Juanfran available for Barça clash

Incredible to remember he wasn’t a full back until Simeone showed up.

@will….
It was Manzano who started used him as a right back, not Simeone:)
Before Atleti he was a right winger and not a really good one.

What better news to read right after coming home! Neymar or whoever is going to be there is basically f*k*ed. Sorry, Barca. Forza Atleti!

Like I said before the yellow Juanfran got against Malaga wasn’t justified. Good to see the comittee reviewing these claims properly. Makes you wanna believe there’s still some justice in the world…

Come to think of it, there’s no way the club would splash out the money like that, unless Mendes is involved in it somehow…

There’s been a rumor that Cerezo is interested in swaping Costa for Mata. If that happens then Raul Garcia should be trained to be another costa. However, I don’t see any room of credibility of the mentioned news since we don’t have a reasonable wage budget for Mata. Any thought?

@urban…
It will be foolish to buy one of yilmaz, mitroglou, osvaldo i don’t see that happen…. If Costa leave and we bring Mata (i think that if this trade will happen TC will be on it) then we will probably play a 4-5-1 with Mata, Arda and Koke at the mid and Villa or Garcia front

@urban…. yes he can be a false 9 and that’s with what we will play… I dissagree with you about Villa, i belive he will shine as a lone striker…. Even if you don’t want them and let’s say we had did the trade we will be able to sell roberto and maybe not keep villa so we will have space for a striker with some money from CL maybe Benteke?

@Will : how could you forget who was the one dreaming about signing Mohammed Salah ?!
it was me .. come on man, I’m the only Egyptian here !

and Paulo : you were right
I remember that you said that the only reason the ref showed Jaunfran the yellow card is that Malaga fans asked him to do so !

and if you was referring to me with your question :
“how likely is it that a young star from Egypt will choose Atleti over those famous premier league teams”
although I didn’t post a comment before yours (actually no other Ahmad did !)

but anyway, if you meant me, I actually answered that in a previous comment in a previous post couple of days ago,
I said : we can never match the big salaries the EPL teams are paying, or the glory and the prestige of their competition,
but there are two things could seduce Salah to join us :
1- our promising sport project 2- the opportunity to play against Real & Barca at least twice a season and to play at Santiago Bernabeu & Camp Nou (which is a big deal and beautiful dream for many Egyptians and many Arab players

and now I can think of third reason :
with us he can be pretty sure that he will have a full chance and will play almost all the possible minutes
while in Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and even Spurs, it’s very crowded, and he can sit on the bench in several occasions .. something I personally heard him say that he totally refuse
he even said that he prefers to play regularly with a mid-table team than to sit on the bench of the best team in the world

I believe Atleti have a good chance to sign Salah if they really want him,
but the thing is : I don’t think they really do !

@ahmad… I didn’t really remembered how many games Juanfran played with Manzano as a right back I thought they were more, I really remember tha game against Granada and Albazete(how I can forget it).. By the way, Silvio is still ours:P

@Ahmad Hossainy: Yeah, I forgot to type in your last name so maybe it was confusing. (Btw. I can’t think of any other Ahmad posting here)
Anyway, I meant you ’cause you’ve been “marketing” Mohammed Salah here for a long time and you are his compatriot, so you probably know a little bit about his personal views, what’s he saying in the local media and so on…

And I think you answered my question thorougly enough, thank you.

I know just a little about Egyptian football, but I can imagine the EPL has better tv-coverage there, as the thing is usually with most arab countries. That’s why I wrote that the chances of Salah coming to atleti are thin, ’cause if they doesn’t see any games or know what the team and the culture is all about, why would anybody choose atleti over these famous and rich premier league teams…

I hope it changes, though, ’cause Atleti needs players who can appreciate a “promising sport project” which aims to overthrow the empire of the Barca and Real and bring Atlético back to its former glory, a unbeliavably devoted coach, the best fans in the world and the passion that Atlético de Madrid epitomizes.
Atlético needs players, who admire and appreciate Spanish Football.
I mean the culture, the art of tiki-taka, the heat, the crowd giving their all and the atmospheric games played at night giving the team spirit, theatrics and the immense talent of the great players even more spectacular proportions.
I’m sure that’s one of the reasons there are and always has been so many South American players in La Liga, ’cause they can feel it, you know.

In EPL, these things rarely co-exist even though there are lots of other positives to be found, but the culture and the way the game is played, it’s just different.
I hate the idea of players using Atleti as a stepping stone, so if somebody desires for the EPL, I hope they never come to Atleti.

Thank you Pantic & Will and all of you guys for you kind words
I write the same thing I wrote here in Arabic in other blogs and websites, but I never hear these words
And that’s what makes this blog very special, and what make you guys real friends, although we don’t know each other personally

@Piserakos : yes, Silvio is still an Atleti player .. but I guess he won’t be for too long
with Juanfran, Manquillo and even Toby who can play as a right back, he doesn’t have a place with us
But I wish we can sell him at least with the same number we bought him with :
7 million
that money could help us in our mission impossible : buying Courtios !
I think he worth that number -maybe more- but he has a very bad weakness that could low his price : he is an injury-prone

@Paulo : I believe I have seen another Ahmad commenting here before, I think he was from Kuwait

anyway, I’m glad that I answered your question

and I will try to tell you more about Egyptian football and Egyptian fans :
” this is gonna be a little long .. sorry Will 😉 ”

Here we have a unique and weird situation :
people here are mostly EPL fans .. and Real & Barca fans !
I am also like that .. the only football I watch is Atleti games, Egypt national team games and EPL (any game, even Stoke vs Swansea .. there is no bad games there)

but although people here are divided between Real & Barca, there are a good number who love Valencia, especially the generation who witnessed the golden age of El Che with Rafa Benitez

and the same thing is happening now with Atleti
people have started to love the club that resurrected La Liga after its death
the poor club who is fighting the billionaires
some people here see Atleti as a Spanish version of Al-Ismaily, the poor Egyptian
club who is in an unfair fight against the two giants : Al-Ahly and Al-Zamalek
and they still can win trophies from them
nobody in Egypt can hate Al-Ismaily .. not even the fans of the opponent clubs

Also, many Egyptians know and love Simeone, not just Simeone the coach, but also Simoene the player, because just like they are divided between Real & Barca, they are also divided between Brasil & Argentina, and they have watched Simeone many times with his National team

and that brings me to my other point and the other thing you wondered about :
The Traditions

The truth is that in traditions, Egyptian football are very similar to the Latin football
Especially the big four Latins : Brasil, Argentina, Italy and Spain

we play beautiful football rather that tactical football (maybe that’s why we didn’t qualify to The World Cup since 1990)

every thing you mentioned we have it here,
the atmospheric games, the passion, the team spirit
and the ultras, who sadly are very radicals that sometimes they kill each others
just like what happened in Port Said Massacre !

so I think the player who fits in a league in which the fans kill each others can fit anywhere else
this is so true as much as it is sad !

only the language make the EPL easier for Egyptian players to fit
but the Spanish is not that difficult language for Arabs to learn
there are too many Arabic words in Spanish
After all, The Arabs (or to be more accurate : The Muslims, from several races but with one official language, Arabic) have ruled a big part of Spain for more than 800 years,
That time they called it “Al-Andalus” .. from which came the Spanish word : “Andalusia”

Speaking of learning new things Kris, here is an interesting article I read last night about Raul Garcia ..

http://futbol.as.com/futbol/2014/01/09/primera/1389233353_619705.html

Honestly, I was surprised by many of the informations and statistics on it

RG8 -who played his 250th game with Atleti against Valencia in the cup- is the 3rd Atleti player with the most games in UEFA Champions League (19) .. after both :
Luis Aragonés (20) and Adelardo (21)

so he just needs 3 more games to be the Atleti player with most games in UCL

but although it’s surprising for me, it totally makes sense ..
we missed UCL for a very long time, and we used to change almost all of our squad every 3 or 4 years !

But 21 games for Atleti most capped player in UCL is a very embarrassing number
but it’s going to increase too much in the next years
I believe in 2015-16, all our starters will pass that number

Back to Raul Garcia,
He is also the 2nd Atleti player with most games in Europa League (32)
just one game behind Perea (33)

And in all UEFA competitions, he is the 3rd most capped Atleti player with 55 games,
after Perea (56) and Adelardo (66)

Although he is just 27, and despite that many fans don’t like or appreciate him
but with all means, Raul Garcia is already an Atleti Legend

So happy abut RG8! those are BIG numbers.
1 day. only 1 day.
My fellow rojiblancos..i’m waiting for this day since the doblete.
The starter 11 should be, from what i read on Marca:
Courtois
Juanfran – Godin – Miranda – Filipe
Koke – Gabi – Tiago – Arda
Costa – Villa

Epic team. for an epic victory.

@Paulo: i study near ancient est writings too: akkadian, sumeric, egyptians…! Interesting, we have more than Atleti in Common 😉

I’m interested in Ahmad point of view of his country too, because here in Italy we have the best disinformation media of the world…

I don’t like to talk about politics here .. but also I can’t ignore a fellow rojiblanco
so, Adnan, in few words :
I’m not a member of the Muslin Brotherhood .. didn’t even vote for them in any elections, except for president Morsi (only in the final round, when it was between him and Ahmad Shafiq, a member of Mubarak’s regime)

but I am against the bloody coup, I am against what are they doing to the MB members .. in fact, a friend of mine and one of my neighbours were killed by the coup authorities while they were peacefully protesting

Morsi and his people “Muslim Brotherhood” and his party “Freedom and Justice” have made many mistakes in his one year of presidency
but what the generals of the army, led by Sisi doing right now are crimes against humanity

and they will be punished .. sooner or a later

just like what is happening now with Pakistan’s coup leader and former dictator Pervez Musharraf
and from your name “Adnan Khan”, I guess you are from there .. or from some their neighbour countries like India or Bangladesh

I am so sorry for talking about politics here .. but I hate to not answer a question from a friend

and all that interest and curiosity about Egypt make happy and proud

http://imgur.com/8N57j64

Arijit, what Costa is showing the amount of goals he will score tomorrow vs Barcelona and what the score is going to be. Club Atletico de Madrid 2-0 FC Barcelona. Aupa Atleti!

I think it could end with a tie or a stunning victory for us: 2-0 or even 3-0
this is it
It’ Time to fly high 😉
We must win tonight to have a chance for win la Liga.

Guys imagine if we’re still close to barca on May? Last match at the camp nou!