It is still three months away before this years FIFA GOLDEN BALL winner is decided & announced. The Marketing Machine has its motor running with full gas as a string of comments have been made public by Football personalities & media with their opinions on who deserves the prize. Real Madrid Coach José Mourinho gave his opinion that the winner should be Wesley Sneijder, Manchester United Coach Alex Ferguson supports Diego Milito, FC Barcelona player & candidate Xavi supports Lionel Messi while sources inside UEFA & FIFA are said to like Diego Forlan.
Spanish Sporting paper "Marca" didn´t want to miss the predicting party & did an online survey which managed a participation rate of 23.000 readers during the 12 hours that the voting was open. The final results are as seen below:
Who do you think should be this years FIFA Golden Ball winner?
The SPANISH NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM , & current FIFA World Champion, kicks off tonight its defence of the European Champions title won back in 2008 with its first Group game qualifier away against LIECHTENSTEIN. The Group is made up of other teams like Scotland, Lithuania & Czech Rep all playing for spots in the 2012 Euro Championships to be held in Poland/Ukraine.
In theory Spain should not have any problems tonight nor in qualifying in their Group, but just in case, Coach Vicente del Bosque has asked for maximum concentration & goals as the latter could be the key at the end of the qualifiers. 
Observers are speculating with the starting teams, which could naturally change at the last moments. Below is the rumoured SPANISH NATIONAL TEAM starting line-up against Liechtenstein, with a speculated home team line-up added below as well:
Spain: Casillas, Capdevila, Marchena, Piqué, Ramos, X. Alonso, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Torres & Villa.
Liechtenstein: Jehle, Oehri, Stocklasa Martin, Stocklasa Michael, Elia, Büchel, Polverino, Vogt, Frick, Burgmeier & Hasler.
I will be out tonight on personal affairs & will post a summary of the match Saturday morning.
The endeavour is a difficult one. Attempt to finish second in its Group (4) & hope that they – the SPANISH U 21 NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM – are amongst the 4 Best 2ºnd placed teams to go into the elimination phase against the Group winners for the London Olympic Games.
First step conquered tonight as SPAIN defeated group leaders HOLLAND 2-1 with a grand performance from Real Madrid youngster SERGIO CANALES who served from midfield & scored first in the 25th min to put Spain ahead. The Dutch team who are leaders for a reason equalized 5 minutes later via DOST who was quick when the ball came off the post. However, this match was a Final for Spain & they managed to get ahead again in the 53ºrd min via CAPEL.
Spain could have scored another but Bojan missed a penalty opportunity.
Spain now has another “Final” against Poland on the 7th Sept in a must win clash to keep their hopes alive.
Brief match summary:
Spain 2: De Gea; Azpilicueta, Botía, Domínguez, Canella; Mata, Javi Martínez, Rubén Pérez (Thiago min.45), Capel (Nsue min.86); Canales (Ander Herrera min.65) & Bojan.
Holland 1: Zoet; Blind (min.66), Viergever, Marcellis, van Aanholt; Toornstra (Roorda min.70), Gorter, Cabral, Bas Dost; Luuk de Jong & Goossens (Nuytinck min.80).
Goals: 1-0. min.25, Canales. 1-1. min.30, Dost. 2-1. min.53, Capel.
Once upon a time REAL MADRID had six Dutch players in their squad for a cost of 123M€ paid to have their services. Today, & with the departure of Rafael Van Ver Vaart to Tottenham, the number of Dutch players in the team is zero.
To get to that zero, Real Madrid sold them for a price of 63M€ (- 60M€ loss) & Drenthe loaned out to Spanish Club Hercules. Here is a clear summary:
Van der Vaart. Signed for 13M€ from Hamburg & sold to Tottenham for 10M.
Robben. Signed from Chelsea for 36M€ & sold to Bayern Munich for 25M€.
Sneijder. Signed from Ajax for 25M€ & sold to Inter Milan for 15M€.
Huntelaar. Signed from Ajax for 20M€ & sold to AC Milan 13M
Van Nistelrooy. Real Madrid paid Manchester United 15M€ went free to Hamburgo.
Drenthe. 14M€cost the player from Feyenoord , on loan to Hercules.
End of a Dutch era.
