a bit. “I’m going
to be in Madrid for 10 days of holidays,” claimed Mourinho, suggesting
that the prospect of spending a week and a half of personal time on the
training pitches with Esteban Granero was less than taxing.
Mourinho
was then forced to further clarify his previous comments before
boarding the plane to Madrid with pretty much everyone confused as to
what had or hadn’t been said and what on earth it all meant.
However,
Sara Carbonero certainly wasn’t in any doubt when she claimed during an
interview on Spanish TV on Monday that “the manager is upset, above all
because there was no meeting between Real Madrid and Portugal.”
But
the other juicy whopper dropped by Iker’s amour was her claim that
Cristiano Ronaldo “has always been egotistical and individualistic on
the pitch,” which probably caused some tension around the team’s hotel
breakfast table this morning (a breakfast table where all the condiments
are no doubt down Ronaldo’s end considering his lack of enthusiasm for
passing anything to anyone else), as Madrid prepare for the visit of
Espanyol.
Despite the third round of games in La Primera only finishing on Monday night, the fourth round is set to start on Tuesday.
The
final clash of the last ‘jornada’ produced a dreadful first half and
wonderfully anarchic second between Deportivo and Getafe in a 2-2 draw
that saw two penalties for Depor and and an absolute screamer of a strike for the now free-scoring Javier Arizmendi that left the Spanish TV commentary team as stunned as LLL.
When
Arizmendi failed to celebrate his equalizing effort, the blog assumed
that it was because the striker had forgotten how to. But then he
revealed after the game that it was in respect to the fans he used to
play in front of at Depor, despite those supporters probably having
forgotten all about his amazing spell that saw seven goals in 50
matches.
Although Mourinho had a bit of a whine and a moan about
the barbarity of having to play Ajax on a Wednesday and Real Sociedad on
a Saturday, it is Espanyol who are being made to lie in the scheduling
wet patch on Tuesday, as their previous game against Almería took place
on Sunday, giving their competitors one extra day’s preparation ahead of
the Castle Greyskull clash.
Real Madrid’s match kicks off at the
family friendly time of 10 with two games being played at 8. The first
of those sees Athletic Bilbao hosting Mallorca, a club - not team, or
set of fans - that LLL is really starting to dislike.
Mallorca
have done nothing but sulk since being thrown out of the Europa League
by UEFA for failing to pay their debts to other clubs, thus giving them
an unfair advantage in la Liga.
One of those sides on the wrong
end of Mallorca’s mismanagement are Athletic Bilbao who, according to
Marca, are still owed nearly €2 million on the 2008 sale of Aritz
Aduriz, a striker who has since been moved on to Valencia for €4 million
with Mallorca keeping the cash for themselves. This is why the
relations between the two clubs have been frosty to say the least in the
past couple of years.
Mallorca are also trying to take
Villarreal’s European privileges in this season’s Copa del Rey draw, due
to be held on Wednesday. In order to make the competition as
uninteresting and pointless as possible, those clubs that are involved
in European competition are handed ties against Segunda B or third
division teams - not that this has been of much help to Real Madrid of
late.
The Balearic outfit have petitioned the Spanish FA that
this ‘bye’ should be theirs, despite Villarreal’s participation in this
season’s Europa League.
Lastly, LLL has always been enemy number
one of superfluous, self-serving, egotistical ‘minute’s silence’ before
the start of football games. Mallorca infringed the blog’s low tolerance
on such matters on Saturday with a lengthy pause to remember the death
of the mother of the club’s VP Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, the head of the
consortium which bought out the club over the summer.
(Blog takes deep breath)
Tuesday’s
other 8 o’clock kick-off has Real Sociedad visiting Osasuna, a team
that have yet to score a goal this season. “We need to get back our
character, aggressiveness, our style and everyone needs to get back
their self respect,” ranted club captain Francisco Puñal.
LLL Predictions
Real Madrid v Espanyol - Home win
Athletic v Mallorca - Home win
Osasuna v Real Sociedad - Home win
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About Tim Stannard
La Liga Loca is the playground for the evil, more childish half of Tim Stannard’s psyche to be let loose. The other 50% is a contributor to FourFourTwo magazine, Football365, Sabotage Times as well as other publications such as UEFA Champions Magazine and When Saturday Comes. He is also a regular guest on Real Madrid TV’s Extra Time show and works as a TV producer extraordinaire for hire. To contact Tim directly email laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk