In a football world of psychoanalysis, dieticians and GPS player tracking, it is nice to hear of an initiative which rewards successful fat players and urges them to pile a few more pounds on. Brewer Cruzcampo, sponsor of the Spanish national football team, promised each member of the country’s Euro 2008 squad their weight in beer if they made it past the quarter-finals of the competition.
Since the players came home with the trophy, yesterday it was time for Cruzcampo to deliver on their promise. The players attended a special weigh-in to see exactly how much beer they were entitled to. And tipping the scales at 95kg, the heaviest player in the squad was Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina. Little Santi Cazorla received considerably less beer despite the fact he is more in need of fattening up than Reina.
The squad took home 5,200 bottles of beer in total.
It seems winning major championships is not very good for team morale. Euro 2008 winners Spain took things back to basics ahead of their World Cup qualifier in Estonia with a few trust exercises and other playground activities! Rafa Benitez will no doubt be ecstatic to see Xabi Alonso’s head hurtling towards a wooden floor!
Spurs gaffer’s self confidence failing to match performance
With Spurs currently performing worse than the Premier League most rubbish entrants (Derby), few people are praising Juande Ramos’s abilities. The one exception to this, is Juande Ramos himself:
“The pressure is very high at the moment, but this is my job. I have been a coach for 20 years and I understand the situation - very well,”
I am sure if we win in the next two or three weeks it will be ‘Ramos is the best in the world’.”
The Spaniard has an excellent record in his home country (two promotions, two UEFA Cups, a UEFA Super Cup and a Copa del Rey) and has of course won the Mickey Mouse Carling Cup over here, but he has also failed to improve on Martin Jol’s excellent work (the Dutchman is currently top of the Bundesliga with Hamburg) and has been criticised this season for questionable team selection and tactics.
So, is he a good manager undergoing a tough spell? Or is he, you know, actually a bit rubbish? Let us know with a comment and vote below.
Kids, put your guns and knives back in the kitchen drawer where they belong, nowadays it’s tough to be soft. Just look at Sergio Ramos - he’s a big strong defender, but he’s not scared to wear a womanly haircut and carry a sponge bag with him when he’s out on the streets, representing. He’s even had his watch fashioned on an old carriage clock. Just look at him speaking to his fellow gang members on a stolen mobile phone. So cool.
Serbian risks wrath of “joyless” fans with controversial comments
A few months ago, Ukrainian fashionista Andriy Voronin thought it appropriate to criticise his charmed life in the north of England, and now Nemanja Vidic has jumped on the anti-UK bandwagon via comments in Russian magazine Football Weekly.
The Manchester Utd centre-back, who comes from a landlocked country with a tumultuous political past and an average wage three times lower then that in Britain, has criticised the weather and “joyless” people over here:
‘I will never stay to live in England, that’s for sure.’
‘The climate here is something special! You get only a brief glimpse of sunlight before it’s all cloudy again. The winters are mild but in summer the temperatures seldom go higher than 20 degrees Celsius. And it rains, rains, rains!
Spain’s Olympic basketball and tennis teams are no strangers to pulling offensive gestures for the camera, and Argentina’s ladies football team have now contributed to the International Athletes’ Photobook of ‘Slit-Eye’ Face-Pulling.
The picture above was published in Argentinean newspaper Ole two weeks ago, and was taken long before the Spanish decided to hamper their 2016 Olympic bid.
The world needn’t worry about any repeat incident from the Argentine ladies, however, as they lost every single
A few days ago, Spain’s Basketball team highlighted their nation’s ‘poor record for racial sensitivity’ by posing with slit-eye gestures for an advert in a Spanish newspaper. Yesterday, Jose Calderon told us the photo was ‘appropriate’ and the rest of the world is ‘absolutely confused’, and now The Telegraph have discovered the photo above on the Spanish Tennis Federation’s website.
The snap, running with the caption “we are prepared for China” on the Spanish website, includes female tennis players Llagostera Vives, Medina Garrigue and Suarez-Navarro - all of whom are competing in Beijing. It was taken ahead of a Federation Cup match against China in April.
Have you seen any other pictures like this? Are you an insensitive Spaniard not scared of being exposed online? Send us your snaps here, folks.
You folks out there in interwebland have been going batshit crazy for the story about Spain’s ‘Chinese wink’ team photo (300+ comments so far), and it seems most of you have been waiting for an apology from the Spaniards for a few days. Instead, however, they have been protesting their innocence - Spanish NBA star Jose Calderon wrote on his website:
Clearly, most of us are ‘absolutely confused’. The whole ‘some of my best friends are Asian’ excuse is a popular choice
Basketball team find subtle way to offend their hosts
Spain (the country whose national manager referred to Thierry Henry as a ‘black shit’, whose fans greeted the England team with monkey chants and whose Formula One supporters found their own special way of welcoming Lewis Hamilton) have enhanced their reputation as world leaders in the field of racism by making ’slit-eyed’ gestures prior to participating in the Beijing basketball tournament.
Clearly, Spanish marketing executives believe the best way to promote good and services is through overt discrimination, as the snap above is actually part of an advertisement for a courier company. The posed faux-pas enjoyed a full-page in Spanish sport daily Marca, and according to The Guardian, no one involved in the advert believed it to be offensive, and they did not consider it inappropriate in light of their bid for the Olympiad in 2016 or 2020.
Yesterday, David Villa was supposed to be ushered into White Hart Lane for a cool £32 million, but today all the talk is about Dean Ashton and how they won’t pay West Ham’s £18 million asking price (quite right, too). Fear not though, Spurs fans, Juande Ramos has now decided Atletico Madrid’s Diego Forlan is the right man for the job, according to the journos fishing for a story experts at The Mirror…
Louis Saha to West Ham
The Irons are another side actively trying to bring in another striker, but the Daily Mail reports that they want to wait until the Frenchman’s knee injury clears up before making an offer. Perhaps they don’t want any outside help in their bid to retain the Physio Room Injury League title.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Saha may prefer the ex-United haven at Sunderland, while
Ronaldo may have to face up to his big scary boss after all
In contrast with his normal propensity to stir the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer broth, Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon has insisted brand new £11.8m midfielder Rafael van der Vaart represents the club’s only venture into the transfer market this summer:
“We are certain that he will be a player who will help us complement the already very strong squad we have.
“He is the first and almost certainly the last signing we will make this season.“
With this news, it looks as though the prostitutes of Spain will have to wait for at least another year before they get their huge Ronaldo-based windfall…
