It’s Friday!  To start your weekend off right, and put you in a good mood before the Sporting game, here are some anecdotes from former Real Madrid player Steve McManaman (Macca)’s autobiography, El Macca – I found my copy recently while spring cleaning.  I loved it when I read it the first time, because it gave you a glimpse inside Real Madrid during the years (1999-2003) that Macca played for Madrid.

So I’ll be giving you excerpts on Fridays until I run out of material, and I hope you enjoy these flashbacks!

– “[original] Ronaldo chants words from American rap songs he has made Macca painstakingly transcribe for him on a piece of paper… [Ronaldo says] “I was studying English so I would ask him to translate the lyrics of the rap songs I like.  He would write down the words for me, line by line, on many of our journeys to matches.””

– “Roberto Carlos was… loud in manner and in his lairy Versace clothes.  His style was great: whatever you’d think is naff, he’d think incredibly cool.”

– [Redondo] “had the neatest hair cut in the world… He’d come into work absolutely immaculate.  He’d have the jewelry on, cream everything, the short hair with that precise parting.  He looked like he’d walked out of a fashion show.”

– “But el niño, the kid [Iker Casillas], was not fazed.  He never was.  At the age of sixteen, and a member of the Real B team, he had been eating a sandwich during a school break when a member of Real’s technical staff appeared and asked him to pack his bags: he could be playing in a Champions League game in Norway in forty-eight hours.  ‘Oh sure,’ was his response.  ‘Must finish eating first.’  The official convinced him he was not joking.”