Politics, Money and Football in one sentence???

Just when it looked like Calderon and gang knew how they were running the White house, things have changed. Controversy after another and the President was forced to resign his post. Second in command Vicente Boluda has taken charge till summer which will mean that there will be elections then. Former President and Galactico creator Florontino Perez is who the press is already talking about with the possibility of Zidane coming in to a Sporting Director's role. Now as much as this seems to be a movie story line, this is what the press has put together from separate incidents that happened over the last year. In my opinion this is the primary negative in a Board controlled PLC like Real Madrid. There is bound to be a lot of politics and people go to any extend to achieve their goals. While promising to sign some of the world's best players may seem to be the only main strategy of Presidential candidates, the whole election process is not sans controversy. Mail in votes and now non members approving the Madrid budget?

When the mess in running the club was on, the players were back and was ready to face bottom place Osasuna at the Bernabeu on Sunday. As i have written earlier, it is conviction of what he is doing that sets Juande Ramos apart. He is not doing a whole lot different. Of course he has a lot of players back from injury but even then his man management skills have to be given special mention. Osasuna as they showed last week against Barca is no walk over and they showed exactly that when they went ahead first. Madrid rallied back and won the game 3-1, a scoreline which is more glorified as it was a struggle in totality. A few things that i have noticed that Juande Ramos has done to his formation is that, for one he plays both Gago and Lass together in midfield. I know Guti was injured but i guess he is back to full fitness. In a way Gago and Lass seem to be performing well together. Instead of a Diarra and Guti combination, the two midfielders in a central role seem to be giving Madrid more stability. The only problem yesterday was that Lass was not the best compared to the standard he set in his previous two matches. While he was holding the ball well, he was being too slow in counter attack and was running out of ideas in distribution. Second off Juande Ramos has made it clear with the formation that Robben is to play a role similar to Messi. Robben is a player who is going to dribble and wind his way around defenders and take a shot at goal. He is not a left winger who is going to put in telling crosses into the penalty box. Since Ramos has taken charge Robben is playing on the right side of midfield and is scoring a lot of goals. Ramos also has his best backline now at his disposal and that has contributed to the clean sheets that Madrid are able to maintain.
The match was not without a new set of controversy. This time it was with the refereeing and i think people who complain have a point. Now i have seen this guy referee a lot of Madrid games which is a little weird, and former Madrid player at Osasuna Juanfran would have some complaints. First there was this tackle from Gago inside the penalty box from the side, which looked a little 50-50. First look at normal speed i called penalty here, but then when you look at the replay and think that Gago missed the ball and Juanfran with his original tackle and the ball would not have been recovered by Juanfran and the protests on the dive was enough for the Referee to be convinced to dish out the yellow card to the bewildered youngster. Towards the end of the game, one-one with Pepe, Juanfran was brought down, again a first look "penalty" i shouted and the referee did blow, but the assistant referee suggested that it was a dive and Juanfran was give the marching orders.


There is still a 12 point difference between leaders Barca and Real Madrid, and if anyone is hopeful that Barca will slip up they should have seen their demolition of Deportivo on Saturday. Now Madrid are doing the right thing which is to do their part and that is to keep winning.

When we speak of politics that is ruining clubs like Madrid it is Money and a hell lot of Money thats in the news. Man City reportedly bid a world record of over 110M for Brazilian superstar Kaka and press in Italy and England were convinced that Milan could not resist the lure. Sure Milan could do really well with the money to re-build an aging team. But if Dubai money and a trillion of that thinks that a Kaka or a Robinho can change anything, then he should look at the Premiership table. Granted Man City have a decent young talent pool including the like of Micah Richards and have bought Shawn Wright Phillips back, but to think that the former World Player of the year would leave one of the best clubs in the world to a wannabe club with a lot of Money is just preposterous. Oh really? As Robinho.


I have read that Kaka is from a good background back in Brazil and that is why the decision came today from the Brazilian superstar that he never even for 30 seconds thought about leaving Milan and that he would have been disappointed if Milan had accepted the offer. Now i believe there was a whole lot of pressure on Milan not to accept the bid from the public. No offense to Man City but i don't think Kaka would want to join them for the big money when he has declined offers from Real Madrid.

I can imagine the outburst by a lot of fans and the public alike that when the whole world goes through a financial crisis, spending over 275M in transfer fees and player wage is how should i put it? CRIMINAL! Kaka maybe the golden boy of football, but i thought that was only an expression, did folks in Dubai take that for real?