And dear old Yeste, hot head numero uno, received his second yellow against Cadiz yesterday and will miss the third place game against Villarreal or Sevilla. That makes 5 sending offs in pre-season. Is that a world record or something? If you can’t beat Eibar B and Cadiz… then something is just not right.

There’s only ten days until the start of the season and of course four MORE friendlies to play. I would just like to know what is going on? I guess it doesn’t matter if we lose the rest of our pre-season games, as long as we win our leagues games. So let’s just hold our breath and wait.

The Latest Scoop-

Gaizka Toquero has been loaned to Eibar this season. This will give the striker much needed play time, as he is not ready for the big leagues just yet.

Alaves would like to take either Iñigo or Ion Velez on loan as they need a striker desperately. I say give them Iñigo. He is much more rough around the edges and needs minutes to break into the first team one day.

U-21 call ups: Athletic midfield magicians, Javi Martinez and Markel Susaeta have been called up, once again, to play in a very important European qualifier against Russia in Moscow on August 19th. Best of luck to Javimar and Susa.

U-19 call ups: Athletic’s young striker, Isma Lopez has been called up to play in a friendly tournament in Ireland this month (8/18 – 8/21), representing Spain. Other nations participating – Ireland, Ukraine and Portugal.

Spanish National Squad call ups: At last, our gruesome twosome in defense, Fernando Amorebieta and Andoni Iraola, have been called up by Del Bosque. It’s been three long years since a Bilbao player has been called up (Orbaiz in 2005). The new Mister and La Furia will participate in a friendly on August 20th, where they will face Denmark. Del Bosque was in Morroco to see Athletic play in the pre-season tournament and was impressed with our two defensive stars. It’s about time!

Well the team squeeked by with another win in London, but this time a little rough housing occurred. Here’s the jist of it.

* Early score thanks to a link up by Susaeta and El Gallo, Extebe~*
* Missed Opportunities galore, yes you Llorente!
* Missed penalty by Charlton’s Thomas. Hit the post.
* Second half full of argie barge and substitutions galore.
* Aitor Ocio yellow carded for dissent. Whuh???
* Aduritz red carded in the 90th for violent conduct or rather trying to smack Fortune.

Check out the Charlton Athletic view/Match Report.

Colchester should be fun! I hope we hear from dear ol’ Dave with his personal report on the two games.

RUMORS

It looks like President Macua is working on another kit sponsorship deal. This time with Umbro. The deal is for an additional $2M Euros per year for 3-4 years. More needed cash flow per our Prez. Athletic’s shirt sales average 60,000 units per year. This is second only to Madrid and Barça. An official announcement from the club is expected this week.

More NAYS to Premier Clubs, this time Everton who put in a bid for our young starlet midfielder Javi Martinez. Rumored to be around 6M Euros. NO, no way! Too cheap and he is critical to our success. Thank you, but NO thank you.

Under the fact stranger than fiction category – Restorations in a 13th Century Spanish Cathedral have discovered the shield of Athletic Bilbao. What??? If someone finds a foto of this, please send me a link.

FRIENDLY IN BIZKAIA VS LEMONA

7/30/08 – Another near miss. Athletic eked out another one-nil win. This time on an Own Goal forced by Orbaiz. OK, we played a reserve team, but this little Third division team from Viscaya almost beat us!

Six friendlies to date. Just nine more to go… Is Caparros sane?