<![CDATA[“C” is for…]]>… Cristiano (both of them), the cantera and Codina!

One. Cristiano is not the only one making headlines, the adorable and quite chubby Cristiano Jr. is as well!  As you know, he made his first appearance at a Real Madrid game (that we know of) on Wednesday against Auxerre, and Cris dedicated his goal to his son.  Here are some pictures of his little pride and joy (no, not Marcelo).  Head over here to see the rest of the pictures and here to see a video!

Now, some of you have noted that mini Cris’ jacket looks a lot like the one his dad wore here.  But I think it looks more like something someone else once wore…

Two. Cristiano also sent out some tweets yesterday, and these were the nice ones, where he praised his teammates and congratulated his future co-in-law Kaká for news that he’s expecting a daughter.  Cristiano wrote, I hope to meet her soon to start planning the wedding.

Three. Meanwhile, Castilla held their Christmas dinner yesterday, at Di María De María.  The entire squad and coaching staff were there, as well as Miguel Pardeza and Ramón Martínez.

You should at least be able to spot those players who have debuted this season or spent the pre-season with the big boys, namely Pablo Sarabia, Álex and Nacho Fernández, Juan Carlos and Juanfran.

Bonus points if you also recognize the likes of Daniel Carvajal, Mandi and Joselu!

Four. Speaking of the cantera, here is a nice video of the debuts of Adán and Pablo from Wednesday.  In it, we get to see Pepe encouraging Adán, Jerzy turning his cheek away from Adán’s kiss (because it was aimed at the part of his face with the fractured bone), Pepe (the official canterano cheerleader, it appears) pouring water on Pablo’s head while also embracing MFC, and the hug between MFC and Pablo.

Sarabia said that Pepe, Marcelo and Cristiano helped him the most on Wednesday, and that he’ll keep and frame his shirt from the debut.

Five. And one ex-canterano and twitter master Jordi Codina, took to the microblogging site to congratulate Adán and commiserate with Dudek.

Left: Dudek has such bad luck!  I just read that [most people] would be out for six weeks… I hope he recovers before that!  Right:  Congratulations to Adán for his debut in an official game!  It’s a shame that it was due to the misfortune of a teammate…

Six. And staying on the subject of the cantera, Madrid posted an inspirational (I think that’s the angle they’re going for) video showing the similarities between their youth players and the first team.  The best parts are seeing the younger versions of the likes of current first team canteranos Iker, Mateos and Esteban Granero.

At present, there are 13 teams (Castilla; Real Madrid C; Juvenil A, B and C; Cadete A and B; Infantil A and B; Alevín A and B and Benjamín A and B) with 278 budding footballers.

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