Liga Pundits articles

[Cule Angles]

Senna is the player of Euro 2008 for people who want to be different just for the sake of it.

[VivaBarca]

Senna is the player of Euro 2008 for people who want to be different just for the sake of it.

The recluse's play of Euro 2008 then.

[Raed]

Senna is the player of Euro 2008 for people who want to be different just for the sake of it.

Well to be honest, those who voted for him have a strong point.

[John Antonio Bilboa]

Senna is the player of Euro 2008 for people who want to be different just for the sake of it.

Wow we actually agree on something.

[Cule Angles]

Don't let it happen again.

[John Antonio Bilboa]

Don't let it happen again.

All depends on u mate.

[Beast]

Is This Earliest Ever Atletico Crisis?
Posted 14/09/09
Tim Stannard


For those living abroad, 'going native' - the process of losing track of life in the homeland and adopting local concerns and cultures - can take months.

For others, it can take years. But it always happens in the end. Unless you are one of those red-faced, beer-bellied bank robber types on the Costa del Sol who can still only order a beer in the local lingo despite 20 years of ex-pat existence.

Your correspondent, for example, no longer knows his Dizzie Rascals from his Derren Browns but can more than hold his own in water-cooler conversations concerning Spain's army of Botox-ed old slappers who tell tales of their latest shags on Saturday night TV.

Even more worryingly, he has also jumped feet first in the current craze of claiming that Atlético Madrid are a club in CRISIS!'.

Now a rojiblanco 'CRISIS!' is something that occurs at least two or three times a season. But this familiar phase is normally over after a couple of timely wins from the Calderón club or a managerial dismemberment.

However, after just two rounds of the new season, Atlético are lying in the mother of all sticky patches after a horrendous fortnight that ended with 7,000 narked demonstrators marching around the stadium before Saturday's visit of Racing Santander.

And all this is quite odd considering the club is about to embark on another Champions League campaign and managed to hang onto both Kun Agüero and Diego Forlán over the summer.

Heck, it even dumped the awful Johnny Heitinga on Everton and got money in return - an excuse for a latino-style hoe-down if ever there was one.

But thanks to some suspicious stirring from MARCA - a paper in a régime-change kind of mood - a significant chunk of Atleti fans are in deep distress about their current owners, Enrique Cerezo and Miguel Angel Gil, who bought the club from Jesus Gil in 2002.

More importantly, some supporters have just come to the belated realisation that they purchased the club's shares through highly dodgy means - something Spain's authorities nearly threw them into prison for six years ago.

Indeed, most fans seem to have forgotten the fact that the club's Director General is still a Gil - and therefore a member of a family with a reputation in Spain for evil, corrupt, thieving ways.

The rojiblanco faithful are also irked over Alético having won sod all since 1996 and being in possession of a squad with just two card-carrying full-backs.

All this, combined with an open letter from Gil claiming that the fans had never had it so good and a rebuke from Cerezo who argued that Saturday's demonstrators should be thanking them, triggered a big, boisterous, but peaceful pre-match protest outside the ground.

With chants of "always stealing, you are always stealing" and banners with '22 years of the Gil family is enough', the demonstrators took a tantrum-fuelled tour before heading inside to watch their pathetic players draw 1-1 against a Racing Santander side that was down to ten men for much of the second half.

And as can be imagined, this did not go down at all well, especially considering Atleti had lost their first game of the season 3-0 away at Málaga. However, the fans are as much to blame for the setback as the clearly nervy footballers, says Racing centre-back Nasief Morris, speaking to Football365 after the game.

"This is the problem here. When you starting pressing them and when they don't get room to do whatever they want, the crowd gets on their back and it makes like difficult for them," revealed the South Africa international.

Racing were also helped by manager Abel Resino rotating his squad by leaving Diego Forlán on the bench for the first half and Kun Agüero on it for the second. "The two central defenders only had to mark one player," said Morris.

A large chunk of Atlético fans' current ire must come from the realisation deep down that the club's chance of winning the league title, any time soon, is a big fat zero - a situation shared by pretty much every other side in la Liga. Bar two.

As Getafe manager Michel pointed out after Saturday's 2-0 home defeat to Barcelona, "there is a chasm of a difference between Barcelona, Real Madrid and the rest of us." His team had given the Catalan club a hell of a game until midway through the second half and the introduction of Andrés Iniesta and Leo Messi.

After that, it was all one-way traffic with Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring his second goal in two and little Leo putting his Argentinean troubles behind him with what can best be described as a towering header from a dinky cross by his Swedish strike partner.

Real Madrid made fairly easy work of an Espanyol side making a debut in their new rather swanky stadium. Unfortunately, the same description did not apply to the dog of a pitch that was burned to a crisp over one of Spain's hottest ever summers.

Although the Pericos fought manfully in the first 45 minutes, a team with Karim Benzema, Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo on the pitch is always likely to find a way through. And that's what happened in a 3-0 win with goals from Esteban Granero, Guti and the former Manchester United man, who started the game fidgeting on the bench after his week of international antics with Portugal.

The other two sides still with two wins from two are Athletic Bilbao and Valencia, who grabbed a 4-2 win away at Valladolid. The victory topped off a fine week for Juan Mata, who scored for Spain in their midweek victory over Estonia and grabbed two goals and an assist on Sunday night.

Athletic Bilbao did it a slighter harder way with an own goal-inspired 1-0 victory at newly-promoted Xerez, a team who are already second from bottom and facing a fun trip to the Bernabeu next weekend.

Whilst Xerez' lowly position is not wholly unexpected, Atlético Madrid nestling just one place above them is more of surprise. A club that currently has fans fighting the owners and players badly short of confidence now faces a week that sees a Champions League clash with Apoel Nicosi on Tuesday night and a visit to the Camp Nou next Saturday.

Two poor results from these man-trap tests, then any calls of 'CRISIS!' will no longer be premature, but very pertinent indeed.

Round 2 Results

Xerez 0-1 Athletic
Valladolid 2-4 Valencia
Deportivo 1-0 Málaga
Villarreal 1-1 Mallorca
Tenerife 2-1 Osasuna
Sporting 1-0 Almería
Sevilla 4-1 Zaragoza
Espanyol 0-3 Real Madrid
Getafe 0-2 Barcelona
Atlético 1-1 Racing Santander

[Cal-FCB]

Senna is the player of Euro 2008 for people who want to be different just for the sake of it.

He was outstanding at the tournament, but still behind Xavi for sure.

[Cule Angles]

Exactly, he played exceptionally well but it's just plain daft to say that he was THE player of the tournament. Sergio Busquets is close to displacing him now anyway.

[Cal-FCB]

I still think Sergio B needs to get some more meat on him though, he's a little Crouchesque at the moment lol. But he has the ability to break the opposition play at key times which is important. Senna is pretty old now Spain definitely need a replacement.

[Gnegneri]

I still think Sergio B needs to get some more meat on him though, he's a little Crouchesque at the moment lol. But he has the ability to break the opposition play at key times which is important. Senna is pretty old now Spain definitely need a replacement.

He's at the right age now to get some muscular look.

although I do not want it to decrease his technical abilities. When your execution of the game is fast enough, you don't need to get bigger and buff.

[Cule Angles]

GOOD DAY

Cristiano Ronaldo, Leo Messi

Hands up everyone who had their cockles warmed when seeing that cheeky smile back on Cristiano Ronaldo’s face after his World Cup woes with Portugal.
Now hands up everyone who had their cockles warmed when seeing that cheeky smile back on Leo Messi’s face after his World Cup woes with Argentina.
Did you see that, Florentino?

Angel Arizmendi

Two goals in two for the Zaragoza striker - and it should be three, but more on that later - means a pig-ignorant La Liga Loca has either been hopelessly wrong in its constant, childish attacks on the playing ability of this fine, fine footballer, or Arizmendi has been in a body swap with Gonzalo Higuaín.
The blog feels certain that the latter can be the only rational explanation or it may as well give up, right here, right now.

Valencia, Athletic Bilbao

Both sides have six points from six - the only two apart from Barça and Madrid – but they've managed it in two very different ways.
Valencia put Sevilla to the sword in round one and blew Valladolid away on Sunday with brilliant, sexy counterattacking football.
The only way the word ‘sexy’ can ever be used with Athletic Bilbao is that if 'Basque' football involves the underwear meaning of the word and 22 bikini models.
Their opening game was a 1-0 win against Espanyol and Sunday evening produced the same result at Xerez, after an own-goal from a cross-blocking David Prieto.

Luis Fabiano

Manchester United are reportedly interesting in the Sevilla striker’s scoring services and it's easy to see why. A cracking seven days for ‘O Fabuloso’, who donked two goals against Argentina in Brazil’s World Cup qualifier and a bagged another brace a week later in a 4-1 win against the infinitely more difficult Zaragoza.

Tenerife

The Canary Island club’s survival plan this season looks like grabbing what they can on their travels while really relying on opposition sides being completely freaked out by having to play their away games somewhere in the Atlantic – 17 degrees 46’ 0” W / 28 degrees 40’ 60” W, to be exact.
Osasuna had to travel 1326 miles for this game, only to come away with nowt except two players sent off for no good reason and an angry José Camacho. “We are not an indisclipined team, but decisions are being taken against us too early,” grumbled the Osasuna boss.

Oscar Serrano

Whilst the Madridista press will cream their kecks for some time over Kaká’s two assists against Espanyol, there will be little or no attention paid to players like Racing’s Oscar Serrano.
The midfielder worked tirelessly in Racing’s draw over Atlético Madrid - especially when the away side were down to 10 men - and scored his team’s goal straight after Atlético’s opener.

Barcelona, Real Madrid

Official La Liga Loca announcement: Following this summer's 200 million Euros net investment by these house-squishing, tree-felling Goliaths, wins over the likes of Getafe and Espanyol will be metherein with tiny grunts of acknowledgement rather than praising pats on the back or hearty handshakes.

BAD DAY

Atlético Madrid

Just two of Atleti’s fearsome foursome featured for the Rojiblancos on Saturday evening, with Simao and Kun starting the game and Simao and Forlán finishing it.
And despite the great work of José Jurado in supporting the solo striker, a central midfield pairing of Cleber Santana and Assunçao simply isn’t good enough for a side with top-four aspirations. Especially with poor Sinama once again stuck out on the right wing.
However, the off-the-field antics were more successful for the Atlético fans with a sizeable demonstration outside the ground. Their mood was not helped at all what happened on the pitch once they went in.

Espanyol

No points! No goals! And bottom of the table! It’s welcome back to Espanyol and welcome back to Paul from Barcelona in his new Cornella home!

“Bit difficult for me to give my usual genius tactical insight, because my seat is behind the goal and the view will take some getting used to as my old view was a weird 45-degree angle. But here's what I learned today.

1) Barça will win the league
2) Kaká (great passes for the goals) likes to referee the match and was allowed to by a ref who by WWE standards was biased.
3) The best two players on the pitch cost next to nothing: Granero and Verdu.
4) Espanyol lack match practice, which was obvious by the way they tired. Remember they've only played three games since the end of last season.
5) The pitch looked like the Horse of the Year show had been on it - and not because of the pile of manure on it either (see number 3). Being changed tomorrow.
6) Benzema looked about as interested as I am when I see an Adamcule post. (Uh oh! – LLL)
7) Everyone loves to hate Guti. He can play for us then. Looked good again today.”

Zaragoza

Zaragoza boss Marcelino complained that “you could see we were the away team” after his side’s 4-1 defeat at Sevilla. And there was certainly some truth to his referee-directed gripe.
At 2-1, Arizmendi scored a perfectly good goal which was ruled offside probably because the referee felt that the concept of the Zaragoza forward managing two in a game was too far-fetched. Fair enough. But minutes later, Sevilla went up field to score a killer third goal.

Villarreal

A terrible start for the Yellow Submarine under an increasingly irate Ernesto Valverde. The side’s first two games of the season has seem them dominate both in possession and in chances with just two 1-1 draws to show for it.
Life was certainly made more difficult on Sunday with an astonishing first half storm dumping torrents of water onto El Madrigal, but the Villarreal boss was only blaming his players. “Ï cannot believe that we lost two points today, just as it happened in our last game.”

Xerez, Almería

The shape of things to come, perhaps, with both sides without a goal so far, this season.

[Beast]

your 60 minutes in the spotlight Adam , enjoy it

[Gnegneri]

Who's text is that?

I mean:
7) Everyone loves to hate Guti. He can play for us then. Looked good again today.”


Wah?

[Cal-FCB]

Have you been posting abusive responses to his blog CA?