Brussels/Madrid: Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Saturday to lend Spain up to 100 billion euros to shore up its teetering banks and Madrid said it would specify precisely how much it needs once independent audits report in just over a week. After a 2 1/2-hour conference call of the 17 finance ministers, which several sources described as heated, the Eurogroup and Madrid said the amount of the bailout would...
09:19 AM, Jun 10, 2012
Warsaw: Uruguay have moved above Germany to become the second-highest ranked team behind world and European champions Spain in the latest FIFA rankings published on Wednesday. Germany, who together with fourth-ranked Netherlands, Denmark (9th) and Portugal (10th) are all in a tough Group B at Euro 2012 which starts on Friday, have slipped to third. Argentina climbed two places to seventh while Brazil (5th) and England (6th) also moved up...
05:02 PM, Jun 06, 2012
Madrid: Spain midfielder Xabi Alonso feels that his side face a tough task to win Euro 2012 due to the high expectations, but insisted that they are determined to successfully defend their title. The title-holders are seen as the favourites to win this summer's tournament, but the Real Madrid star believes it will be very difficult to go all the way. "The expectations aren't just high, but they are soaring....
02:11 PM, Jun 04, 2012
Four years ago, Spain made history at the Euros, finally ending 44 years of pain and misery as the perennial under-achievers of international football. Now they arrive at Euro 2012 as defending champions and World Cup winners, looking to become the first side to win three major international trophies in a row. It is no surprise that Spain are the favourites once again, with the core of the squad that...
11:49 AM, Jun 04, 2012
Seville: Spain midfielders Andres Iniesta and David Silva combined to score a late goal in a 1-0 victory over a stubborn China on Sunday in the team's last warm-up before defending their European Championship title. Iniesta jumped on a loose ball inside China's half and scurried into the area before passing to Silva for the 84th-minute winner that gave the World Cup champions their 25th straight victory at home. A...
09:12 AM, Jun 04, 2012
Madrid: Fernando Torres is determined to repay the faith shown in him by Spain coach Vicente del Bosque after a spectacular loss of form put him in serious danger of being left out of the world and European champions' squad for Euro 2012. The 28-year-old striker, hero of Spain's triumph at the European Championship in 2008, has struggled since joining Chelsea from Liverpool in January last year but has a...
03:22 PM, May 29, 2012
Barcelona: Spain midfielder Cesc Fabregas insists that he will be 100 percent fit for the start of Euro 2012. The Barcelona man suffered a thigh injury shortly after coming on as a substitute in Friday night's Copa del Rey final win over Athletic Bilbao and has been ruled out of action for 10 days. The news has cast some doubt on Fabregas' participation in his country's tournament opener against Italy...
12:10 PM, May 28, 2012
Schruns (Austria): Striker Roberto Soldado was left out of Spain's squad for Euro 2012 on Sunday, despite his scoring exploits this year, as coach Vicente del Bosque lamented the absence of "irreplaceable" David Villa. There were no major surprises as Del Bosque discarded the younger players who have been part of the world and European champions' provisional squad at a training camp in the Austrian Alps. Instead, he included 19...
08:59 PM, May 27, 2012
Madrid: Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas is set to miss a big chunk of Spain's preparations for Euro 2012 after being ruled out for seven to 10 days with a hamstring strain, the Spanish club said on Saturday. Fabregas picked up the injury to his right thigh when he came on for the last 10 minutes of Barca's 3-0 King's Cup final win over Athletic Bilbao on Friday. The former Arsenal...
12:43 PM, May 27, 2012
St. Gallen, Switzerland: Adrian Lopez scored and set up a goal on his debut as Spain beat Serbia 2-0 to get their European Championship preparations off to a winning start on Saturday. Spain coach Vicente del Bosque, without his Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao regulars and with Chelsea pair Fernando Torres and Juan Mata watching from the stands, gave five players their first caps for the European and world champions at...
09:49 AM, May 27, 2012
Europe's economic slowdown has hit the engine-room of the euro zone, including Germany, gloomy new indicators have revealed, adding urgency to the region's struggle to keep Greece's debt crisis from tearing the single currency apart. So far, the 17-nation euro zone's downturn has been confined mainly to its periphery, but an index measuring broad economic activity across the monetary union in May showed its weakest outcome since mid-2009, during the...
03:43 PM, May 25, 2012
Madrid: Chelsea striker Fernando Torres has put a difficult season behind him and is itching to be part of the European champions' future plans, the player said on Thursday following talks with the club's hierarchy. Torres voiced his concerns after being left out of Chelsea's starting line-up for last weekend's Champions League final victory over Bayern Munich, saying he had been close to throwing in the towel. "My goal was...
09:06 AM, May 25, 2012
Madrid: Coach Vicente del Bosque recalled Fernando Torres along with fellow Chelsea teammate Juan Mata for Spain's warm-up matches ahead of the upcoming European Championship. The struggling Torres had been dropped for Spain's most recent friendly, but the striker managed to make the squad after Chelsea won the Champions League on Saturday. Torres said on Sunday that he had had the worst moments of his career with Chelsea this season...
08:46 PM, May 21, 2012
With the country's economy in doldrums and the rest of Europe showing little sign of recovery, a Spanish company in Valencia has courted controversy by offering professional course in prostitution which it says 'guarantees a job offer on graduation'. "For just 100, students will be taught the history of the world's oldest profession, how to use erotic toys and the most popular positions contained within the Kama Sutra," the Daily...
02:17 PM, May 11, 2012
Sevilla (Spain): Jeev Milkha Singh, the lone Indian in the field, managed a two-under 72 for a tied 23rd in the incomplete third round at the rain-hit Reale Seguros Open de Espa a golf tournament, in Sevilla on Saturday. Jeev, who shot a modest 73 in the first round with three birdies and four bogeys, had a 74 on day two with three birdies and five bogeys. Jeev was lying...
07:23 PM, May 05, 2012
Madrid: Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has signed a contract extension after having previously been offered a new two-year deal. The 61-year-old told Onda Cero radio on Tuesday that he had "renewed" his deal with the Spanish federation, and though he did not divulge the length of the new agreement, Del Boque is expected to stay on until after the 2014 World Cup. A two-year contract would enable him to...
06:03 AM, Apr 18, 2012
Berlin: The eurozone nations have reached a deal to build up a massive 800-billion-euro (around $1.1 trillion) financial firewall to prevent the two-year-old sovereign debt crisis from engulfing larger economies such as Spain and Italy. The finance ministers of the 17 nations using the single currency agreed on Friday at the start of a two-day meeting in Copenhagen to bolster the firepower of eurozone's financial bailout fund to 700 billion...
02:27 PM, Mar 31, 2012
Barcelona: Real Madrid's campaign for their first Spanish league title in four seasons faces a tough test at Osasuna on Saturday, while second-placed Barcelona host Athletic Bilbao in a preview of the Copa del Rey final. After seeing their once commanding lead over Barcelona cut from 10 points to six, Madrid have since rediscovered their form with a 5-1 rout of Real Sociedad and a 3-0 win at Cypriot side...
04:03 PM, Mar 30, 2012
Madrid: Spanish unions said a high turnout for a general strike to protest government budget cuts and reforms on Thursday had almost brought heavy industry to a halt while the government said the day was proceeding normally. Spaniards have been tolerant of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's efforts to meet strict European deficit goals but he has promised an austere 2012 budget on Friday and the strike shows that patience may...
01:37 PM, Mar 30, 2012
New Delhi: To commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Spanish painter Juan Gris, the third Musketeer of Cubism (Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the other two) Google has painted a cubist doodle on its home page. Jos Victoriano Gonzlez, better known as Juan Gris (his pseudonym), was an important exponent of the second phase of cubism known as High Cubism and his dominant style was Synthetic Cubism. The abstract...
01:23 AM, Mar 23, 2012
