After a string of awful friendlies that saw our position at the top of the the FIFA ranking slip to second place, and with the rocky divorce between Real Madrid and Barça players over the latest Clásicos to make things even more difficult, the friendly against Chile looked like a pretty good test of character.

Which [...]

The results are in, and Lionel Messi is the winner of the 2010 FIFA Ballon D’Or Award, over Spaniards and World Cup winners Andrés Iniesta and Xavi (with, apparently, 22%, 17% and 16% of the votes, respectively.).

There were SIX (six!) Spanish players in the 2010 Team of the Year: San Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, Gerard [...]

As Nike ads go, this is one is much better than the one where they tried to make amends, recapping Spain’s glorious 2010 (in lots of things, not only football) with LA Laker’s Pau Gasol, ATP No. 1 Rafa Nadal, and, of course, World Cup hero Andrés Iniesta.

It looks as if our World Cup win is still having consequences… the candidates for this years FIFA/France Football awards have just been given, and not only are Xavi and Iniesta in the three-men shortlist for the prestigious Ballon D’Or (alongside Messi), but Our Wise Walrus stands besides José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola in the [...]

“Uh-oh,” a tiny part of my brain thought on Monday evening, in the dying minutes of El Clásico, as the rest of my brain was engaged in going ‘wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’; “I think I just saw Sergio Ramos push Puyol to the ground… and he’s just slapped away Xavi too… man, the next Spain call-up is going [...]

One piece of good news, one piece of bad news…
The bad first: Paul the Octopus has died. The psychic cephalopod to whom many think that Spain owes some of its World Cup success passed into the great ocean in the sky at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium last night, while he slept and dreamt of [...]

Do you think the RFEF has a script for situations like this? It all looked very familiar last night…
La Roja played well, Lithuania defended with 9 men, La Roja missed a lot of chances, Lithuania were saved by the goalpost, La Roja finally scored, Lithuania scored in a counter, La Roja woke up and put [...]

Who are we trying to kid, every loss hurts. Particularly since it’s been a couple of years since Spain lost in a friendly, and the only recent defeats for La Roja were against the USA at the Confed Cup, and against Switzerland on our way to the World Cup.
So yeah, losing against Argentina wasn’t fun.

But [...]

Remember the cursed ‘Write the Future’ Nike ad? The one in which Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Ribèry, Cannavaro and so many others had flattering close-ups and epic slow-mos just before they crashed out of the World Cup? The one in which Piqué, Cesc and Iniesta appeared as frustrated losers for exactly one millisecond?
Nike is [...]

After the euphoria of victory comes the ecstasy of celebration… which, in Spain’s case, means getting drunk and clowning around in planes, buses, and a stage especially designed for the purpose of showing your drunk antics to a screaming crowd (also, putting your foot in your mouth).
So, come in and enjoy a few carefully selected [...]