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Welcome to another addition of Bernabeu Bites where every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we take you around the world of Real Madrid, La Liga and European Football all in tasty bite size form. So sit back, relax, grab your favorite beverage and enjoy!
As I'm sure you heard, the players union and the league have come to an agreement! This means La Liga action this weekend, and we can all be happy about that! So lets get into Bernabeu Bites shall we?
We can all agree that yesterday's capture of our own trophy was pretty sloppy, correct? One of the bright spots, and I will admit that I didn't get to watch all of the match (I hate it when work gets in the way of football), I did catch was Sergio Ramos getting a nice feed on a free kick from just outside the box from Xabi Alonso to bring the score level at 1-1.
As we've reported before, Diego Forlán isn't happy at Atletico Madrid and he's looking for a way out. Well it seems that it might actually be happening. It looks as though Inter Milan has interest in the striker, and it looks to be about €5 million for the 32-year-old. Inter are looking for another striker after selling Samuel Eto'o to a Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala (I couldn't pronounce that if you had a gun to my head). There is also a rumor that Paris Saint-Germain are interested as well.
Apparently in the wake of selling Samir Nasri to Manchester City, Arsenal boss Arsene Wegner tried to secure a deal with Real Madrid for Kaka. It was turned down by Jose Mourinho because he wants to sell Kaka, not send him out on a season-long loan. According to the report, los blancos want his £153,000 a week salary off the books. It seems that Paris Saint-Germain and Sao Paulo have contacted Real Madrid in regards to the Brazilian.
This is a very interesting read from Sid Lowe over at SI.com about the transfer that took Juan Mata from Valencia to Premier League side Chelsea and what transfers like this mean to Spanish Football, and specifically La Liga. Here's a little snip-it.
Madrid and Barcelona, whose stranglehold on the league and other clubs is absolute, have no intention of redistributing talent, wealth or opportunity. There is no concept of the league as the product; the LFP is a loose, disparate collection of clubs with wildly different interests, each looking out for their own in which two clubs beat the rest every time.
As we saw yesterday during the Bernabeu Trophy match, madridistas have the back of the Special One. And so does his squad, though Mou is still facing action from RFEF. Mourinho also apologized to madridistas.
"I wish to apologise to Madridistas, and only to them, for my attitude in our last game," Mourinho said.
"Some people are better adapted to the hypocrisy in football than I am, and they hide their faces and speak in whispers deep inside tunnels. I'm not learning to be a hypocrite, and I don't want to."
Of course, and I can see trolls coming now--that this was all an elaborate plan to begin with, executed by Mourinho himself, and this is all some clever trick. Like he's the flippin' Wizard of Oz or something....