Deportes: La poción mágica

It's true.  Spain has dominated world sport at so many levels of late.  From tennis to football, from basketball to cycling, Spain's current generation of sportsmen and women have overwhelmed so many of their competitors.

A lot of hard work - or something quite different?  The Frenchman, Yannick Noah, accuses the Spanish of using magic potions (Google Translate version here).  Potions like the ones which Asterix and Obelix used in the famous French comic strips.

Today, we're going to look at Rafa Nadal's reaction to this article.  First, as always, the comprehension questions.

1. Where did Yannick Noah write the article in question?
2. Was Nadal surprised when he was asked about the article?
3. In what language did Nadal reply?
4. Did he think Noah was being sensible or not?
5. What adjective did he use to describe Noah's opinion?
6. Why?
7. Did Nadal think Noah was behaving like an adult?
8. According to Nadal, which country's image is most damaged by Noah's article?

Now the text itself.

A Nadal le preguntaron, cómo no, por el artículo de Yannick Noah en 'Le Monde'. Ninguna sorpresa para el tenista, que no tuvo problemas para expresarse bien claro en inglés. "Lo que dijo es completamente estúpido y él lo sabe mejor que nadie", respondió. "Decir esto hoy es completamente estúpido por todos los controles que se realizan hoy durante toda la temporada. Así que, en mi opinión, su artículo me parece escrito por un niño. Y cuando un niño dice algo así, no nos duele".

"Es peor para la imagen de Francia que para nosotros porque lo ha dicho un tipo importante como Noah, y eso es horrible", añadió Nadal.

And finally, if you need to use Google Translate to understand the article properly, copy the above excerpt into the left-hand side of this link and translate it to English on the right.

¡Y que la poción mágica sea de tu agrado!