Media fail to make Portuguese man-o’-sex feel welcome in Madrid

Never ones to wildly speculate or make stuff up based on thoroughly insufficient evidence, the vultures of the Spanish press seem to be circling around Cristiano Ronaldo of late.

A few weeks ago, Madrid-based daily paper Marca ran a story on their front cover claiming the Portuguese was struggling to fit into the side, and that he was therefore suffering from ‘Zidane Syndrome’. This assessment was made before La Liga 2009/10 had even started, and was thoroughly devoid of quotes or proof.

This morning, they have reintroduced their anxiety theory with the help of Jorge Valdano, the Madrid sporting director who seems to be piping up a lot more of late. He is quoted as saying:

“In the first league game I liked Cristiano.

…and neither will Chelsea (Boom! Boom!)

Real Madrid were among a number of clubs who desperately tried to throw exorbitant amounts of money at Bayern Munich for the services of Franck Ribery this summer, and the Frenchman himself admitted to fancying the prospect of sunning himself in Spain.

Despite their relentless pursuit of the Bundesliga’s best player, Los Blancos will not attempt to sign him in the winter transfer window. In lieu of a decent reason for this decision, sporting director Jorge Valdano told Marca:

“I do not think that the winter transfer market is made for players of the size of Ribery.”

At first, we suspected Valdano of backing our ‘Ribery has been replaced by a dwarf‘ conspiracy, but then it became clear that the Spanish giants intend to stick to their original plan of swiping him next summer:

“Ribery is now a matter of the past. But perhaps he is indeed an issue again in the future. “

Where the hell do they keep getting all this money from?

Hey, remember yesterday morning when we reported the comments of Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. You know, the comments that have appeared in most English papers this morning, almost 24 hours later? Well, he said that Franck Ribery will not be leaving the club this summer, and that it is not a question of money.

This attitude may change, however, when Florentino Perez offers to make him the third most expensive player in the world. According to AS, Real Madrid have ‘reserved’ €55m for the Frenchman - a bid far greater than the £30m reportedly being offered by Chelsea, and