Monday, May 19, 2008

GARAY will dress in white, KUN pipped by Raúl

It's the first big transfer involving a World-Class Argentine player that has been confirmed. Ezequiel GARAY, a key in Racing Santander's historic season that ended in qualification to play next season's UEFA Cup, will play for Real Madrid next season.

The U20 World Cup champion in 2005, was transfered to the Spanish champions for a fee of 10 million euros and the transaction was confirmed by Real Madrid president Ramón CALDERÓN himself.

GARAY is poised to start establishing himself as a solid option for Coco BASILE as a central defender for Argentina in the next few months. This move to Madrid will surely help his case and Ezequiel will keep improving and maturing.

Real Madrid continues to trust Argentine players after having Gabriel HEINZE, Gonzalo HIGUAIN, Fernando GAGO and Javier SAVIOLA in their league-winning squad.

Congratulations to Ezequiel GARAY and the best of lucks in this new and exciting challenge!

KUN VOTED SECOND AFTER RAUL

The sporting newspaper Marca, from Spain, have organized the Alfredo Di Stéfano award, given to La Liga's best player of the season.

This award combines the people's votes with those from a panel of pundits.

Real Madrid captain, Raúl GONZALEZ was the winner this time around but only after battling it out with Argentine Atletico Madrid ace, Sergio AGÜERO in a very tough voting process. Both players were actually tied at one stage and a third round of voting decided in favour of Raúl.

Iker CASILLAS, Real Madrid goalkeeper, finished third while it was said Lionel MESSI finished very near the podium but couldn't quite make it.

Another important recognition for Kun, who had a great season helping Atletico Madrid return to the Champions League after 12 seasons.

The worrying news? Now there are doubts over Kun's inclussion in our Olympic team because Atletico will have to play the Qualifying stages of the Champions League at the same time the Olympic tournament will be played in Beijing.

So now we have MESSI and AGÜERO as major doubts while Bayern Munich seem set to prevent Martín DEMICHELIS to join Checho BATISTA's team in China, supported by FIFA rules.

Good news for Argentina, bad news for the tournament and especially for Brazil: AC Milan have officialy announced that they won't let KAKÁ join the Brazilian Olympic team because he is not an U23 player anymore and they have no obligations to release him. They have also added that they won't stop Alexandre PATO if he is called up to play a part in Brazil's quest to win their only major international title this summer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Messi got the OK from Barcelona last week that he can play in China.

Jack!

http://sports.aol.com/story/_a/messi-gets-approval-from-barcelona-to/n20080512185309990006

Anonymous said...

If Aguero cannot play, then who should take his place?

Seb, Will Lucas Trecarichi be considered?

Seba said...

Jack, unfortunately the link is to an article quoting what MESSI said early last week but a couple of days after, there were rumours that the UCL Qualifying round will get in his way. I'm not saying he will be in Beijing or he won't. But nothing is official yet. We need to wait (and pray!).

Regarding TRECARICHI, Allan, no, I don't think he'll be considered. He is not in the preliminary list Sergio BATISTA has given and honestly, competition for places up front is really really tough.

Think of all the names that are before him in the pecking order: Gonzalo HIGUAIN, Angel DI MARIA, Lionel MESSI (provided he goes to Beijing), Ezequiel LAVEZZI, Mauro ZARATE and even Marco RUBEN and Lautaro ACOSTA (just to name a few).

Lucas has a bright future ahead of him and he will still be U23 by the time the London 2012 Games come. Be patient on him! haha!