Real Are In Colombia

By: Corey | August 7th, 2008

18 players traveled to Bogota yesterday for Real’s match with Independiente Santa Fe, and they have been staying in Bogotá’s Victoria Regia Hotel. The match is today at the Nemesio Camacho Stadium at 17:30. The match is like every other preseason friendly, so I wont be watching because I am at work, but I am sure a few of our readers from Columbia may be interested in going to the game or catching it on television.

Schuster has taken Dudek, Codina, Salgado, Heinze, Torres, Pepe, Antón, Diarra, Guti, Baptista, Robinho, Robben, Javi García, Raúl, Van Nistelrooy, Saviola, Callejón and Van der Vaart with him. The Euro internationals stayed in Madrid along with Felipe Ramos to do more physical preparation in order to be close to fitness for Tuesdays friendly against Frankfurt, while the injured players were left at home, that includes Higuain. Real trained at night after they touched down, with some 5,000 fans on hand to watch them.

Schuster devised a mild session consisting on jogging, stretching exercises and warm-up work-outs for the players’ cold and exhausted muscles due to the long trip and low Colombian temperatures -10º C-. There was some ball exercises with Schuster participating, and a lot of the focus was on Van der Vaart in only his second training session with the squad. A small training game and then some shots on goal rounded out the session, and before going back inside, the Madridistas had their picture taken with the kids from the Real Madrid Social Integration Academy of Colombia. Raúl and Salgado stayed behind a little longer to thank the fans for their spectacular reception.

All in all, this is more of a ambassador type game then anything. Real Madrid use to have very strong roots in South America, as Don Santiago Bernabeu himself had the team play various friendlies there in the 50’s and 60’s. And of course we have always had very successful South American players in the team, although we have not had a Columbian player in some time.

Raul and Schuster took time out to hold a press conference for the Columbian media. Here is a few of Raul’s Q and A.

How did the city of Bogotá greet you?
I am very grateful for the affection we’ve received from Bogotá’s citizens since the moment we arrived. We were all incredibly surprised after seeing the stands so crowded at the training session. Hopefully there will be a great party atmosphere during the game. We want to pay the fans back for their affection with a good performance.

Were you aware of how highly anticipated the match has been here?
We were, and I have Colombian friends who told me how many devoted Real Madrid fans there were here. However, you don’t quite believe it until you see it.

Would you accept a big offer to end your career at any other club?
It’s hard to say, because the best offer I’m getting is to stay at Real Madrid, and it’s where I feel happy. There are many appealing championships in South America, but I only see myself wearing Real Madrid’s shirt. My dream is to end my career at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

What are your expectations for the game against Independiente Santa Fé?
It is going to be an important event for them, so we hope it turns out to be a challenging game. I’m sure they will be very motivated. We’re still not completely charged up; the trip has been long, but even so, we plan to fight to keep possession and hopefully there will be many goals.

What do you think of Cristiano Ronaldo’s possible signing?
He already said he’s not coming, there’s nothing more to say about it. This is a great team, both on a personal and professional level, therefore capable of achieving all of our goals.

And here are some training pictures: