Real Season Preview

After a long and rather uneventful transfer season by their regular standards, Real Madrid get ready to kick off their proper season. With a string of preseason victories, which has never happened before, and just one signing, which hasn't happened in a long while either, this is a tricky season to predict. A team was bought last year to last for a few years. And thankfully the management is sticking to a long term plan. Although I would have welcomed maybe one or two more entrants to the squad, I am rather happy with the team for the upcoming season. No worries on goal. Defence doesn't look very concerning either with enough depth with lots of players flexible between centre halves and wing backs. Midfield is a concern, not because of the lack in talent, but the overflow. There are too many left sided players, and too many central midfielders and absolutely nobody on the right. Gago/Diarra/De La Red for the anchor position. Gago would be my automatic choice, but you will need Diarra for some games and De La Red needs to get a game once every few games else he will be off too. Guti/Van Der Waart/Sneijder for attacking midfield. Guti is a genius but unpredictable, Sneijder is the natural choice. Van der Waart is flexible so may be he can be played elsewhere. And to top it all off Robben/Robinho(if he stays) on one wing. That's a selection headache, it's better headache but it's still one. Although I'd kill to be in Schuster's position, this makes me thank god I'm not in it. Forwards is a slight concern. Van Nistelrooy will fetch you the goals, but he isn't getting any younger and Raul is not getting any faster either. Although I love the latter, so much so to an extent I would rate him as one of the top five footballers during my short football watching career, I would say we need fresher blood than him. Higuain is doing well and I just get the feeling Villa will arrive next year at least, if not for a shock transfer with two hours left for the window to close or some such. Bench strength is good, Team is motivated to win the Champions League. I hope this is a good season. We should win the league, and at least proceed to the quarters this time around in Europe. Hala Madrid.

Ole Ole Ole

It's football season once again. And once again it is the time for predictions, taunts to opposition clubs, and lots of anxiety as to what entertainment and action this season will bring. Some clubs have been very active in the transfer market and some not so much. Here's my take on the so called top 8 clubs at the cream of European Football. All these clubs aspire to win every tournament they enter. But of course not all of them can. Here's what I personally feel about them.

Barcelona: Very active in the transfer market. Alves is a brilliant signing albeit a little overpriced, but hey aren't all signings overpriced these days. Kieta is decent signing, much better overall player than their last year's Yaya Toure signing who was pretty much rubbish. Ronaldinho is gone, which is the best thing to have probably happened to them. Guardiola is in charge, for people who don't know what that means, it's almost like a Keane managing ManUtd or something to that effect. I don't expect them to do much this year but they are building a team. As the Spanish cycle goes, they should be very strong by next season.

Real Madrid: After many days of the failed pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo, they have had an unusually quiet summer. Usually big players in the transfer market, it is their first summer in many a year, when they have made less than 5 transfers. Baptista sold to Roma, was a good deal at 15 million euro. And Van der Waart was a steal from Hamburg. With quite a decent squad, they should take the league pretty easily, but I don't know if they are good enough to be European Champions just yet.

Arsenal: Hleb, Flamini gone. Nasri In. Quiet summer by their standards as well. Arsenal this year are younger than ever before. Only God knows what Wenger is thinking. This squad needs a bit of experience to actually win trophies and not just play beautiful football. I don't see them doing too much this year.

Liverpool: Keane was a brilliant signing. Probably the best striker combination in the premier league, with Torres and Keane, they should be scoring a lot more goals and winning a lot more games. Alonso might leave anytime soon, but they have enough depth in the squad to challenge for the title be it in England or in Europe. I hope they play more on the ground and live up to how they look on paper. Top 3 finish in the league and final 8 in the champions league for sure.

Chelsea: What a squad! Great manager! and a drive to win especially since they were so close last year. Deco and Bosingwa are pretty decent signings and they have only lost the old horse Makelele. With probably Robinho joining their ranks, they are my bet for English champions this season, and to have quite a strong Champions League run as well.

Manchester United: Double Champions, it looks like they will have a tough time defending both those crowns. Extremely quiet in the transfer market, with zero sales or buys (although Berbatov might join soon), they are depleted by injuries in the starting part of the season, will hope for their talisman Ronaldo to be back and take them to the heights they achieved last season. I'd say they will fight it hard with Chelsea for the league, and will have a strong European campaign as well.

AC Milan: I hope Ancelotti knows what he is doing with such a glorious club. Random signings like Ronaldinho and nothing to improve their ageing defence. I predict a disaster season for them, be it in the league or in the UEFA Cup.

Inter Milan: As usual, they make many signings in the summer, and seem to have a squad the size of 2 average sized ones. That precisely is their mistake, they have lots of half-stars and they are just not good enough to make it big in the European stage. They might still end up dominating their league and win it just because there is not enough competition.

Worthy Mentions: Juve have a decent team, but it will take time to get back to the heights they are known for. Roma are very unpredictable and can hope for a strong league finish at most. Munich might enter the European fray if they manage to play some decent football with the nice looking squad that they posses. Atletico and Villareal are very nice teams, but I don't think they will proceed very far in the Champions League but will almost surely finish in the top 4 of La Liga again.

Now, it's time to sit back and enjoy one more season of Topsy turvy, unpredictable and the ever so awesome game called football.

Social Networking

Everybody is addicted to these sites nowadays. Actually the peak might have been this time last year. I have known people who used to access Orkut, Facebook and the likes at every given opportunity. These things have become so popular that they are used in the verb form these days. It pains me to hear something like "Dude, I haven't been orkutting at all these days man!" or something to that effect. And when things like this become so popular, the critics start opening their mouths and say a certain aspect sucks about Orkut, and something else about Facebook, and so on. Then there are the people who can't have a life without these things, people who think their love lives can become better through these websites, Shocking? there have actually been success cases! I personally feel these sites are not the worst things to have happened. To be frank, it actually helps you keep in touch with people you normally wouldn't or couldn't have. Funny thing is that these sites are never happy with the way they are. For example, Orkut was a big hit when it started, but slowly Facebook started catching up and Orkut tried to become like Facebook with all sorts of nonsense applications. Now it's Facebook's turn to become simple like Orkut was. This is some sort of a cycle. People will never be pleased with these sites, yet they provide what people need, which is why these sites are the million dollar companies that they are.

Rafa!

Spain now has another Rafa, except he is not Spanish. Although this name is used mainly for Nadal and Benitez in the world of sport, we might soon see it being used for Real Madrid's most recent signing- Rafael Van Der Waart. Rafa was signed from Hamburg for a measly 9 million Euro. For Hamburg this is not too bad a deal, considering if they kept him for one more year, he would have left for a cheap 1.5 million Euro due to a contract clause. Real were constantly in the foray for signing a midfielder this year, but I'm glad it is not Ronaldo. The whole Ronaldo saga has put me off, and thank goodness he will remain remain a Red Devil for at least one more year. Coming back to Rafa, his signing couldn't have been made at a better time for us. Sneijder was the victim of a not so nice tackle from Diaby in a 'friendly' against Arsenal. He remains injured for much lesser than what was expected but three months is still a lot of time. And serious injuries have been known to unsettle players. Now Rafa, at the moment is most likely to take Sneijder's place in the starting lineup, although he is looked at as a long term replacement for Guti. The dutch connection in Real adds one more member. With a midfield that boasts of him,Sneijder when he returns, and the glass-man Robben and Ruud up front, that's pretty scary for oppositions when they click. Rafa can play anywhere in the midfield, be it centre, or on either wings, or even behind the strikers in the 'hole'. Problem arises when Sneijder returns, how will the midfield look? Will Robinho be on the team? We will only have to wait and find out. Apart from his work ethic, accurate long ranged shots, free kicks and great runs from midfield, Van Der Waart also brings another thing to please us Real fans. His bride Sylvie is smoking hot, and will be present at every home game. Yay! (Google her to see what I'm talking about).

War

The war is over and it was stressing physically and mentally. Lots of things could have been different if the approach was a little different. Standards were dropping. The gap was getting closer and closer and finally has been turned upside down. But what's done is done. Have to pick up and grow around this now. Good thing is that how to rectify is known. The master, we are sure has a plan. It needs to be known to the troops for being more effective. Time to nurture troops and plan on new and better strategies and aim to win next time we go to war.