Spain

Barcelona have signed a new shirt sponsorship deal with Rakuten, an electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo. The deal will pay Barca almost $60 million per year for four years, with the option of a one-year extension and even more money should certain bonus criteria be met.

Barcelona’s current deal with Qatar Airways, a partnership which began back in 2011, currently nets them around $35 million per year, but the Catalan side are now set to nearly double that yearly income with Rakuten as the primary sponsor.

Having represented Spain 100 times and having appeared for Barcelona in almost 600 matches, center back Carles Puyol squared off against some of the world’s greatest players in a senior career that ran from 1999 to 2014.

The three-time UEFA Champions League winner and 2010 FIFA World Cup champion was himself on UEFA’s Team of the Year on six different occasions, so there’s probably no better judge of talent than Puyol himself.

The Neymar Santos-to-Barcelona transfer saga has taken another turn as Spain's high court reportedly ruled that Neymar, his parents and Barcelona executives Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu (as well as the club itself) should stand trial for fraud and corruption.

From The Guardian:

Messi used to have an intricate sleeve tattoo on his shin. Remember that?

Now, he has something very special and different: a black thing. We really can't think of a name for it. It is black. It is very black. It covers almost his entire lower leg (he kept the number 10 and some other stuff).

Messi changed his tattoo.  pic.twitter.com/yVN9Eu2DOV

Listening to Zinedine Zidane’s post-game press conferences after Real Madrid drop points is kind of like listening to a broken record. After Real’s 3-3 draw with Legia Warsaw in Poland, Zidane once again came out and used the same excuses to describe his team’s performance. There was a:

Lionel Messi is hitting milestones so fast he's running out of milestones to hit.

In Barcelona's 2-1 win against Sevilla Sunday, Messi scored his 500th goal in a Barcelona shirt (friendlies included). 

This Messi guy is decent (via @beINSPORTSUSA) https://t.co/bqM57szm20

— SB Nation Soccer (@SBNationSoccer) November 6, 2016

Cristiano Ronaldo has said he wants to finish his career at Real Madrid, and the club is giving him a chance to do just that. Ronaldo will reportedly sign a contract renewal that will keep him in white until 2021.

From Real Madrid's official website:

Andres Iniesta is a consummate players’ player — his injury was felt around the planet as the loss of the Barcelona star is a loss to football as a whole. The knock he took against Valencia could’ve been a lot worse, but Iniesta is still expected to miss six to eight weeks.

At 32, serious damage to his lateral collateral ligament would’ve been devastating, and his presence was sorely missed in Barcelona’s loss to Manchester City in the Champions League.

A little over a week after Neymar put pen to paper on a new five-year deal with Barcelona, Real Madrid have announced that Gareth Bale has committed his future to the club by signing an extension running until June 30, 2022.