Yeah, plus he's much older than Pato was back then.

Is the whole "muscle weighs more than fat" thing a myth? Out of interest I googled his weight as I thought it must be difficult having to run with all that mass of muscle. Apparently he's 40 pounds lighter than me! I'm far from musclar, but I'm also in no way fat.

Can't get my head around that one.

This always confused me as well!

Think its the body fat as a percentage of overall weight. For example I have 8.4% body fat last time i did a checkup. That is because my food is paleo and i train 5 times a week weights/cardio/boxing (mix them up for fun).

These atheletes, each has a different motabolism level and bone structure. So one could weight more than the other but have lower body fat than other. Makes sense?

Then muscles only grow to a certain extent, after that its growth hormones. Unlike the growth hormones they give to mr olympia (ie arnold), rather controlled. Player cones to mind Messi.

Frankly speaking Bale seems normal to me. He just has become fitter.

Why do you follow a paleo diet?

Low body fat%, indicates more definition. You don't have to be big to appear completely ripped to be honest. He doesn't look like he's got much bigger, just lost a bit of weight. Plus is that weight even up to date?

And obviously he's a fair bit shorter than you.

So Barça finally decided to sign CBs, though with the money they have they could have done better.

Arsenal must be laughing. £15m for a player who hasn't had a good game in years?

Read somewhere that Arsenal has paid around 34.6 percent of their stadium bills thanks to transfer fees obtained from Barca.

Would be interesting if they threw Man City into the mix as well.

That's hilarious.

I had no idea the UEFA Super Cup was tonight. 2-0 for Madrid.

Looks like Carlo went with 4-2-3-1 with Modric and Kroos in the double pivot. It'll be interesting to see if it'll work for the entirety of the season.

What options do they have for the "2"? You'd imagine any 2 from Kroos, Modric and Alonso would be a bit lightweight to go a whole season without problems.

EDIT: Just saw the highlights and wow, what a cross for the first goal. Impossible to defend.

There's Khedira too, who's more suited to the role than Kroos.

And Alonso? I dunno, Real have a lot of good players out there. Just not the right defenders.

Btw James looked completely detached from the rest of the team and on a different level. Guess we'll have to wait for him and see if he adapts.

Yeah, he was mentioned in the original Kurt post.

Real have a lot of games. I don't think gametime will be a problem in any way.

I did think of the midfield pivot being too lightweight, but surprisingly they seemed to deal well with it once they settled down.

It's Carlo after all. The same dude who played 3 number 10s behind 2 strikers, and now he's gone one better.

Will be interesting to watch Madrid. I'm curious how they will deal with a team like Bayern or Chelsea though. Especially without a destroyer.

For some reason I thought they'd sold him.

Verge of. With Kroos' arrival and Modric around it makes him and Di Maria expendable. If they can find a buyer for them they'll leave.

Shame for Di Maria, really world class player but seems Carlo's done with him.

Glad he's also done with Lopez

Yep great cross from Bale, about the only thing he did all night. Ronaldo ran the show last night. James still getting used to things but that's to be expected, going to be hard for him to shine as much with Madrid as he did last month.

Yep, especially when you consider he was one of Madrid's best players last season.

Harsh on Bale, thought he had a very good night.

Was pretty much the only reason they won the CL Final IMO. Nobody else really showed up for Madrid.

So Suarez's punishment won't be shortened but he'll be allowed to train.

Sounds good.

I think that's fair enough. There's no way his ban should've been reduced, but I can understand the training thing. Good decision.

@dst .. Before Paleo it was almost fried food, the yummy stuff, lots of manufactured, pre-vooked, canned to last an extended period of time. Then I started training regularly, and became quite addicted to the endorphins. Except my energy levels were low. Paleo fixed that, its like what our great granddads had to eat or drink (ie no cola or fried). Its a new way of life.

Granted it is a pain! Eating dry and boring food, i do have three cheat meals per week. Makes me guilty enough to go back to eating healthy, paleo.



You like that Carlo ingenuity ha Abi, yeah I'm reminiscing just typing this reply.

Bayern are a well drilled side with strong cohesion and one superstar in the team; Bayern München. Madrid are all about Galactico's'. That said, Carlo is the right coach for them, given time could iron out a blueprint to success. 16 days till the market closes, Carlo is at a club where if he asks for Obama, Madrid would sign him. Hence if this is the team he is taking into next season, its not bad considering its 10x the firepower he had in 2007

Benzema, keep an eye out on him. Zidane esque plays and movements

Oh but he committed a crime, he should be banned from the premises? I mean if WE committed a crime we'd be barred from everywhere...

Don't get your point Danny. Isn't this what you wanted? You were completely against his ban from training and other football related activities, that's been lifted, but upholding the match ban is the correct decision

han woke up and forgot to wear his sarcasm detector. Tsk tsk. What business do you have on the internet han? Go back to the real world. Come back when you're ready.

I did in fact just wake up jack

And Danny's sarcasm is usually laced with other undertones so you can't always take it at face value.

Moved to Serie A thread

No one saw the spanish supercopa? Impressive performance by Atletico. Kept all those Real's money bags on 1 goal in 180 minutes and won the cup. Seems like they replaced players who left pretty well, especially with Mandzukic and Griezmann.

I think a Madrid treble will happen this season.

I don't think so, they won't win CL back to back imo. Also in Spain it looks like a 3 horse race once again where anything can happen.

Yeah saw it, they were impressive, but I just cannot stomach the sight of Simeone, what a disgusting character. I wonder what he tells his players to not get sent off: "Try not the get sent off before me guys"

+∞ Delighted!

As much as I dislike him personally I can't help but respect the passion he instills in his players. I can only hope Pippo gets everyone playing as hard for him. I don't like Simone but god damn do his players bleed for him.

Yeah, but Simeone's behavior was painful to watch. Zero professionalism, pure ignorance and arrogance.

Yes, he's a great coach but he's just disgusting to watch, and I seriously cannot stomach watching him. The sarcastic clapping, the shouting at the ref for every minor incident that goes against his side, etc. Just cannot stand it

Simone, against all the odds, has done a remarkable job!

Regardless of our personal opinion about him, he lead his team to a CL final and a La Liga trophy last season. Against all the odds. Think Pippo has a deep hunger to prove himself, he has the odds stacked against him, lets see if he can do-it.

As much as I harped about Suarez and applauded his ban, I'm also sort of sad that he can't play today as I'm VERY curious to see how he'll fit into this Barca side

Real had a 2-0 goal lead but lost 4-2 in Sociedad

Real's midfield: Kroos, Modric and Isco.

Nope, I don't think that's gonna work for Carlo. It was a bad decision selling Di Maria and Alonso. At least they should have signed a quality holding mid. Maybe Khedira can play that role, otherwise things might get nasty. Their defense is very lightweight, too.

It's hard to support Real right now when they just go around throwing stupid £ at everyone to get whoever they want.

So it's really rather amusing to watch their moneybags get gubbed in Sociedad.

Once again the Ancelotti syndrome of having a world class squad but not getting the full amount out of it seems to be happening again.

Am I the only one rooting for Carlo?

Nope I root for him too. Actually I feel sorry for him. He's just about created a brilliant team with a fixed spine, and those crazy bosses, just basically ripped it all out and handed him a fresh team with little less than a week to go for the season. Ridiculous.

I don't even know why he stayed on. He should have walked.

I like Carlo, I like Madrid. But there's very little to no chance he's going to win La Liga. A combination of him (mostly) being "poor" in the league and the higher-ups at Madrid can't help but mess with things.

Khedira needs to start for them. Selling Alonso is okay since they bought in Kroos, it's not like he was a mobile ball winner anyway. But you can't start with Kroos, Isco and Modric in a 3.

Was Khedira fit? I must admit I was surprised by that one. But then they were really unthreatened for the first half an hour, and could have scored a couple more. I thought his talk after the game was interesting. Sounded like he's going to do something drastic.

Khedria needs to play there imo, they need more balance. It's funny they spend millions upon millions on flashy and marketable players but none on that terrible defence with Varane being the only one who's a top quality CB/defender.

Pepe, Marcelo, Carvahal and Ramos are all defensive liabilities.


In this case Carlo simply has nothing to do with it. You really think he didn't want to keep Di Maria and Alonso? Perez made those decisions, Carlo as always has been diplomatic and graceful throughout the summer and kept his mouth shut about how he really feels and answered media questions about how Di Maria and Alonso have basically been pushed out

The balance of the team has been destroyed, it was already in a precarious position due to all the attacking players in the same 11 that Carlo had to fit in, but he managed it, just like he did at Milan, but at Milan he had Rino and a legendary defensive 4, at Real that's just not the case, I'm sure he wanted a great CB to partner Varane and a proper FB but he got James and Kroos instead which imo were both just flashy signing that weren't really needed

I can bet good money right now that Khedira isn't being played not because Carlo doesn't want to include him but because he's under pressure to not only play all the flashy players they already had but to include the new signings as well, which doesn't leave any space for a non-flashy player