Liverpool: Is a move for Raul feasible

I'm thinking, nah, would never happen. But then again...

------------ "After 11 years here I want what's best for Real Madrid..." "If at some time I have to sacrifice myself in order for the team to progress then I will do it." Raul, in reference to a possible departure from the Santiago Bernabeu.

In the modern football era, with financial imperatives riding roughshod over traditional, one-man one-club, testimonials all round hero-worship, perhaps the news that Raul might consider leaving the club formerly known as Raul Madrid should come as no real surprise. More than any of the other galacticos, or indeed any player on the Real roster, Raul has become the playing symbol of the club, a walking, talking, brought through from the youth ranks, with the added spice of having been snatched from bitter rival Atletico's youth team in one of Jesus Gil's innumerable cost-cutting attempts, personification of All Things Real.

However, as in the rest of the football world, three Champions League titles, and four Primera league crowns are fine accomplishments, but for the first time, the Spanish press, particularly in the capital, some of the officials in the club itself, and certain sections of the club's supporters, are asking the pithy question: What have you done for me (us) lately?

Coming shortly before David Gill felt comfortable in referring to Sir Alex Ferguson as "sackable," it's clear that immediate results are the only valued currency in modern football, and that loyalty, from both players and clubs, is trading at a heavy discount.

So where does this leave Raul?

Speculation about possible transfers in football has just slightly more credibility than a Paris Hilton discourse on clbutty, understated behaviour, but after reading about Raul's declaration to move on if necessary, the mind started to wander. With all bets off in the wake of the previously unheard of possibility of Raul's departure, one naturally tries to consider where, in fact, the player might end up if indeed the End of Real Madrid Days is upon the club.

Raul to the Merseyside. It's not nearly as strange and unlikely a possibility as it seems...

Start with the key piece of the original statement by the player: "...sacrifice myself in order for the team to progress..."

Right there, Raul knocks out the possibility of playing for any other Spanish side, and surely, were Real to come to the ultimate conclusion that moving their talisman on was a necessary operation, they would prefer him not turning out anywhere else in the Primera either.

So, where to for Raul, if Spain is not an option?

Spanish footballers in the past have, with a few exceptions, preferred to remain at home. Some who have ventured abroad have plied their trade across the Mediterranean in Italy.

Italy? Plenty of pedigreed clubs, plenty of money, plenty of tradition, but also plenty of stultifying, regimented, robotic football, the very antithesis to the approach favored in Spain in general, and at Real in particular. Surely Raul must have been filled in on some of the particulars of football by Zidane and Ronaldo, and there is every reason to buttume that the player would reject such a restrictive approach to the game.

With Spain and Italy out of the way, and with all apologies to the German Bundesliga, that leaves one other major football competition, the Premiership. And if money is the sole concern for Raul, then he will end up plying his trade at a club other than Liverpool if he moves from Madrid; indeed, Chelsea are rumoured to have already made inquiries for the player's services.

But...

If a player were moving from Spain, less a country than a cobbled-together patchwork of regional brothers and sisters, with all the accompanying squabbles and spats of family life, might it not occur to the player to select a club in the Premier League that has some hints of home in general, and Madrid in particular?

Josemi, Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia are known to Raul from the Spanish National Team, although Garcia is still at this date awaiting his first full appearance. But Antonio Nunez came to Liverpool from Real, in the deal for Michael Owen, a rebutturing element of the culture of the Bernabeu at Liverpool.

And there is a certain Fernando Morientes...

Football supporters who can remember the time when the two played together at Real have probably just sat up a little straighter in their chair...

has made plenty of comments in the past testifying both to his friendship with Morientes, and to his regard for Morientes's abilities, and how effective their partnership is when playing together.

Oh, and lest we forget, the man running the show at Anfield is also an willingness to bring Spanish players to the Premier League, and also shown signs of disapproval with one of his main strikers, Milan Baros.

Replacing Baros with Raul? I'm confident enough in the range of Rafa's linguistic skills to buttert that his reply would be something along the lines of, "Yes, please..." followed by an eloquent discourse on the merits of Raul and his winning mentality.

A player, the very symbol of a club, either is forced to move on, or feels it is the right thing for him to do, for the club's benefit. If the club is still so dear to Raul, and on the surface at least it would appear to be the case, then he would have a harder time finding a better home away from Real than at Liverpool. The two clubs themselves have done recent business with the Michael Owen transfer, which carried some lesser strains of the same soap opera of a club symbol moving on.

If the unthinkable does occur, and the prospect has been raised by Raul himself, then it must also be considered a possibility, and a very real, or dare I say Raul, one at that, that Raul's hypothetical destination away from his sole stomping ground to date, the Santiago Bernabeu, will be Liverpool, playing alongside his friend and strike partner Morientes, another new face in the Spanish emigre contingent at Anfield...