So as I was doing my nightly around-the-interwebs Real Madrid roundup, I came upon this absurd little tweet:
Cristiano Ronaldo Could End Up Being Seized By The European Central Bank http://ow.ly/1e0vYdless than a minute ago via HootSuite 
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Primera Liga
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What?! So of course I did a little digging, figuring that it had to be a mistake or at least a mistranslation. I mean what on earth does it mean for a bank to "seize" a human being?
Well, according to various sources...it doesn't mean anything. The theory is that the Spanish banking conglomerate that loaned Real Madrid the money for the transfers of CR7 and Kaká, Bankia (which comprises Caja Madrid and Bancaja, among others) is looking to borrow funds from the European Central Bank, and put up the money that Real Madrid owes them for Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká as collateral. Of course, the headline-writers jumped all over this story, but really the players themselves aren't collateral so much as the amount of money that their transfers were worth.
For the fun stuff to take effect, Bankia would have to default on its loans, and Madrid would have to declare bankruptcy, and at that point...well, I haven't found out what would happen then. Would the ECB have the right to "repossess" the players? If so, what the hell does that mean?
Anyways, this whole scenario is pretty unlikely (despite what some sites might have snarkly editorialized). It's even possible that in this unlikely event, the Spanish government might actually step in and bail out the team...but again, that's highly unlikely. How many times did I just use the word unlikely?
Some more random weird news after the jump.
In much less important, but equally odd news, Real Madrid cast-off Royston Drenthe just released a rap song. Yeah, you heard me. It's pretty bad. And by that I mean really really bad. Here it is:
Oof. And if your stomach wasn't already upset, this next bit of news will certainly do the trick: Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) is scheduled to talk to Neymar and try to convince him to come to Real Madrid. Now that itself isn't that bad...but here are some pictures of Ronaldo on vacation in Brazil. Disturbing.
And finally...the first Real Madrid keeper that I remember, Bodo Illgner gave an interview with German paper "Der Tagesspiegel," where he talked about the state of Real Madrid today and reminisced about his past on the Castellana:
I actually found away games easier than home games. The fact is, the fans at the Bernabéu have very strict requirements about how their teams play: they always want drama, spectacle, and emotion.
Because of that, a style like the one Barcelona plays would never work in the Bernabéu because they'd get bored by the seemingly eternal possession. Real Madrid fans demand more than any others in the world. Source: AS.com