This week Hannah and Armando talk about Kaka to Manchester City, trouble at Real Madrid and trouble at Espanyol. Get the whole episode here, direct download here or subscribe in iTunes.

Now don’t cut my head off if this report just happens to resurrect itself in a few weeks with the transfer window closing around then and this whole Kaka business, of him going to Manchester City for 100 million pounds returns to the English ragsheets, but as of right now the deal is off.

Ricky will get to kiss his Milan badge again, the ultra hunger-strikes can be called off and Silvio Berlusconi can replaster his ear to ear grin on again even though we all know that he would have welcomed a 100 million pound injection of cash. Milan need the money, I know that, and they certainly need to retool their team, but losing arguably their best player and a poster-boy for the Milan cause once Paolo Maldini finally decides to go to stud, is not the right answer.

Manchester City on the other hand, while misfiring for the Balon d’or moon, have instead continued to land another round of over-priced, laughably untalented British players like Scott Parker, Wayne Bridge and Craig Bellamy. The newspapers will no doubt blame iton  Kaka’s lack of ambition, or some very personal or religious reasons why staying in Milan might be more attractive to the Brazilian than joining  the second team in Manchester might. They might even blame the Citizen’s lack of current or historic form or they might even blame Sparky’s problems with the Brazilian contingent already at City. Once the fervor dies down though, you might start to see another round of the same sort of nonsense, this time directed not at Ricky Kaka but at others in his ability range: Cristiano Ronaldo, Kun Aguero, Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovich amongst others. What they won’t understand is that Kaka, nor any of these others will go to England to play in their prime.

The fact is, since the inception of the English Premier League, there have been only 4 Ballon D’or winners who have played in England. 2 came out of the youth ranks of Manchester United and Liverpool (Cristiano Ronaldo and Michael Owen) and 2 others came to England well past their prime (George Weah and Andriy Shevchenko who both played for Chelsea).  Italian clubs had 8 winners during that time while Spanish clubs had 6. Only Jean-Pierre Papin for Marseilles and Matthias Sammer for Dortmund played elsewhere and while they both left their respected clubs they eventually played for one of the black striped clubs in Milano.

History is telling us something that well know but are ignoring. Players come to England for the money, for that one last paycheck to end their careers, but if they’re looking for glory at the height of their abilities, they will move to Italy or Spain.

Links

Heads or TailsLa suerte del Fútbol... ¿está echada?

Hay Liga–La Liga in English
The best of Spanish Football in English

Spanish Football & Sports
Striker's Blog on the best of the Spanish Primera Division

Atletico de Madrid

Atlético de Madrid
Our friend Leni's Mad love for Atletico Mdrid. The Love that hurts

All About FC Barcelona
A blog dedicated to the most prestigious club in the world
FC Barcelona
Blaugrana passion, great football

All In White
Real Madrid Football Club
The Real Liga
Everything Real about Madrid
Real Madrid Spanish La Liga Football Blog - Real Madrid
The Offside Real Madrid Blog by one of our listeners: Corey

RCD Espanyol USA
Mando's Blog on all things RCD Espanyol!!! In English

Real Sociedad News

Sevilla La Liga Blog - Sevilla
Ryan's Sevilla Blog on the Offsides. Another great friend of the show.

Valencia Spanish Football Blog - Valencia
Cesar's Valencia Blog for the Offsides.

After a contentious two years in control at Real Madrid today club President Ramon Calderon has relinquished control to former vice-president Vicente Boluda. Calderon had come under increasing fire this week after reports linking him with voter fraud during a club General Assembly meeting on December 7th. He survived the vote of no-confidence but an investigation revealed that he had used "bused-in" ultra groups to intimidate current members and had even gone as far as to use non-members to rig the vote in his favor. Now everyone is calling on the club to move forward and call a general election to find his permanent successor, but no one should have been surprised. There were signs even from the beginning.

During the 2006 election there were reports that whole blocks of mail-in votes were ignored and that allowed him to squeek past his opponents and seize control of the club. It seemed even then that his hold on the club was tenuous at best. He hired an experienced coach in Capello who had already had a tempestuous reign a decade earlier in Madrid, gave him an inexperienced Sporting Director in Peja Mijatovic, and walked around with the wide-eyed look of a deer in headlights. Calderon was surprised that Capello, noted for his no-nonsense approach to club management and often dour tactics, brought a similar mentality to the capital and almost immediately wanted him gone calling for excitement to return to the Bernabeu. Capello, rather than taking the bait and leaving back to Italy, circled the wagons and won the League again for los blancos stopping only to flip a bird at club leadership. The fiasco of volatile ex-coach Bernt Schuster's hiring and firing, well I won't even get into that. Anyone who expected anything less of the German doesn't remember him as a player, but isn't it remarkable that his tenure in office, so tainted by his last few weeks in office, seems pale in comparison with that of his boss in hindsight?

Calderon and his underlings were inept in the transfer market. His usual response to bringing in new players was, "Well, we have tons to spend, let's have it on then!" and then he'd be surprised why other clubs negotiated higher with Madrid than any other club. The transfers he presided over were either haphazard (securing Rafael Van der Vaart even though Wesley Snejder was already on the club and was too similar a player), poorly thought-out (Javier Saviola on a free was no bargain at all), and often lacked coordination with the needs of the squad (losing Robinho after publicly courting Cristano Ronaldo as his replacement and then not having a plan B after that fell through was almost criminal) and it directly led to Schuster's firing. The most glaring mistake though was one more recent. Seeking to replace the season ending injuries to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Mamadou Diarra the club sought a quick fix in Ajax striker Klaus Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra from Portsmouth. No one bothered to notice that both players were cup tied to their former clubs and only one of them would be allowed to play for los blancos in Europe.

The rest is history, and speaking of which, some of our listeners have asked how Calderon's term should be remembered, whether for the comeback under Capello, league wins in key games against derby rivals, and the two consecutive Primera Liga titles, or for another incident during that tenure, of a trip to New York when was detained for hours by the authorities who mistook him for a criminal. Right now, not many of us are thinking of the former.

After a contentious two years in control at Real Madrid today club President Ramon Calderon has relinquished control to former vice-president Vicente Boluda. Calderon had come under increasing fire this week after reports linking him with voter fraud during a club General Assembly meeting on December 7th. He survived the vote of no-confidence but an investigation revealed that he had used "bused-in" ultra groups to intimidate current members and had even gone as far as to use non-members to rig the vote in his favor. Now everyone is calling on the club to move forward and call a general election to find his permanent successor, but no one should have been surprised. There were signs even from the beginning.

During the 2006 election there were reports that whole blocks of mail-in votes were ignored and that allowed him to squeek past his opponents and seize control of the club. It seemed even then that his hold on the club was tenuous at best. He hired an experienced coach in Capello who had already had a tempestuous reign a decade earlier in Madrid, gave him an inexperienced Sporting Director in Peja Mijatovic, and walked around with the wide-eyed look of a deer in headlights. Calderon was surprised that Capello, noted for his no-nonsense approach to club management and often dour tactics, brought a similar mentality to the capital and almost immediately wanted him gone calling for excitement to return to the Bernabeu. Capello, rather than taking the bait and leaving back to Italy, circled the wagons and won the League again for los blancos stopping only to flip a bird at club leadership. The fiasco of volatile ex-coach Bernt Schuster's hiring and firing, well I won't even get into that. Anyone who expected anything less of the German doesn't remember him as a player, but isn't it remarkable that his tenure in office, so tainted by his last few weeks in office, seems pale in comparison with that of his boss in hindsight?

Calderon and his underlings were inept in the transfer market. His usual response to bringing in new players was, "Well, we have tons to spend, let's have it on then!" and then he'd be surprised why other clubs negotiated higher with Madrid than any other club. The transfers he presided over were either haphazard (securing Rafael Van der Vaart even though Wesley Snejder was already on the club and was too similar a player), poorly thought-out (Javier Saviola on a free was no bargain at all), and often lacked coordination with the needs of the squad (losing Robinho after publicly courting Cristano Ronaldo as his replacement and then not having a plan B after that fell through was almost criminal) and it directly led to Schuster's firing. The most glaring mistake though was one more recent. Seeking to replace the season ending injuries to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Mamadou Diarra the club sought a quick fix in Ajax striker Klaus Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra from Portsmouth. No one bothered to notice that both players were cup tied to their former clubs and only one of them would be allowed to play for los blancos in Europe.

The rest is history, and speaking of which, some of our listeners have asked how Calderon's term should be remembered, whether for the comeback under Capello, league wins in key games against derby rivals, and the two consecutive Primera Liga titles, or for another incident during that tenure, of a trip to New York when was detained for hours by the authorities who mistook him for a criminal. Right now, not many of us are thinking of the former.

This week’s episode of Forza Futbol we talk about last weeks action. We also bring you an interview with Tim Vickery. Get the whole episode here, direct download here or subscribe in iTunes.

This week on Forza Futbol Mando and Hannah are joined by Gene and Kevin in a Serie A Round Table. Together we discuss what is going on in the world of Serie A. Get the whole episode here.