Renowed Spanish sports daily Marca has claimed that Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon is set to swoop for Valencia striker Davild Villa in an attempt to bring more of a Spanish flavour to the team...
Spanish sports daily Marca claims that Ramon Calderon is set to launch an audacious bid for Valencia and Spain hitman David Villa.
The young striker arrived at Los Che from Real Zaragoza in 2005 and has already scored more than 50 goals for the Mestalla side in all competitions.
He is widely commended as being one of Europe's top strikers and, while this is a benefit in itself, Marca claims that Calderon sees another boon: he is Spanish.
Calderon, then, is said to be eager to add a more homegrown identity to his multinational troops, and sees Villa as an ideal way of doing that without in any way sacrificing team quality (indeed, he could very well boost it.)
Valencia have yet to comment on the speculation, but it's already known that the young striker has a minimum release clause of 150 million euros.
With Madrid having spent 120 million euros on a set of players this summer, Calderon, then, may have to exceed this figure next year to land just the one.
The fact that it is Marca that published the story is curious. The top-selling Spanish sports daily this week had a falling-out with Mr. Calderon, who urged his Real Madrid henchmen to boycott the annual Marca party.
This decision was not shared by all at the club, but both sporting director Pedja Mijatovic and coach Bernd Schuster did not attend.
Despite their protestations to the contrary, Calderon's decree was seemingly met with just a hint of bitterness by Marca themselves, perhaps due to these aforementioned absences.
Nonetheless, perhaps any connection between this story and that unfortunate incident remains entirely coincidental
