Spanish Clubs

If you played sports while growing up, there is a good chance that you had that one friend (hopefully that was you), who was miles ahead of the other kids in terms of skill.

That kid who would nutmeg everybody while playing around with the soccer ball, cross people over and leave them on the floor on the basketball court, or even juke you out of your shoes in a pickup football game. We all went through something like that at some point of our sporting careers.

January has arrived and with it the opening of the winter transfer window. The new economic realities of the Premier League television contracts mean that small English clubs have the financial muscle to meet and outbid offers from established European clubs.

You know you are a good team when your opponents have to resort to stomping on your best player and saying horrifically offensive things to you. Luckily for world-beating Barcelona, its opponent in this case received two red cards for its actions, although you could argue it should have been more. 

S*** really hit the fan during Barcelona and Espanyol’s Copa del Rey match, and Luis Suarez talking trash played no small part.

It has been roughly 24 hours since the final whistle blew and ever news outlet with at least a passing focus on football is printing various quotes from the post-game interviews, dissecting the official match report, and lip reading what the stars said during the match.

Social media is filled with salty Barcelona fans, gloating Barcelona fans, and people dissing Espanyol (sorry Espanyol, but your fan base is simply dwarfed by Barcelona’s).

It’s unlikely to have escaped your attention that earlier this week Real Madrid appointed club legend and archetypal galactico Zinedine Zidane as their new manager.

Lionel Messi apparently gets under his rivals' skin. I suppose being ridiculously good will do that. 

Yesterday in the Copa del Rey against Espanyol, Messi scored an absolutely absurd free kick. Espanyol keeper Pau Lopez set up his wall perfectly, positioned himself perfectly, and reacted to it perfectly, but was still left grasping for air as the kick sailed through the air, off the crossbar, and down in the the goal. 

Commenting on Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid great Alfredo Di Stéfano once said, “he dominates the ball, he is a walking spectacle and he plays as if he had silk gloves on each foot.” Zidane, World Cup, European Championship and UEFA Champions League winner, took a little time out of his day to effectively demonstrate these observations on some unsuspecting French amateurs.

Although, during the last six weeks of 2015, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said he supported the permanence of Rafa Benitez as coach his club, just four days into 2016 Perez changed his mind. Now Zinedine Zidane is the new man in charge of Los Blancos.

So, The18 presents 18 facts about the life of Zidane, a former excellent player who is beginning his coaching career in a difficult moment for Real Madrid. If he fails will be Benitez and Perez’s fault, but any positive result would be his individual achievement.

On his way to a recent Real Madrid training, James Rodriguez reportedly led police on a 125 m.p.h. car chase, for whatever reason. This got us thinking about car chases, which, naturally, led to us thinking about The Fast and the Furious.

The we thought it would be fun to compare Real Madrid players to Fast and the Furious characters. So that's what we did.

After the rumours spread throughout the past weeks, the call has been made: Rafa Benítez is reportedly no longer Real Madrid’s coach after a draw in Mestalla.