Training, FIFA Best Shortlist, International Duty & More

Nice little victory yesterday, no?  And Courtois got his debut! I’m not complaining about winning our first three games at all. Let’s keep it up.

Training

The team had their first training of the week, minus the players called up for international duty (more on that in the next section). Vallejo did the first part of the training with the team before moving on to individual work. Javi Sánchez, Zabarte, Martín and Ayoub of Castilla were called up for the session. (Video)

FIFA Best Awards

There’s a very familiar short list for the FIFA Best Men’s Player 2018: Lukita, CR7 and Mo Salah. Will Lukita take it again? Stay tuned. The announcement will take place at a gala in London on September 24th.

International Duty

Thirteen Blancos have been called up for national team duty (Iist of matches): Sergio Ramos, Nacho, Dani Carvajal, Isco, Asensio and Ceballos (Spain), Varane (France), Courtois (Belgium), Toni Kroos (Germany), Lukita (Croatia), Casemiro (Brazil) and Federico Valverde (Uruguay).

And you be going “WHO?” when you get to the last name: Valverde played for Castilla (2016-2017) and then spent last year on loan to Deportivo. He came back this year and impressed Julen who promoted him to the first team.

Speaking of the first team, can we just for a second talk about how sexy Isco’s roulette turn was in the game on Saturday? I gave the most girly squeal, totally embarrassing myself. Thankfully, I was watching from my couch.

While training will continue with the interntionals gone, we won’t actually have our next game until September 15th vs. Atleti. Yep, it’s already time for El Derbi Madrileño. Did you guys see the smackdown Celta gave Atleti this weekend? Dang. After that we start our Champions League campaign against Roma on September 19th.

– Lozil