Real Madrid and Barcelona bid 50M £ for Cesc Fabregas

Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas will spark a bidding war between Barcelona and Real Madrid during the January transfer window.

Accrording to The Daily Express, both Spanish giants are prepared to start a bidding war on Fabregas at £50million.

Fabregas, who has stated his desire to fight for Arsenal's cause, has been repeatedly linked with a move back to Spain for the past three seasons.

But the longer Arsenal remain trophyless, the more Fabregas will be linked with a move away from the Emirates.

If he does move, it has been reported that Barcelona, the club where he started his youth career, would be clear favourites. Marca has claimed the club's vice president, Sandro Rosell, has had positive talks with Arsenal's hierarchy.

But Real Madrid have been encouraged by an interview Fabregas gave last summer when he said:

"Naturally my family would understand if I signed for Real Madrid - they love me, they want me to be happy."

Real Madrid and Barcelona Player in fight to get FIFA World Player of the Year

Lionel Messi has the opportunity to add the FIFA World Player of the Year award to his Ballon D'or trophy which he picked up last week. In doing so, he would become the first Argentinian to win the FIFA prize.

The shortlist of five candidates is comprised solely of Barcelona and Real Madridstars, with England's Premier League missing out altogether.

Messi is joined by Barcelona team mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi , so influential in the Catalan side's Champions League victory last season, part of an unprecedented treble.

The other nominees are Real Madrid stars Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo who finished a distant second to Messi in last week's Ballon D'or award.

The winner will then be revealed at the 19th FIFA World Player Gala in Zurich on Monday 21 December.

Real Madrid 4 - 2 Almeria Highlights Video & Photo Gallery

Cristiano Ronaldo scored before being sent off as Real Madrid made hard work of seeing off lowly Almería 4-2 in an incident-packed match.

Real had gone ahead in the first half through Sergio Ramos' header and appeared to be in control of the game.

But defensive lapses saw Almería stunned their hosts with two goals in three minutes from Fernando Soriano and Kalu Uche.

With Real looking increasingly frantic, Gonzalo Higuaín calmed nerves by stepping round a defender and curving the ball into the bottom right corner to equalize.

Ronaldo then won a penalty when he fell in the area in the 82nd minute as Almería keeper Diego Alves ran out to challenge him, although replays showed the goalkeeper touched the ball.

Some justice appeared to have been served when Alves saved Ronaldo's resulting penalty, but Karim Benzema followed up to slam the ball into the roof of the net on the rebound.

Ronaldo looked distraught to miss that, but his disappointment was only temporary as moments later he slotted home Higuaín's low cross to make it 4-2.

The Portuguese was booked for taking his shirt off to celebrate that goal, and that proved costly as four minutes later he was handed his marching orders after picking up a second yellow following a tussle with Michel.

Raul is father for the fifth time to his baby-girl

Real Madrid captain Raul Gonzalez Blanco became a fifth-time father on Friday morning when Maria Gonzalez Redondo was born. She weighs 2.9 kg, is 48 cm tall and is in perfect health under the watch of Dr.Carmen Casquet at Monteprincipe Hospital in Boadilla del Monte, Madrid.

Iker Casillas to Men's Health

Iker Casillas talked to Men's Health magazine about the work a goalkeeper does on a daily basis at Real Madrid.

When do you train?
We train every morning between 10:30 and 12:30. We then spend 45 minutes in the weights room.

How much do you train on the pitch?
I’d say I spend 60% of the first two hours with my team-mates doing physical workouts and so forth. I do specific goalkeeper exercises the other 40%.

In what are your goalkeeper workouts different from the rest?
You have to take into account that I run an average of 4 km per game while the rest run around 10. We don’t focus on endurance so much, but we work on jumping and on our legs’ reactions.

Saving a shot especially depends on how strong your legs are.
How do you strengthen your legs?
We tackle plyometrics such as jumping with weights, doing a succession of jumps, etc. These are typical exercises one does to strengthen his or her legs. The machine we use exclusively is the leg press.

How many weights do you use?
I think the most we use is 140 kg. You don’t need any more. It’s important to be fast.

What do you to exercise the upper half of your body?
Most goalkeepers exercise the upper half of their bodies and they are stronger than most of the other players on the team. I actually hate doing weights. I don’t like to be ‘big’.

You’ve hardly been injured. Do you do specific exercises to avoid injuries?
No, I don’t. I’ve been lucky so far. I hope I continue to be lucky.

You need excellent reflexes to be a good goalkeeper. Do you do some work on your nervous system?
Not at all.

How do you work on reflexes then?
We do what has always been done: we try to save shots with our backs to the ball and turning in time to grab or clear it. We do other exercises too. It’s the same stuff I did as a child. We don’t use any machine of any sort to boost our reflexes.

Do you do any psychological work?
No, we don’t. I know they can be very useful in other sports, but we don’t have any psychologists. We had one once on the Spanish national team and we were eliminated in the first round.

What do you eat?
I used to eat a bit of everything and my body didn’t react badly to any of it. I now have to watch out; I’ve reached an age in which I must eat better.

What do you avoid?
I don’t have carbohydrates for dinner and I try to eat small amounts of food. I watch out for fats too.

What other sport do you practice?
I like to play padel tennis in the summer and I also play football with my friends, but not as a goalkeeper (laughs).