3 Points- Robinho Goes AWOL

1. As I talked about yesterday, Man City superstar Robinho left the team this week. He flew back to Brazil to attend to what he says is a family matter. The club has now made their statement on this, as manager Mark Hughes said yesterday, "Robbie left without permission, he felt that he had personal things that he needed to attend to." There's been speculation that he left because he was upset about City failing to land Kaka, but Hughes poo-pooed that theory, saying, ""He has already said that himself, and he was on a plane back to Brazil when the Kaka deal was dead and buried. People trying to link the two are trying to cause a little bit of mischief."

2. Real Madrid just fired its president last week, so now the maneuvering begins amongst those hoping to be voted the new president. Just like in politics, there are many campaign promises. Among the hopefuls is former Real president Florentino Perez, who was the man who built the "Galactico" version of Real Madrid earlier this decade that saw big names like Beckham and Ronaldo suiting up for Real.

It looks like Perez is promising some big things if he's elected. One of Perez' spokespeople said yesterday, "With Kaka and (Cesc) Fabregas as players and Wenger as coach, Florentino will take Real back to where they should be". That should end up costing Real Madrid about what Obama's public works program will cost.

3. From the never ending file of Man City ridiculousness, consider they just paid a 17 million pound transfer fee for Hamburg midfielder Nigel de Jong.

de Jong has 0 goals and 0 assists this year, and has scored 2 goals with Hamburg since 2006. That in itself may be enough to say why would you pay almost 34M USD for this guy.

But, wait, there's more.

If MCFC would have waited just 4 months, they could have taken advantage of a clause in de Jong's contract that would have allowed them to purchase him for just 2.3M pounds. So basically, they are paying 30 million dollars for 4 months of a guy who makes little or no impact, in a season where they are probably landlocked in the middle of the table anyway. I mean, my God.

LA LIGA
TOP 5 (PTS/GP/GD)
1. Barca 50/19/+46
2. Real Madrid 38/19/+14
3. Sevilla 38/19/+12
4. Valencia 34/19/+11

BOTTOM 5
16. Recreativo 20/19/-11
17. Numancia 20/19/-13
18. Espanyol 15/19/-15
19. Mallorca 14/19/-19
20. Osasuna 13/19/-9