A Blow (or Two) for Spain — 9/6/2011
By AC Mullins-Khatib —
Here at TINAP international breaks have always been met with bittersweet feelings. Will exciting young stars rise to bring international glory for their homelands? Or, will our favorite dazzling players pick up niggling injuries in almost meaningless 0-0 draws, ruling them out of juicy club matchups? Based on what I’ve seen thus far from this week’s European 2012 qualifying games, it looks like it’s going to be a bit more of the later. While we wait with bated breath to see who comes back worse for wear this weekend there is a little juicy tidbit from the Spain v. Chile match.
It looks like Spain’s acrimonious Real Madrid v. Barcelona rivalry can work it’s magic even in International Friendlies. Except this time, Spain’s best are brawling for the same side. Check out the video of this bench clearing scuffle at the end of time, pitting Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona) and Álvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid) against Chile’s Arturo Vidal and the rest of his national team buddies:
By far the most amped up by all of this is Sergio Busquets (Barcelona), who does his darndest to jump in there and take on as many Chileans as he can get his hands on.
Maybe all that infighting in La Liga is some sort of bizzarro team-building exercise to train the Spanish players to fight their national enemies? Then again, maybe they’ve just gotten so used to punching each other that they had to find somebody new to wail on?
This Is Not A Pitch 