Village Idiot

Xavi covers far more ground than Pirlo since he uses short passing instead of long range, and this has enabled Pirlo to age better hanging around the midfield line while Xavi has noticed more the decline of his athleticism. Pirlo is probably a bit better right now because of that, but I'd take Xavi in both their primes.

Navas already done more in 5 minutes than Silva in 50.

Pedro switched sides with Silva, should make our wings more balanced.

Italy are reading the game well, sitting deep and using their long range passers to mount great counters. Fun game so far.

Ah, do the hard part, miss the easy part. Typical Torres.

For some reason, VDB just doesn't fancy Mata. Never got a good go at the NT despite his form since moving to England.

The exact date is usually announced just a few weeks before the fact. but it's usually always around the end of July, might be earlier this year due to the World Cup.

Soldado's injured and Villa is a winger for VDB.

Well, Alonso did his groin and missed through injury, so it's sort of forced. He could've introduced Martínez alongside Busquets, though.

Mid-late July usually.

I always preferred Spain to play with only one DM, we're just more entertaining, if not so rock solid (something like 4 goals conceded in official tournaments since VDB took over?)

Brazil crowds have hated on us the whole tournament

Iniesta

Courtois is far too good. He will keep Chelsea's goal for years.

Happens all the time, injuries to Márquez and Milito made Piqué a first team regular.

No, but he's still 18. I don't think he'll make it myself, however. Prototypical example of player that scored 200000000000000000 goals at youth level due to his athleticism but isn't good enough for the real stuff. Samper has been promoted to our B team this year, incidentally. He's been my favorite prospect for years, dying to see if he can cut it at a professional level.

Our media are running with it too, citing Le Parisien.

In Spain quite often (Atlético de Madrid and Espanyol do it a lot) funds will pony up part of the transfer fee in exchange of a % of the players' rights.

It's not the players' fault a lot of times. Clubs will sell a % of the rights to private individuals/funds in exchange of financing.

It would be a mistake if we loaned him to you, too much competition and we need him to play, not look good in a historic shirt. The Swansea and Everton links make much more sense though. Him training under Laudrup

Apparently, it was the same newspaper the one that claimed that Being a Barça newspaper, they probably consider everything outside CL places "lower half".

Swansea, Everton and Liverpool named as the clubs interested in loaning Deulofeu, according to "Mundo Deportivo". Can't see Liverpool being interested in yet another wing forward/attacking mid

It's like your scouting team is the French version of MON, or a MON from a parallel universe where England won the Hundred Year War.

And Del Bosque http://www.marca.com/2013/06/26/en/football/national_teams/1372270490.html

From an interview over at fifa.com. Poor lad, Mou probably beat him up after training :'(