dalliance wrote:

QUOTE:
Am I the only one who Alexandr Hleb leaves a little cold ?

Nah, his wife wasnt too pleased when he fucked off with the duvet.

(Fortunately not here all week)

Response for gero

Got that, thanks Lodz. Will wait a month or whatever, and speak more about it then. Cheers.

Fútbol en el Camino de Santiago (camino francés)

Finally I am going to have crack at the Camino de Santiago, leaving St Jean Pied de Port late August, hoping to arrive in Santiago at the start of October. Should have done it years ago as it's pretty busy by all accounts, oh well. Naturally I am hoping to catch a few games on my travels. Expect to see Osasuna - Villarreal on the first day of the season and maybe Depor - Numancia after I finish. Anyone been to either Riazor or el Sadar? Don't expect much difficulty in getting a ticket but would like to be in or at least adjacent to the Indar Gorri/Riazor Blues ends. In between Pamplona and Galicia, who knows? I will probably have enough on my plate with blisters, dodgy food, ascetic loons etc. The route passes through Logroño, Burgos, León and Ponferrada. Logroñés (2b) are Valencia's freundshaft (?) team but unlikely to face us in the near future (cue jibes about VCF). I remember their last visit to Mestalla, a busload of amiable drunks handing out bottles of Rioja outside the ground. Burgos (3a) might go bust v soon. Both of these teams were in the first division when I first came to Spain.

Chaos in the Valencia boardroom, can't be arsed outlining all the shenanigans but I'm sure it's not over yet.

That sounds ace, Senyor (the walk, not the VCF shenanigans). Ursus minor and I are planning to do it sometime when he is old enough and I am not too old (which I hope proves to be a larger window of time than it sometimes feels).

I think that Vonderman has been to the Riazor.

And its Freundschaft with a "c", just in case you run into some Germans.

I'm pretty sure that Leon were in the Primera when I first visited Spain. In any event, they were big enough for me to be able to get an enamel badge of theirs without any difficulty.

Are you sure? 1954/55 was Cultural Leonesa's one and only year in Primera (just checked it out). They seem to have a healthy rivalry with Ponferradina who are from the western part of Leon province - "el Bierzo" =- which is apparently quite a distinct entity, look forward to checking this out and asking awkward questions.

Might there have been another team from Leon?

That said, it was 25 years ago, and they could well have been in the Segunda (or even lower, I guess).

Just been watching the first half of Sevilla-Milan in the Russian Railways Cup, and the rojiblancos are dominating proceedings, without creating too many goalscoring opportunities (0-0 at HT). Jesus Navas perhaps the most active so far.

By the way, how should one pronounce 'Romaric'? The 'La2' commentator has gone for 'Ro - MA - rich' so far, as if he was from Croatia instead of Cote d'Ivoire. Perhaps 'RO - ma - rik' ? 'Ro - MA - reek' ?? 'Ro - meh - REEK' ??

Well, Sevilla win 1-0 thanks to Gattuso's header into his own net ... And it appears that Maresca is to be the one to pick up the 'galones' of the team and drive everyone forward in the absence of Javi N ....

I always thought Maresca was a pretty good player but since being Sevilla's hero in the UEFA Cup tirumph, he hasn't seen regular playing time. With Keita and Poulsen leaving he may now get that. Hmm, I'm not sure how to pronounce Romaric's name either but like Lodz, I'd guess it wouldn't be the Croatian way! :) With my limited knowledge of French I'd guess "RO-mar-ik."

Across town at Betis it looks like Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, the guy so arrogant he renamed the club's stadium after himself, is selling his majority stake in the club to some unknown business consortium. Ruiz de Lopera will still retain a seat on the board and somehow I imagine this Machiavellian character will still be the power behind the throne there.

Getafe are quietly going about making astute signings, Ecuador's Joffre Guerron (the revelation of this year's Copa Libertadores), Turkey's Ibrahim Kas, Germany's Eugen Polanski plus Spanish players Roberto Soldado, Esteban Granero and Adrian Gonzalez (the last 3 all from Real Madrid's cantera!). Adrian Gonzalez is the son of Michel Gonzalez, the ex Real Madrid star. I'm feeling old now as I used to play in youth leagues against Michel!

My only concern about Getafe this coming season is their new coach Victor Munoz. A tough, combative midfielder in his playing days but a coach with an average at best record.

The signing I'm looking forward to seeing in La Liga is Jozy 'Dumbledore' Altidore at Villarreal. Are we to expect great things from him, or will it be a season of acclimatisation?

QUOTE:
In between Pamplona and Galicia, who knows?

Do me a favour, SP! There can only be one choice. Seriously, if you are anywhere near Oviedo, let me know and while I won't offer to rub basalm into your feet, I will be happy to show you around.

No offence meant! I wrote "who knows?" as in "I've no idea which games I will be able to get to given my Camino obligations" and anyway Oviedo isn't on my route (Camino Francés, though it is on the Camino del Norte I believe).

I spent a couple of hours in Oviedo in 2005 as a getaway from a holiday in the Picos but as it was July there were no games on, though I did ask in the tourist office if the old Tartiere was still standing and worth checking out but the bloke put me off the idea. Oviedo seemed nice but not a whole lot going on either, it was midday midweek in fairness.

off to see espanyol tomorrow at old trafford

where can i find the likely team?

Here's the 20 guys making the trip, I bet you'll see most of them:

Javi Ruiz, Cristian Álvarez, Chica, Beranger, Lacruz, Jarque, Torrejón, Moisés, Sielva, De la Peña, Román Martínez, Àngel, Julián, Rufete, Valdo, Riera, Luis García, Jonathan Soriano, Tamudo i Callejón,

cheers UA. looks like the opening bat, unlike last summer