Spaniards will forgive and forget

RIVAL players from Barcelona and Real Madrid gathered with the Spain squad yesterday and vowed to put the bad blood from a series of ill-tempered matches behind them.

The World Cup winners face the United States in a friendly on Saturday before travelling to Venezuela three days later in their first internationals since the four meetings in 18 days between bitter rivals Barca and Madrid over April and May. The teams accused each other of poor sportsmanship following the acrimonious series of games in La Liga, Copa del Rey and the Champions League. "We have to forget about this matter. There is no real conflict, it's all just rivalry from what happened in play," said Real's Sergio Ramos. "It's in the past and we have to focus on the national team now. It's not about remembering what was said or what happened in those games. The group gets along well so we have to forget all about that for the good of the team."

The two clubs have a combined 11 players in the squad, even though Barca pair Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernandez will both miss this trip.

"This will be resolved in one minute, I don't think there will be any problems," defender Joan Capdevila said.