Mexicans in Europe: End of the 07/08 season

Sorry for the lack of updates but here’s a wrap up of the season.

Spain

Rafa Marquez(Barcelona)-Marquez did not play at all. Rijkaard’s gone and my guess is that he will be too. Barcelona ended the season with 67 points and in third almost 20 points behind the league winners.

Giovanni Dos Santos(Barcelona)-Gio played all 90mins in Barcelona’s 5-3 win over Real Murcia. And he scored 3 goals. Two of them were pure class. . Its hard to say whether he will stay or move on. Gio hasn’t gotten a lot of playing time and Bojan seemed to take his “wonderkid” status at Barcelona for a while. But, some think he should be kept.

Guillermo Franco(Villarreal)-Villarreal won 2-0 against Deportivo La Coruna with a 90 min goal from “Guille.” He looks to be going nowhere especially after Villareal secured direct entry into the Champions League.

Carlos Vela(Osasuna)- Vela played 8 mins with Osasuna in his last game for the Spanish club. He will soon be on the way to Arsenal FC in London to become a gunner. Luckily for Osasuna the club did not go down but was only saved by a point difference between itself and Real Zaragoza.

Andres Guardado(Deportivo La Coruna)- After a loooong absence due to injury Guardado returned to play for the last game of the season. He came in and played 13 mins but the game did not turn around. They ended up in 9th with 52 points after many thought that they would go down. Now it remains to be seen whether Guardado will stay after many big European clubs have been sniffing around to acquire his services.

Germany

Aaron Galindo(Eintracht Frankfurt)-Galindo once again retained his spot in Frankfurts 4-2 win over MSV Duisburg. He’s consolidated himself in the back of Frankfurt’s defense and helped the club to a 9th place finish.

Pavel Pardo(Stuttgart)- Pardo did not play in Stuttgart’s 2-2 draw against
Arminia Bielefeld. Pardo was out because of a thigh strain but it seems that this captain’s armband will be safe for next season.

Ricardo Osorio(Stuttgart)-Osorio played all 90 mins in the game. This season was not as great as his debut season because of injuries and just plain ol’ not playing so well but hopefully Stuttgart will end 08/09 in higher spirits and a higher place than 6th place.

Holland

Carlos Salcido(PSV)-Current Champs.

Hector Moreno(AZ Alkmaar)-The season is now over.

England

Nery Castillo(Man City)- A disastrous final day awaited Man City as they got hammered 8-1 against Middlesbrough. Nery played for 77 mins but only managed to produce one shot on goal. His loan at Man City hasn’t been to great despite the very high expectations that were set by everyone. If he weren’t on loan for a year he would have definetly been on the “for sale” list.

Turkey

Antonio De Nigris(Ankaraspor)- Ankaraspor tied their last game 1-1 against Buraspor to end up 10th in the Turkish league.

Managers

Javier Aguirre(Atletico Madrid)- Aguirre’s Atletico lost 3-1 against Valencia but were still far up in the table to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in about 10 years. After a few controversial weeks of speculation on whether Aguirre was going to be out of a job or not it is safe to say that he will be kept after giving the team a great gift.

Next season we hope to add a few more players to the list. As of now we’re telling everyone of the inclusion of Maza and Bravo from Chivas as new players on the list.

See you back in August.