Spanish football daily, 'Marca', recently published a series of adorable childhood photos featuring some of Spain's most prominent players to date. It's a nostalgic glimpse into the beginning of Xabi Alonso and Mikel Arteta's friendship, which started out when they both played for Basque amateur youth side, Antiguoko, in San Sebastian and has remained strong till today.

As all squad rosters for Euro 2012 have been made official to UEFA, so have Italy's Group C adversaries: SPAIN, IRELAND, and CROATIA. If you want to find out who Del Bosque, Trapattoni, and Bilic have selected to feature in this Summer's tournament, look no further!

As all squad rosters for Euro 2012 have been made official to UEFA, so have Italy's Group C adversaries: SPAIN, IRELAND, and CROATIA. If you want to find out who Del Bosque, Trapattoni, and Bilic have selected to feature in this Summer's tournament, look no further!

Below is the Spanish squad for the upcoming 2012 UEFA European Championships. The list is dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid players.

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Victor Valdes (Barcelona), Pepe Reina (Liverpool)

Defenders: Jordi Alba (Valencia), Raul Albiol, Alvaro Arbeloa, Sergio Ramos (all Real Madrid), Juanfran (Atletico Madrid), Gerard Pique (Barcelona), Javi Martinez (Athletic Bilbao)

Midfielders: Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Cesc Fabregas (all Barcelona), Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), David Silva (Manchester City), Santi Cazorla (Villarreal), Jesus Navas (Sevilla), Juan Mata (Chelsea)

Forwards: Fernando Llorente (Athletic Bilbao), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Alvaro Negredo (Sevilla), Pedro (Barcelona)

Follow @jrf90thminute

Share and Enjoy • Facebook • Twitter • Delicious • Digg • StumbleUpon • Add to favorites • Email • RSS

Spain name Euro 2012 squad: Torres in, Soldado out - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Vicente del Bosque has the task of bringing home a third straight international tournament success this summer, with the triumphs at Euro 2008 and in the 2010 World Cup meaning Spain are favourites for this year's Euro 2012.

Los 23 elegidos para disputar la Eurocopa 2012 son:

- PORTEROS: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), José Manuel Reina (Liverpool/ING), Víctor Valdés (Barcelona).

Spain head coach Vicente Del Bosque has made a number of surprise inclusions in his preliminary 21-man squad for Euro 2012.

Included in the squad are Benat Etxebarria from Real Betis, Isco of Malaga and Javi Garcia of Benfica, however many of these players can expect to be dropped after players from Chelsea, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao have played in their upcoming finals.

Real Madrid's flight back from Bilbao on Wednesday night was understandably raucous after they secured the league title. The in-flight celebrations were led by full-back Alvaro Arbeloa who showed off his dance moves, which are largely restricted to the moonwalk. All the action was captured by depressive drunk cameraman Iker Casillas, who occasionally likes to [.

NOTE : We've been having issues with our web servers lately, so if you were unable to access this website for a period of time, sorry! We're working on it hair straighteners don't always do the job. Welcome to Offbeat Wednesday, where it's all about the Wacky World of the Football WAGS!

Lahm, Dani Alves, Marcelo, Assou-Ekotto... A Statistical Analysis of Europe's Attacking Full-Backs is a post from: Just Football

In the past, a full-back's traditional role was to defend from wide positions, track opposition wingers and prevent crosses coming into the box. However over recent years the role has evolved to be almost more an attacking position than a defensive one.

In excellent news, the upcoming Clasico has been bumped up one day. Which means less time waiting on Pepe v Busquets: The World Dreams of Long-term Injuries.

Pepe is getting warmed up nicely with some of his standard antics, although going studs out on the shins of a teammate is probably new.

By Alan Duffy

Once the blonde-haired, blue-eyed prince of Spanish football, Fernando Torres has, in the space of a year, turned into a £50million flop.

Since moving to Chelsea from Liverpool, the attacker has seriously lost his mojo and now his impotence in the Premier League has seen him fall out of favour with World Champions Spain.

Welcome to Offbeat Wednesday, where we deliver the gossipy side of football to your doorstep! This week, read about Irina Shayk's Valentine's Day, Alvaro Arbeloa's interesting choice of undergarments, Footballer's Valentine's Gifts and Harper Beckham's New Handbag!

The future Mrs.

Manchester City 0
Liverpool 1 Steven Gerrard 13′ (pk)

A week after falling 3-0 to Manchester City in the league, a Liverpool side without two of their top players returned to face a City side missing three of their best for the first leg of the League Cup semi-finals.

In the wake of an encouraging win it would be easy to simply focus on the positives like normal, happy people who know how to enjoy success. But what those happy people who know how to enjoy success don't know is that failure and pain is lurking just around every corner, waiting to spring. So really, you're much better off embracing a more negative outlook that asks, "Why hasn't Jose Enrique been called up for Spain yet, and does it mean there's something wrong with him we don't know?

Spain are the bookies' favourite to claim the Euro 2012 title held in Poland and Ukraine but do they deserve to be in this position?
They are undoubtedly the best team in the world and have a respectable history in terms of awards. The Spanish last claimed the European title back in the Euro 2008 where they beat the German powerhouses 1-0 after a goal from the unstoppable Fernando Torres in the 33rd minute.

In the past five seasons, Liverpool have had only three fullbacks reach the thirty match mark Steve Finnan and John Arne Riise played in 33 league matches apiece in the 2006-2007 season, and Emiliano Insua made 31 appearances after being forced into regular duty in the 2009-2010 season. Álvaro Arbeloa came close a few times, as has Glen Johnson since arriving, but it's been a tough marker to reach for a Liverpool fullback.

Image source: Alvaro Abeloa's Facebook page.

If we've learned anything from our years of covering 'ballers in pre-season training, is that they usually provide the randomly sexually suggestive activities for our viewing pleasure. While training in Los Angeles, the staff of Real Madrid have ever so nicely fulfilled one of our requests* to have the lads strip down and hosed off, cleverly disguising their rouse as water polo.

Real Madrid's roster for friendlies against the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 16 at the L.A. Coliseum, Chivas Guadalajara on July 20 at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium and the Philadelphia Union on July 23 at Lincoln Financial Field. Buy Real Madrid U.S. Tour Tickets

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas, Antonio Adan, Tomas Mejias, Jesus Fernandez Collado.

Real Madrid's roster for friendlies against the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 16 at the L.A. Coliseum, Chivas Guadalajara on July 20 at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium and the Philadelphia Union on July 23 at Lincoln Financial Field. Buy Real Madrid U.S. Tour Tickets

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas, Antonio Adan, Tomas Mejias, Jesus Fernandez Collado.

We're wishing these lovebirds all the best and hope pics of their honeymoon surface soon! Image Source: Marca.com.

Always ones who have tons of time and tasks on our hands, we're just now getting 'round to celebrating Raul Albiol's recent nuptials. Don't be shell-shocked; in order to live up to your expectations of us as loose but incredibly fun women, it would be bad form to promptly publish our posts.

When the Philadelphia Union agreed with Real Madrd for a friendly on July 23, the team promised its fans that they would see the stars of Madrid and not just back ups. After releasing the official Madrid roster, it's clear that the Union managed to keep that promise.

The Madrid World Football Challenge roster is as follows:

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Spain), Antonio Adán (Spain)

Defenders: Ricardo Carvalho (Portugal), Pepe (Portugal), Sergio Ramos (Spain), Marcelo Viera (Brazil), Alvaro Arbeloa (Spain), Raul Albiol (Spain), Ezequiel Garay (Argentina), David Mateos (Spain)

Midfielders: Fernando Gago (Argentina), Kaká (Brazil), Lassana Diarra (France), Xabi Alonso (Spain), Sergio Canales (Spain), Pedro León (Spain), Mesut Özil (Germany), Sami Khedira (Germany), Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Nuri Şahin (Turkey), José Callejón (Spain), Roysten Drenthe (Netherlands)

Attackers: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Karim Benzema (France), Esteban Granero (Spain)

Manager Jose Mourinho will also be making the trip with Madrid.

Real Madrid is bringing the cavalry for its summer tour of the United States.

Madrid has chosen a first-choice squad for its three games in the World Football Challenge, which includes the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil, Kaka, Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas.

The biggest omissions are Argentines Angel di Maria and Gonzalo Higuain, who will be participating in Copa America.

*Galaxy defender A.J. DeLaGarza was re-signed to a new multi-year contract, the club announced today.

The versatile 24-year-old, who can play either full back or in central defense as he did in college at Maryland defender, is on track for a career high in starts and minutes in his third year with the club.

• The Kop That Daily is out! http://bit.ly/en7fzO ▸ Top stories today via @rachiebutton_f1 @miramennak @garyamcculloch @julian_lee76 20:04:45, 2011-06-14
• Scott Parker, Demba Ba, Thomas Hitzlsperger to leave West Ham http://bit.ly/mqgxZH #LFC #FB 11:41:36, 2011-06-14
• Former Liverpool stars Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa hail impact of Kenny Dalglish at Anfield http://bit.

Alvaro Arbeloa has thanked Kenny Dalglish - for making him love watching...

Another week, another round of Charlie Adam rumours. And another day when those rumours, in the end, amount to nothing much but a new round of rumours. When we weren't busy tracking supposedly new revelations from supposed in the knows who more often than not are as in the know as a magic 8-ball, we managed to pull ourselves away from the LFC Offside Twitter account for long enough take note of a few other stories floating around of interest from a Liverpool standpoint.

Real Madrid has announced the third and final game of its U.S. tour this summer and it will take the Spanish giants to Philadelphia to play the Union July 23 at Lincoln Financial Field. Kickoff is set for 9pm.

"Lincoln Financial Field has once again attracted one of the world's greatest soccer clubs to Philadelphia," said Joe Banner, president of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The third installment of this season's 'El Clasico' match-up between Real Madrid and Barcelona could have been renamed 'El Fiasco'. Depending on your outlook, it may have been surprising to see Jose Mourinho's Madrid squad setup with such bullying tactics. Both coaches had strong words for one another in the press conference so I was not surprised that the atmosphere was tense.

All the Results from Liverpool's International Stars
by Thomas Atzenhoffer on The Bleacher Report
March 30, 2011
Michael Regan/Getty ImagesAs the International break came to a close yesterday, the Reds who have been away with their national teams will be returning to Melwood.

In reviewing the outcome of Real Madrid's 2-0 victory against Sevilla, Sid Lowe in his recent podcasts last week as well as in his guest spots at Real Madrid TV cleverly pointed out how Real Madrid had essentially ruined their streak of binary-code-like scorelines for the past few games.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 18th and 19th La Liga goals of the season and Kaka made his first appearance in 8 months as Real Madrid beat city rivals Getafe 3-2 at stay two points behind leaders Barcelona.

Real took the lead in the 11th-minute lead when Angel Di Maria was pulled down in the penalty box and Ronaldo blasted the spot kick past Getafe keeper Jordi Codina.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 18th and 19th La Liga goals of the season and Kaka made his first appearance in 8 months as Real Madrid beat city rivals Getafe 3-2 at stay two points behind leaders Barcelona.

Real took the lead in the 11th-minute lead when Angel Di Maria was pulled down in the penalty box and Ronaldo blasted the spot kick past Getafe keeper Jordi Codina.