HOME CALL: Football ICON and Real Madrid Legent Alfredo Di Stefano Passes Away

Alfredo Di Stefano, the player Real Madrid has hailed as being the most important component in its mid-20th century ascent to becoming a global powerhouse, has died. He was 88.
The club said in a statement that Di Stefano, its honorary president, died on Monday afternoon at Gregorio Maranon hospital, two days after a heart attack.
Di Stefano turned 88 on Friday. The following day, he had a heart attack on a Madrid street near the club's Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Paramedics were able to resuscitate him after 18 minutes, but he spent the following days in a coma.
Renowned for his speed, versatility and strategic grasp of the game, he helped Madrid attain five straight European Champions Cups and was voted European player of the year in 1957 and '59.
In a career spanning five clubs in three countries - Argentina, Colombia and Spain - from 1945-1966, Di Stefano scored 789 goals in 1,090 matches. In the process he claimed top-scorer status once in the Argentine league, twice in Colombia's league and five times in Spain.

However, as FIFA acknowledges on its official website, "statistics will show that Alfredo Di Stefano is one of the world's greatest ever goal scorers, but the bare facts only tell part of the story."
"I'm very saddened by the news of the death of Alfredo Di Stefano," said Sepp Blatter, president of the sport's international governing body. "He was the most complete player I've ever seen. He was also my favorite player."
Those who knew him recall a straight-talking character who believed success on the field came through physical effort and dedication.
"I don't want to be idolized, I just want to play. And to do that you have to run and sweat," he said. His modesty in the face of overwhelming sporting success won him the admiration of many.
"I think he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, football player ever," England great Bobby Charlton said.
Born July 4, 1926, in the Barracas suburb of Buenos Aires, near the port where British sailors introduced football to Argentina, Di Stefano learned the game while playing free-for-all soccer in what he called "the academy of the streets."
"In our neighborhood we used to hold major football sessions that went on until it got dark, with everyone playing against each other," he said.
"Pope Francis and I went to the same school," Di Stefano said when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pontiff, adding the two likely played together as children.
Di Stefano's father, Alfredo, the son of an immigrant from the Italian island of Capri, was a loyal fan of River Plate. De Stefano's mother, Eulalia Laulhe Gilmont, was of French and Irish ancestry.
Having trialed successfully for River Plate, he turned professional in 1945, joining Colombia's Millonarios six years later. He won six league titles for the two clubs.
His turn of speed soon had fans chanting, "Help, here comes the jet-propelled 'blonde arrow,'" ("Saeta Rubia," in Spanish) a nickname Di Stefano retained all his life.
He played in Spain for the first time in 1952 and dazzled the crowd at a tournament commemorating Real Madrid's 50th anniversary, a fateful encounter.
Barcelona signed Di Stefano in 1953 after agreeing a transfer with River Plate, but the move was thrown into doubt when Madrid also negotiated his transfer - with Millonarios.
Although the Spanish federation authorized Di Stefano to play half of his four-year contract with each club, Barcelona opted out, alleging pressure from the Madrid-based ruling military dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco.
In his first season Di Stefano helped Madrid win its second league title, ending a 21-year drought.
Within three years, he helped Madrid lift its first European Cup by scoring in a 4-3 win over France's Stade Reims.
The arrival at Madrid of Hungarian great Ferenc Puskas in 1958 led to an attacking partnership of dynamic effectiveness which allowed the club to retain the European title through to 1960, a record yet to be beaten.
Di Stefano's last final in 1960 at Glasgow saw possibly his finest match. Before 127,000 fans, he scored three times in Madrid's 7-3 demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt.
The same year, he helped Madrid win the inaugural Intercontinental Cup between European and South American champions with a 5-1 aggregate victory over Uruguay's Penarol.
In his remaining four years at Madrid, Di Stefano helped his team lift a further four league titles.
He topped the Spanish league's scoring standings in five of his 11 seasons with Madrid. He scored 49 times in 58 European matches, a record in the competition that stood for more than four decades.
Di Stefano left Madrid in 1964 to join Barcelona-based Espanyol for a two-year spell before retiring at age 40.
"Football brought me so many beautiful moments. It built my life," said Di Stefano, who was also an Argentina and Spain international. But World Cup glory eluded him. Argentina didn't play in 1950 and '54, while Spain didn't qualify for Sweden in 1958. Di Stefano carried an injury to Chile 1962 and did not play. So, his only international success was a 1947 Copa America victory with Argentina.
In 1963, Di Stefano was held captive by a guerrilla group during Madrid's tour of Venezuela. He was taken at gunpoint from his hotel room by the publicity-seeking National Liberation Army Front and released unhurt two days later.
As a coach, he led Boca Juniors and River Plate to Argentine league titles, and won the European Cup Winners' Cup, the Spanish league title and the Copa del Rey with Valencia. He also managed Madrid between 1982 and 1984.
Madrid appointed Di Stefano honorary president in 2000, named its training complex stadium after him six years later and erected a statue in his honor in 2008.
A diabetic, Di Stefano fought ill-health in old age and underwent a quadruple bypass with a pacemaker implanted in December 2005 after a heart attack.
In May 2013 his children asked a court to rule him mentally incapable after he announced plans to marry a woman 50 years his junior.
"I don't care that my children are against it," Di Stefano, then 86, said of his plans to marry 36-year-old Gina Gonzalez.
His interest in football never diminished. At 86 he still maintained a regular column in Spanish sports newspaper Marca.
In it, he revealed that he had missed Pope Francis' appointment. "I must confess that while everyone else watched the white smoke live," he wrote. "I was, as always, watching a football game."

Husband Caught Cheating Wife As Her Boyfriend Escapes From Window [Pix and Video]

In a stunning example of a soap opera come to life, a video has surfaced from Brazil that depicts the hilarious struggle of a man attempting to escape a cheating woman’s bedroom after her husband has come home.

And it’s out a third story window.

As the drama begins, a husband and wife are seen arguing on the third-floor patio of an urban apartment building.

High drama: An hysterical Brazilian video captures high wire drama of a married woman's paramour escaping shirtless out the window as her jilted husband arrives

‘Who shirt is this,’ demands the husband in Portuguese.

The wife angrily flings the shirt into a whooping crowd that has gathered below.

Their fight is juicy enough as is, but just off to the side a man appears in the couple's window.

Shirtless and angry, the man may be an adulterer but he's awfully quick-thinking.

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Adulterer with acumen: Like something out of Benny Hill, the shirtless man ties together a rope of clothes and out he goes

Audience: Meanwhile, a crowd gathers below, laughing at the men and taunting them. 'Cornudo!' they yelled at the jilted husdand

He tosses out the window an escape rope he's managed to fashion from knotted t-shirts and bravely begins to climb down.

On a window sill below, he stops. The cackling crowd mocks both him and the woman’s husband.

‘Cornudo,’ the growing audience yells at the husband, a Portuguese word for a man being cheated on.

JUMP! The crowd dares him to leap and he does. Luckily, firemen have set up a cushion on the street

Safe: Shirtless and angry, the man lands on the cushion as the crowd cackles at his silly situation

As if a Hollywood celebrity had just fallen from the sky, the passersby hoot and ogle and snap photos.

They chant ‘JUMP!’ as emergency workers arrive to assist the struggling man. And he does just that.

A soft mat is placed below the shirtless man and the crowd cheers as leaps and bounces down to the street.

Barefoot and scowling, the shirtless man gives the woman and her husband a good shake of the fist, then shakes it at the crowd for good measure and marches out of view.

The end: The man shakes his fist at the couple he left behind and then admonishes the highly entertained crowd before stomping, barefooted, out of view

Beautiful Undressed Woman Hanged off a Railing in Brazil by Ex

The victim is only 22 years of Age. She was found hanging unclad in a Cuiaba public square in early morning hours  by a couple on a morning exercise jog.

The girl was first molested, then strangled to death and then hanged to simulate suicide. The police speculate that the perpetrator was someone known to the victim. Her family suspects Juliene’s ex boyfriend. The attacker used girl’s jeans as hanging rope.

Why would an ex boyfriend sexually assault his ex girlfriend? He’d already tasted it, It’s not like he was gonna get any new experience from it?

245 people have been confirmed Dead As Fire Guts Night Club In Southern Brazil [Video]

A fire swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday [Jan. 27], killing at least 245 people and leaving hundreds injured, police and firefighters said.

Sandro Meinerz, a spokesman for the police in the city of Santa Maria, told local media that the fire broke out at the Kiss club while a band was performing. He said at least 200 people were injured.

The cause of the fire is not yet known, officials said. The total number of victims is still unclear and there may be hundreds injured, Civil Police and regional government spokesman Marcelo Arigoni told Radio Gaucha.

Arigoni told the radio station a truck carrying 70 bodies had arrived at the Municipal Sports Center, which was being used as an improvised morgue.

Diario de Santa Maria reported that the fire started at around 2 a.m.

Rodrigo Moura, whom the paper identified as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.

Ezekiel Corte Real, 23, was quoted by the paper as saying that he helped people to escape. "I just got out because I'm very strong”, he said.

"Sad Sunday", tweeted Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He said all possible action was being taken and that he would be in the city later in the day.

Santa Maria, at the southern tip of Brazil near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay, is a major university city with a population of around a quarter of a million.

Cat Caught And Detained For Sneaking Saw, Phone Into Brazil Prison

A cat carrying a saw and a mobile phone was “detained” as it entered a prison gate in northeast Brazil, Brazilian media reported on Saturday.

Prison guards were surprised when they saw a white cat crossing the main gate of the prison, its body wrapped with tape. A closer look showed the feline also carried drills, an earphone, a memory card, batteries and a phone charger.

All 263 detainees in the prison of Arapiraca, a city of 215,000 people in the state of Alagoas, are considered suspect in the plot, which is being investigated by local police.

“It’s tough to find out who’s responsible for the action as the cat doesn’t speak,” a prison spokesperson told local paper Estado de S.Paulo.

The cat was taken to an animal disease center to receive medical care.

The incident took place on New Year’s day but was first reported by national media on Saturday.