One good thing about club football is that the excitement never stops with the on-field action. That too, not with a team called Real Madrid around. The era of the Galacticos is underway. The most exciting thing is imagining the team that will take the field for Real, and who all will be warming on the bench. It takes more than just thinking to imagine players like Robben, Sneijder and co sitting in the benches. But what great thing it would be for those determined enough to stay up at 1am and watch La Liga (im not included sadly) to see two former world player of the years, Kaka and Ronaldo play alongside each other. And other than this it could've also been Franck Ribery and David Villa joining them. It had to take Villa to specifically state that he will go nowhere, and if at all, only to join his mate at Anfield.
Tempers started running high between the opposite ends of El Classico with someone cheeky enough in Real to say that European Champions Barcelona will now fear Real. And then comes Xavi Hernandez stating that Barca will never be interested in Ronaldo because ' we are hardworking, loyal individuals, and dont fill pages of gossip magazines but Ronaldo is uncontrollable'. Barcelona did their bit of wooing too, albeit lesser names - Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano and Cesc Fabregas. The Liverpool duo's move is being resisted by Rafael Benitez. But the Arsenal star created resentment at Emirates by making public his views about Arsenal's incapability and impotency at winning trophies and he wanted to look for greener pastures. And the very next day he denies those claims but Barcelona pushed their luck talking about how Barca is in Fabregas's blood.
Inter Milan and Jose Mourinho are having their days in the news too. With top clubs - Barcelona and Chelsea having their eye on Zlatan Ibrahamovich, Inter did tough business. To Chelsea it was to cost Ricardo Carvalho, Didier Drogba and Anderson Deco ( Carvalho meanwhile cried about the lack of support he got during his injured days, and Deco has had a bad time too at Chelsea) mainly because Jose wanted his proteges back. Then after Chelsea's reluctance to sell any of their players, a price of 90m was slapped on Zlatan. Also on Jose's wishlist was Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor, who keeps singing the 'I'm a happy gunner' song. Jose is also keeping busy to stave off bids put for Brazilian full-back Maicon and former Pompy, Sally Muntari.
But you can never keep Manchester away from the spotlight (City too included this time). To start with, Manchester United is the club Ronaldo left for Real Madrid because he 'achieved all i can at ManU'. Sir Alex wished him luck and wasted no time in signing Wigan's Antonio Valencia. Though a good player, ManU fans will take a while to get adjusted with him after enjoying Ronaldo's heroics in that position. And then relegated Newcastle's striker Michael Owen was happy to join United. Carlos Tevez was fuming in the corner over the lack of attention at Old Trafford, listing out all the mistakes made by Sir Alex with him starting from his lack of communication. It resulted him in moving to rivals Manchester City who want to really boost their squad. Already joined with City are Aston Villa's Gareth Barry, and Parguaian Striker from Blackburn, Roque Santa Cruz. City also want to rope in Liasao on Robinho's recommendation and Samuel Eto'o.
There is so much movement in the market except to one place - North London. Arsene Wenger is happy to just extend the contracts of Ramsey and Wilshere. So the biggest thing to look out for at the season start is whether Real Madrid actually realise the worth of their spending and whether Arsenal rue their miserliniess (assuming no big players are bought till the end).
