A FAIR few Irish clubs down the years have been left red-faced ahead of what were supposed to be prestige friendlies when the visiting club finally got around to naming its travelling party.
It’s a measure of just how much money that has been flung about by Real Madrid of late, however, that they could confirm yesterday €100 million worth of talent will remain back at home while still rather comfortably managing to avoid causing any embarrassment to their hosts in Dublin.
The Spaniards (Dutch, Portuguese, Germans, etc) will train for the first time at Carton House near Maynooth this morning without the likes of Kaka, Sergo Ramos, Iker Casillas and Raul Albiol (something of a budget new recruit at just €15 million), all of whom have been allowed some extra rest after taking part in the Confederations Cup.
Cristiano Ronaldo, however, will be among those training at the Co Kildare venue over the coming nine days, as will the likes of Raul, Christoph Metzelder and Karim Benzema.
A string of the visitors may have “For Sale” signs hanging on them as the club looks to recoup some of their massive summer spending and, perhaps, also add Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso to a long list of purchases.
One, Klas Jan Huntelaar, was being linked with a move to Germany yesterday even as he was named in the squad while Ruud van Nistelrooy, Mahamedou Diarra and Arjen Robben are said to be just some of the players available for transfer.
Monday’s game against Shamrock Rovers, of course, is already sold out with only a handful of corporate seats remaining and the organisers of Real’s visit to these shores insisted yesterday that people shouldn’t travel to the club’s Carton House base in the hope of watching training or grabbing a few autographs.
Security, they say, will be tight and access to the squad and its training sessions will be strictly limited.
Back at home in Spain, a couple of those left to rest were apparently handed the task yesterday of dampening the flames of expectation that the summer cheque writing frenzy has generated amongst supporters.
Kaka insisted that the Real Madrid “project” is “very ambitious” but also “very long” which is a view he may find is not shared by some of those he encounters in close proximity to touchlines next season if the team does not hit the ground running.
Iker Casillas, meanwhile, appeared to make the mistake of wondering aloud: “We cannot go from (winning) nothing to everything, can we?” A room full of fans would presumably have chorused back a resounding: “Yes!”
Without giving the assembled journalists a chance to do the same, he continued: “We’ve fallen in the last 16 of the competition (Champions League) for the last five years. It’s clear that the highest hopes of the people who make up this club are for Real Madrid to be in this final, but it’s also clear that we cannot aspire to want everything overnight.”
REAL MADRID(squad): Michael Salgado, Kepler Laverandelima, Fernando Gago, Mahamedou Diarra, Raul, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Marcelo, Antonio, Jose Maria Gutierrez, Royston Drenthe, Gabriel Heinze, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Klas van Huntelaar, Gonzalo Higuain, Christoph Metzelder, Miguel Torres, Rafael Van der Vaart, Javier Garcia, Jerzy Dudek, Karim Benzema, Ezequiel Marcelo Goray, Alvaro Negredo, Agustin Garcia, Miguel Palanca, Marcos Tebar, Tomas Mejias, Javier Velayos, Daniel Parejo
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