Albiol in…Marchena or Puyol Out.

First, just want to say I’m back blogging for the first time in over a month. It was honestly good to get away for a while. Sometimes you just run out of steam and now I’m ready for Spain to win the Euros. And I’ve been given a grant to go to Catalonia to take a Catalan class, so it looks like I’ll be there for the Euro Semi-Finals!! God willing.

Today in AS the discussion focused on the addition to the starting 11 of Valencinista Raul Albiol, who Cesar would know better than all of us. The question now is for who? The back duo of Marchena and Puyol is giving Aragonés some doubts as of late, especially with Marchena’s big mistake in the 2-1 win against Peru.

With all this talk about Albiol entering into the list against the United States, he had this to say about his La Furia teammate.

“No se puede culpar a Marchena de nada. Esas cosas pasan en el fútbol, más vale eso que tener un fallo de colocación, que eso sí es más difícil de corregir. Estoy aquí para ayudar al equipo, ya sea dentro del campo o fuera, e intentar aprovechar los minutos que me dé el entrenador, como todos. Si no juego, a apoyar a mis compañeros, respetarlos y estar con ellos a muerte, porque nos jugamos muchísimo y tenemos todos la misma ilusión, que es hacer un gran campeonato. Me considero un defensa más, no sé si el tercero o el cuarto. Afronto esta Eurocopa con la misma ilusión que el resto, aquí vamos todos en la misma dirección”.

Basically, for lack of translation, he doesn’t blame Marchena for his mistake and says that ‘things like that happen in soccer.’ And that if he doesn’t play, he will be supporting his teammates and be with them until death.

A stand up guy, not throwing his teammate under the bus. But, that doesn’t solve the problem for Puyol or Marchena. As Luis is still tinkering with the squad, we will see on Wednesday who he puts into the squad, but as of now, it’s still a guessing game.

Who do you think it should be? Should Albiol be given his chance,or should it still be Puyol and Marchena in the back?