Liga Pundits articles

[Gnegneri]

"No. No. Still can’t find anything nice to say about them, despite their 1-0 win over Sevilla - the fourth 1-0 win of the season."

Bit of a hater apparently. A 1-0 against Sevilla and Villarreal, I would immediately sign for that.

[Beast]

Deportivo La Coruña grind their way back to where they once belonged

Sid Lowe

Their football isn't as super as in the days of Rivaldo and co, but Depor's cut-price squad is again surprising Spain's big boys

Miguel-Ángel Lotina paused, scratched his chin and gave in. "OK," he said, "note this down." There was a hush, broken only by the sound of furious typing from the back of the room. "Dani Aranzubia … Manuel Pablo …" A gentle giggle - yeah, we guessed that – and another pause. A pregnant one. A little moment of expectation. Friday afternoon at Abegondo and the Deportivo de La Coruña coach was preparing for his 337th game in the first division, against Sevilla at Riazor. For the first time ever, he seemed about to reveal his starting XI. And not just spit what former Deportivo coach John Benjamin Toshack spat when asked the same question many years before, declaring that his team would consist of "the same 11 arseholes as last week".

Then Lotina continued. "Naybet … Coloccini … Capdevila." More giggles. "Donato … Mauro … Djalminha … Fran." They were really laughing now. "And up front, Tristán and Makaay." A belly laugh and a shout went up: "Campeones, seguro." Champions, for sure. Lotina grinned and concluded. "Coach, Jabo [Irureta]." This Deportivo team wasn't his Deportivo team – and that was kind of the point. More giggles and another pause, a wistful one. You could almost hear the sigh. All round the room, minds were being cast back. To Rivaldo and Bebeto; to the all-conquering team that followed them; to wonderful victories against Milan and Manchester United; to that match with PSG, when, 3-0 down just before the hour, they won 4-3; to the side they called Super Depor.

Ah, Super Depor! Those were the days. The days when Deportivo de La Coruña were arguably the best side in Spain, ranked fourth in the world. Rescued from relegation to the Second Division B by a 94th-minute goal, rescued from disappearance by Augusto César Lendoiro, president of the local roller-hockey team, the club with just 5,000 members in a city of only 230,000 and a 500m pesetas debt had somehow won the league title in 1999-2000, six years after they really should have won it only for Miroslav Djukic to miss a penalty in the final minute of the final match. In five years they won a league title, never slipped out of the top three, reached the Champions League semis and became half the country's favourite side by beating Real Madrid 2-1 in the Copa del Rey. At the Santiago Bernabéu. On Madrid's 100th birthday.

It had all been so much fun. Deportivo's fans packing the Bernabéu's north stand singing "happy birthday to you". Djalminha doing things you've never seen a player do. Like nutting his coach. Romero taming a snake at Pamplona airport – and pulling out of the squad after the bugger bit him. Tristán shrugging "what do you want, a footballer or a monk?" when potential buyers Madrid worried about his off-field habits. And above all, the wonderful, neat, flowing football, the width and precision. Donato's roly-poly brilliance. Valerón playing in slow motion as defenders slid by like cartoon characters off a cliff. Tristán and Makaay, Pichichis both. Naybet striding out. Mauro Silva, the original Makelele and still the best. A side it was impossible to dislike. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end.

Only they did. Shockingly quickly. Shockingly comprehensively. It's only five years since La Coruña was decked out in blue and white, ready for that semi-final with Porto, the greatest moment in the club's history that became its greatest regret. And yet it already feels like it belongs to another age. When José Mourinho's (frankly horrible) side knocked Depor out, something died. The squad was getting older, tired. By the following season, 2004-05, you could feel the boredom; it was the end of an era. Deportivo finished eighth.

Worse still, there was no longer any investment. People were wondering where the money had gone. In fact, they started to wonder where it had come from in the first place; how Depor had been able to sign so many stars, becoming the first club to ever field an all-foreign team. They would never sign them again. Lendoiro admitted that Depor had made mistakes in not selling some of their big names; it was time, he said, to "get used to a different Depor". A not very good Depor. After seven years, coach Jabo Irureta departed. Under Joaquín Caparrós, they finished eighth again. Forget Super Depor, it was time for Baby Depor – the positive spin put on a worrying financial reality. It was time to buy kids. Cheap kids. Not especially good kids. They finished 13th and Caparrós left, frustrated.

Halfway through the 2007-2008 season, Valerón finally returned from two years of injuries but Depor were still in desperate trouble. The saying goes that Galicians are so inscrutable that if you see them on the stairs you don't know if they're going up or down; these gallegos were definitely going down. In week 20 they were five points from safety and over €130m in debt. Relegation and administration beckoned. For Lotina, so too did the sack. For the first time in over a decade, since he fired Toshack, Lendoiro prepared his axe. He spoke to Mané about taking over. Tellingly, in one interview in early 2008, Valerón spoke about Lotina in the past tense, as if he had already gone, describing him as "a hard-working and honest man to whom I wish all the best". Players texted asking when he would leave, not if.

But then something changed. The formation, for a start. Lotina, a coach who, despite an entertainingly dry sense of humour, has always been dismissed as a crashing dullard, turned to a five-man defence and Depor recovered. In the second half of the season, only one side conceded fewer goals, Depor picked up 11 victories and they finished ninth. Last season, they ended up seventh. Or top of what some dubbed the "other" league, behind Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, Atlético, Valencia, and Villarreal – clubs whose budgets dwarf the rest. But if that was impressive, this season's campaign is proving even more miraculous. Their budget cut by 10% each season, according to Lendoiro – who has done the classic capitalists' trick of suddenly bemoaning the lack of government intervention now that he needs it – Depor are operating on a "war economy". "We'll sell everything except the Hercules Tower," he says. And that's only because the city's 2,000-year-old lighthouse isn't his to sell.

Verdú left because Depor could not compete with Espanyol. Canadian captain Julián De Guzman departed because Depor couldn't pay him – and he didn't even want much. Cristián, Pablo Amo, and Barragán followed him out. They turned down over €15m from Barcelona for full-back Felipe Luis but only because they thought they'd get more and now they're kicking themselves. They only signed two players and both of those – Juca and Brayan Angulo - cost nothing. They missed out on Miguel de las Cuevas, Manuel Arana and Jordi Pablo to Sporting Gijón, Racing Santander and Málaga – hardly giants of the Spanish game. And amidst a legal battle, last season's top scorer Ángel Lafita left for Zaragoza.

And yet on Saturday night Deportivo de La Coruña moved into third with a 1-0 win over a Sevilla side that had been considered genuine title contenders after their win over Real Madrid a fortnight ago. The result left Marca gloating: "Lotina clips Sevilla's wings" as the Depor boss sang "je te plumerai". Depor are unlikely to stay in a Champions League place – in fact it's hard to avoid the feeling that it'd be a little depressing if they do – but it is the first time they've done so this far into the season since 2003-04. The first time since they were Super Depor in 2003-2004.

"We're not up there because we're a delicatessen," Lotina admitted. "The secret to our success is solidarity; we go out on to the pitch thinking about fighting for every ball; if we go out there thinking about playing we'll get beaten. We're not Super Depor." They're certainly not. Delicatessen? Depor are more like the blokes who hang around Spanish street corners on Saturday nights selling ropey jamón sandwiches. They could hardly be more different to Irureta's side. Watching them can leave you wanting to rinse your eyes. With sulphuric acid. As Marca put it: "They don't sing you ballads in the moon light." Hell, they don't even get drunk, stumble over, spill your drink and lean into you shout "awight darlin'?", drenching your ear in spit as they do so. But there's no arguing with their results.

The new slogan adopted by one Spanish television station for their coverage is "this is football!". At half-time on Saturday evening, one bewildered commentator emerged from his booth moaning: "My God, I'm lying through my teeth in there." Victory came thanks to an absolute rocket from Juan Rodríguez out of nothing in a game with few chances, in which Depor denied their opponents space and waited for their opportunity. Victory came, in short, the same way it always does. Depor have now won five times this season, four of them 1-0. Against Málaga, a Filipe rocket from miles away and out of nothing won it for them; against Villarreal, goalkeeper Dani Aranzubia kept them in it and a Juca free-kick won it; against Tenerife, a header from a corner did the trick; against Xerez they managed to score three – thanks to two set plays and an own goal. They may not be very Super any more and it may not last for very long, but Depor are back where they once belonged.

Talking points

• Speaking of winning the way they always win, how about losing the way they always lose? Depor and Villarreal could hardly be more different. Villarreal are now bottom of the table after they were defeated by Xerez – the Andalucíans' first ever win in the top flight. As usual Villarreal dominated, as usual they wasted chances and as usual they gave it away, with two dreadful goals. Villarreal's winner, a wonderful lob from Antoñito, came after goalkeeper Diego López screwed up his clearance. And after a handball. Robert Pires ended up in a bit of a bundle outside the referee's dressing-room door; he'll be suspended for calling the referee a "son of a whore".

• Atlético Madrid just get worse. They're now a solitary point outside the relegation zone. "Pathetic", said AS. Abel is on the ropes – even more so after he took advantage of the international break to admit that the club needed signings and lacked attitude.

• You always suspected that Spain's FA didn't know what day it was. Now we know for sure. They spent the international break celebrating their centenary. The year they were founded? 1913. You do the maths.

• Juan Rodríguez was not alone. Every week, TV producers putting together packages of the top 10 goals are forced to really scrape the barrel; this week, there were belters all over the place. The top 10 goals really will be 10 top goals this time. Step forward Nauzet Alemán for Valladolid against Madrid and Gonzalo Higuaín and Marcelo for Madrid in the same match (in fact, even Raúl's two and Marquitos's goals were pretty good); Antoñito for Xérez against Villarreal (this column's personal favourite), Iván Alonso for Espanyol against Tenerife, Albín in Getafe's defeat to Mallorca, Oscar Serrano for his bundle through and curler as Racing drew 2-2 in Zaragoza, and Almería's Cisma against Málaga. ¡Golazo! as they say in Spain. The funniest was Julio Alvarez's for Mallorca, who took advantage of Cata Díaz's bizarre backpass against his own post.

• Eh? 0-0? Are you sure? For the first time since Pep Guardiola took over Barcelona drew 0-0. For the first time this season, they dropped points. And they were lucky it was only two they dropped as well. Valencia were the better side at Mestalla and Víctor Valdés saved a Barcelona team (missing Ibrahimovic and Henry) that lacked freshness and ideas. In truth, it's not the first time this season, either. Meanwhile, Madrid sort of strolled and sort of struggled against Valladolid. Much as they have done all season, in fact. They don't half score a lot of goals, though.

• And it's a relief to see one of Spain's best columnists back this morning … just when you started to worry that he'd been victim of another political purge.

Results: Deportivo 1–0 Sevilla, Madrid 4–2 Valladolid, Valencia 0–0 Barcelona, Xerez 2–1 Villarreal, Espanyol 2–1 Tenerife, Mallorca 3–1 Getafe, Zaragoza 2–2 Racing, Málaga 1–2 Almería, Athletic 1–2 Sporting, Osasuna 3–0 Atlético.

[Cal-FCB]

How were Mourinho's Porto 'horrible'? This seems to be a cliched description of that Porto side but they actually played some great stuff, much better than his Chelsea side did over the years.

[Metaphysical]

lol@sid sneaking a jibe at barca in there. typical of him. I wonder if he bothered to explain that we've had injuries to key players who are either not featuring, coming into fitness, or struggling for it? and that's why we've not been at our best?

twat.

How were Mourinho's Porto 'horrible'? This seems to be a cliched description of that Porto side but they actually played some great stuff, much better than his Chelsea side did over the years.

I think the "horrible" moniker comes from two matches specifically: the 2003 uefa cup final and the second leg of the man utd tie in 2004. both times porto dove and wasted time like no tomorrow.

but end of the day it was a side containing a deco, a thin maniche, and costinha (what a midfield!) and in defence you had ricardo muhfuckin' carvalho. up front they had a bunch of unspectacular players who just knicked goals and I think that contributed to the idea that they sucked. famous forwards help tremendously.

[IrvDizzle]

that was a great article by Stannard on Cesc. Not that it matters. Cesc will be at the Camp Nou by August.

[Cal-FCB]

lol@sid sneaking a jibe at barca in there. typical of him. I wonder if he bothered to explain that we've had injuries to key players who are either not featuring, coming into fitness, or struggling for it? and that's why we've not been at our best?

twat.



I think the "horrible" moniker comes from two matches specifically: the 2003 uefa cup final and the second leg of the man utd tie in 2004. both times porto dove and wasted time like no tomorrow.

but end of the day it was a side containing a deco, a thin maniche, and costinha (what a midfield!) and in defence you had ricardo muhfuckin' carvalho. up front they had a bunch of unspectacular players who just knicked goals and I think that contributed to the idea that they sucked. famous forwards help tremendously.

Agree about that little jibe, and then he praises Madrid in the next sentence. What a prick.
Yeh they did waste time in those games, but as you summed up they had some brilliant players throughout that side at the time, and with Deco at the heart they moved the ball around nicely. I enjoyed watching them.

[Beast]

An X-rated update from la Liga

Tim Stannard

Tuesday 20 October 2009 10:00
One of the most memorable moments of José Antonio Reyes’ rather hopeless spell at Atlético Madrid came when the winger was coming off the pitch, rather than when he was on it.

Having been substituted after another poor performance, the winger ran past the then manager Javier Aguirre and told him that he was planning to **** in his mother’s ****.

Having been caught on camera bellowing the slur, Reyes then backtracked and told the press that he was so disappointed with his own offering in the encounter that he was shouting to himself that he was going to **** in his own mother’s ****.

Considering the entire male population of Andalusia is made up of apron-hugging, blubbing Mummy’s boys, it was quite a statement.

All the blog can add is that if you used this particular insult on the mean streets of Hove, then it would probably buy you 10 seconds or so through the shock suffered by your opponent before he plonked your head on a spike.

Use another favourite Spanish slur, “I (ahem) poo-poo in your milk!” then the reaction will probably be stunned silence and confusion.

Returning to the main point, and Robert Pires is another footballer who is having to come up with some serious spin to explain away some potty-mouthed outpourings.

According to the match referee for Villarreal’s defeat away to Xerez, the French midfielder went up to the official after the game and told him that he was a “hijo de ***” due to some decisions that members of the Yellow Submarine are now using as an excuse for their bottom-of-the-table troubles.

Pires has countered this interpretation of events by claiming that “I told him that I wanted to talk to him. Without losing my temper, I asked him three times but he refused so then I lost my rag a bit and this made me shout out ‘putain’”

The former Arsenal man then went on to explain that this is a perfectly harmless expression of discontent in France, similar to the Spanish ‘joder!’ or ‘coño’.

These words would be considered astonishingly rude in Britain but due to the intensely vulgar nature of the day-to-day language used in Spain, is considered no worse than a Ned Flanders style “darn jiggidy!”


And speaking of things that make you swear, Marca have decided to give one of the paper’s ‘legend’ trinkets to Kaká.

And shame on those who might suggest that it was just a ruse to get an interview with the Brazilian God-botherer ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Milan.

After all, another top-class athlete who recently received the honour was the King of Spain - someone whose physical activity mainly centres on opening wine bottles and fu......ll circuits of the palace gymnasium.

And as a testing tease to you, Dear Reader, La Liga Loca now offers a quick pop quiz on which two of these questions did not feature in the interview given by what appeared to be 15 old men in suits.

a) Is it important for Real Madrid to win the Champions League?
b) Who is better, Messi or Ronaldo?
c) Aren’t you tremendously peed off by being stuck either on the bench or the wings while Raúl ponces about in your favoured position?
d) Didn’t you think it was a bit odd for Mrs Kaká to say that God gave Real Madrid the money to buy you as reward for waiting until the wedding night before he surged into a completely different kind of box?

Still, at least Marca are trying, unlike AS whose headline on Tuesday concerns Karim Benzema being a bit hopeless.

But it’s an even sorrier state in the Barcelona press.

Regular readers will remember Sport’s stunning revelation from a few weeks back that both Barcelona and Pep Guardiola are really, really great.

Well, Mundo Deportivo have topped this headline in their latest edition with the exclusive that “Barcelona are better than Real Madrid.”

Those culés who did not instantly keel over in shock at the news would have read that this happens to be the opinion of Cristiano Ronaldo. Sort of.

In an interview with France Football, the ankle-knacked man of Madrid actually says that “Barcelona are better than Real Madrid, today. But the real question is ‘who will be best in the end?’”

And this makes their main story for Tuesday - to follow the general theme of the day - a lot of old bo..lony.

[Beast]

Crisis in the capital
Phil Ball

A mixed week for Spanish fortunes, with the country's leading European lights (at least in statistical terms), both slipping up in the Champions League, although Sevilla continued to make it look like child's play with a 3-1 win at Stuttgart. Champions League? They're 'aving a laugh. Chelsea had one as well, predictably stuffing Atlético Madrid 4-0 and condemning their manager, Abel Resino, to the social security queue.

In the sea of Europa, Villarreal continued to scrape the seabed, Valencia managed a draw and only Athletic Bilbao kept up appearances with a 2-1 win over the mighty Nacional de Madeira. The accompanying chorus to a week of European action - that teams invariably suffer in the aftermath - was then only partially endorsed when poor Zaragoza had the misfortune to be the first team to play Barcelona after the European champion's surprising defeat at home to Rubin Kazan, and were subsequently thrashed - as if Barcelona had a point to prove.

If Real Madrid had one to prove too, they were less convincing in their 0-0 draw at Sporting de Gijon, although they can point to the fact that all their strikers save Raúl were injured. Poetically, therefore, they failed to score for the first time in 19 matches, a run that included eight league games and eleven pre-season encounters, all under Pelligrini. Sevilla did struggle, however, and came up against a determined Espanyol defence in the Sánchez Pizjuan, with a 0-0 draw looking strangely on the cards from the early stages of the game. Valencia, also on duty in midweek, took full advantage and moved threateningly into fourth position with a big 0-3 win at Almería, manager Unai Emery showing no pity for his former club - the one that launched him into the big time.

Do the defeats of Real Madrid and Barça in midweek require analysis, as if they were symptoms of some creeping malaise? I don't think so - at least in the case of Barça. The laws of probability state that they have to lose occasionally, but it was indeed a shock to go down to the relatively unknown Russians. As Xavi suggested in a post-match interview, it was a blip and nothing more. Ultimately, the 6-1 win over Zaragoza seemed the best answer, Keita scoring a hat-trick.

Nevertheless, it would be folly to assume that Barça's defeat will not worry them just a little, given the suddenly open state of their group, but at least it's kept things interesting. Real Madrid, on the other hand, seem to have some sort of neurosis when it comes to Italian teams, and Milan cannily exposed the frailty at the heart of Madrid's tactical universe. The 2-3 defeat may knock the wind out of their sails, largely because it was so galling to see an ex-player from the previous century, Clarence Seedorf, outthink his former club and have ultimately more influence on the result than the faltering Milan export, Kaká. And what is worse? To go down unexpectedly to a little-known force, or to lose whenever you come up against anything decent, which seems to be the case so far with Real Madrid.

In terms of their capacity to react, the game at Gijon was always going to be a tough one, without any of their first-choice strikers (with apologies to Raúl) but the 0-0 result was as uninspiring as it was efficient. However, the reaction of the Spanish press on the Sunday morning, as if this, and not the Milan game, were evidence of the crushing failure of Pelligrini to manage a top-class side, was curious to say the least. Whoever said that a visit to the Moliñon was an easy one that guaranteed three points to the visitors? Such nonsense shows a lack of respect for one side and a set of overblown expectations on behalf of another. It's the paradox at the heart of Florentino's new empire, you have to suppose. In strict footballing terms, Madrid's draw was a decent one - but since so many millions have been so casually spent, the obligation is to win every week, and to do it in style. The pressure on the players is enormous, for which they are paid equally enormous salaries, of course - but the reactions to the 0-0 draw did neither team any favours. Sporting are far from being canon-fodder, and Madrid are clearly far from being invincible. That's all that needed to be said. The defeat at home to Milan may prove to be far more serious, unless Ronaldo's latent re-appearance proves to be the simple antidote to this other alleged 'mini-crisis'

Where there is a real crisis in the capital, it is over on the banks of the Manzanares, where Atlético Madrid stagger around the abyss of their own making. Spanish is particularly rich in phrases that describe 'rock bottom' scenarios, and they have all been prominent in the discourse of the sports' pages this weekend. 'Tocar fondo' (To scrape the bottom of the barrel), 'Peor imposible' (Worse, impossible) and my personal favourite 'Hacer el ridiculo' (make an arse of yourself) were all to the fore on Sunday morning after Atlético's bizarre 1-1 home draw with Mallorca.

Again, to do Mallorca credit, nobody was suggesting that this would be an easy game, but it was certainly a more promising one than the visit to Stamford Bridge in midweek. Staying faithful to the tradition of this column, I would be reluctant to even say that Chelsea thrashed Atlético in London, because there were spells in the game where the Spanish put together some decent football, and in truth they should have scored a couple themselves. But they were undone by their toothless defending and by the inability of their midfield to protect the centre-backs.

This has been the case from the beginning of the season, and Abel Resino's inability to put it right meant that he had to go, perhaps with some justification. The Chelsea result was simply the final straw, and all the evidence suggests that the club hierarchy had already decided that he would go, even before the game. Their unsuccessful and clumsy courting of Michael Laudrup suggested that they were hardly wringing their hands with indecision as to Resino's fate, and they had clearly lost confidence in him. As such he is the first top-flight managerial victim this season, after almost two months of combat.

Whatever - the perennially wonderful thing about Atlético is that they always mess up in style, not with a whimper but a bang. Diego Forlán, no doubt fatigued after so much recent travelling, missed a penalty, but was later handed another one by referee Muñiz Fernández, who seemed to have assumed the role of the home side's twelfth man. Forlan managed the second time, and the fans had even more cause to believe that the club's luck was turning when Mallorca had two defenders sent off. But instead of surging forward and killing off the game, Mallorca were handed their escape clause and duly equalised in the final seconds, sending the Calderón into a negative and ugly frenzy.

The folks at Atlético aren't happy, and have been making their feelings felt for some time now. They're none too keen on either the president, Enrique Cerezo, or the owner, Miguel Angel Gil Marín, and only partly because these two are not particularly keen on each other to boot. In fact their non-relationship makes the goings-on at Liverpool look fairly mild, but the Atlético hard-core have long since lost patience with the last vestiges of the Jesus Gil empire, and would prefer the club to be finally free of its pernicious influence. Gil Marín, Cerezo and the little mourned Jesus Gil were found to have fraudulently acquired the club anyway when it was originally turned into a plc, none of which has prevented the former two from holding onto the reins.

Jesus García Pitarch, the long-suffering but hardly innocent Sporting Director tried to leave this week, but was prevented from doing so by Cerezo. Meanwhile, a new manager was finally brought in, but only until the end of the season. Quique Sánchez Flores, who was last seen walking out on Benfica, is not the most inspiring of choices to get the team out of its present crisis of confidence, largely because he has a less than impressive record and partly because he bears an uncanny resemblance to Doctor House - at least when he effects that wide-eyed stare of his. He was in the stands for the Mallorca game, and was indeed seen to stare (into space) at the end. One wonders what Dr House's diagnosis will be. Probably something along the lines of 'What the hell have I let myself in for here?'

Indeed, just to confirm any fears he might have had, Atlético's training session on the Sunday morning was interrupted by a small phalanx of the charming 'Frente Atlético', the supporters' organisation famed for its left-leaning and democratic pacifist tendencies. The club's relationship with this group has always been rather questionable, and once again their lobbying power gave them access to a closed training session - the argument from the club being that it was safer to let them in than to have them pounding on the gates from the outside. Hmmm. Once in, their esteemed leader led the delegation over to a group of the players where they had a cosy little chat about something or other, perhaps their favourite records.

The players may have performed poorly, but surely deserved better than this. The precedent is alarming, and one wonders what the Frente actually thought they might achieve - unless it was to offer the players their undying support. Perhaps they were suggesting a new tactical approach, or maybe the hierarchy of the club, in the absence of an officially acting manager, had asked them to go along to the session to help out. It could start a new trend. Clubs around Europe could invite their most violent supporters to a weekly meeting to discuss tactics and to pick the team. Even Platini might like that. He likes to encourage innovative ideas.

Anyway, given my successful annual blag to visit Bilbao once a season, next week sees the column heading west down the motorway to watch Atlético in the flesh, in the anti-Madrid cauldron that is San Mamés. Should be fun.

[Beast]

Will Pellegrini Follow Resino Out?



It was one of those moments when you wanted to pick up a chair and do serious physical damage to a fellow human's head. As long it was a flimsy piece furniture used in Westerns that would shatter harmlessly in contact with someone's skull, of course.

But it had nothing to do with Phil Brown and his headset. Instead, the recipient of your correspondent's ire was a local colleague who was calling for Manuel Pellegrini to be booted out of the Bernabeu the day after the Champions League defeat to AC Milan.

"He doesn't have any idea what he's doing!" complained the hack. "But he's only had ten or so games to build a completely new side!" was an attempt at a reasonable response.

"There are no wide men!", "Ronaldo is injured and Robben was sold against his wishes!", "We should hire Wenger!", "He's said 'no' a thousand times already."

And so it went on for several hours with no resolution. In Spain, everything that goes wrong on the footballing front is the fault of the manager. And nobody else.

The astonishing calls for the Chilean coach to be sacked were repeated in an increasingly nervous Marca, Florentino Pérez' official mouthpiece, with Saturday's edition featuring a cartoon of the club president with an arrow sticking out of his 'Achilles Heel' marked 'Pellegrini'.

But what makes the position all that more perilous for the club's latest coach is that all this uproar took place before a ragged Real Madrid could only manage a 0-0 draw away at Sporting on Saturday night.

Poor results in matches to come against Alcorcón in the Spanish Cup, Getafe and Atlético in la Liga and AC Milan in Europe could see yet another Bernabeu banishment - one of the seasonal signs that Christmas is just around the corner in Spain.

An equally-impatient Atlético Madrid made a typically cowardly attempt to dig themselves out of trouble this week by firing manager Abel Resino after just eight months in charge.

Despite taking the side into the Champions League, the club's truly lunatic leadership kicked Resino out of the Calderón after Wednesday's 4-0 defeat to Chelsea with the rojiblancos having only won a single league encounter this season.

But most knew that the latest chump in charge of the club - the 45th in the incredible 14-year tenure of the current regime - was up for the chop as soon as president Enrique Cerezo claimed that his job was secure the day before his firing.

"It would be crazy to think about changing the coach. Do you think with our week, that we have time to think about doing this?"

The swift answer was 'yes'.

A day later, a meeting was held with Michael Laudrup to discuss the newly-opened position. Once the Dane sensibly turned down the chance to be sacked by Atleti in six months time, former Valencia boss Quique Sánchez Flores agreed to lead the squad for what Cerezo has described as a long-term project which could last up to 'two or three years'.

"Poor Quique, what on earth has he got himself into," wrote the Atlético correspondent in AS on the manager who takes over from Monday.

The doomed-from-the-start-of-the-season Resino was let down by one of the worst defences in Spain. But during the summer, the former goalkeeper had warned that the back line was leakier than a Welsh stew and tried to bring in Real Madrid defender Miguel Torres.

Instead, Torres was snapped up by Getafe and Atleti's brilliant brains then decided to flog Johnny Heitinga to Everton after the Spanish transfer window had closed.

It was the defence that truly ballsed things up for Atleti against a nine-man Mallorca in Madrid on Saturday evening. The charitable referee had done everything imaginable to hand the rojiblancos a victory by awarding the home side two penalties - one was missed - and by sending off two Mallorca players.

But just seconds into injury-time with Atleti 1-0 up, former West Brom man Borja Valero snuck through to the by-line and fired in a shot that was deflected into the back of the net by young 'keeper David De Gea.

The mother of all bottles from the Calderón club caused hundreds of irate Atlético fans to gather outside the door to the presidential balcony and call for the club's main shareholder, Miguel Angel Gil-Marín, to sell up and leave town.

Unfortunately, the resistance from frustrated fans really is futile. After all, the club is a handy little cookie jar for the son of the gangster Jesus Gil, especially as he was found guilty of taking over the club through fraudulent means and was able to award himself a 250,000 Euros bonus for the club qualifying for the Champions League last season.

A third manager in peril in la Liga this weekend was Ernesto Valverde at Villarreal. The coach had taken over from Manuel Pellegrini over the summer and was expected to push the top two all the way with what looked like a very tasty team.

Instead, Villarreal went into the weekend's round of action at the bottom of the table, without a win and still smarting after a humiliating defeat to Xerez the previous week.

And while it may not sound too technical, the only rational explanation for Villarreal's perilous position was sheer crappy luck. Throughout the start of the season, Villarreal shots had been bouncing of the bar whilst opposition strikers suddenly became ruthlessly effective.

It looked like being the same sad situation on Sunday, when a struggling Málaga cancelled out a Nilmar goal with their first shot on target at the end of the first half.

Fortunately, Villarreal were able to lift themselves off the bottom when Joan Capdevila squeezed in a direct free-kick in the second half to give the east coast club a 2-1 win.

"We really suffered a lot," admitted a relieved Valverde after the game. With his club run in a considerably more sensible manner than most others in la Liga, Valverde should now be left in peace to move his team back up the Primera table.

With eight matches gone in la Primera, Abel Resino is still the only managerial casualty - a fairly remarkable record in a trigger-happy world.

But he was not fired for poor results or fury from fans. Indeed, Atlético supporters have always backed their managers and have consistently directed attacks towards the club's leadership who they suspect - and not without good reason - of being just a couple of common crooks.

And this is was the root cause of Resino's sacrifice, admitted Miguel Angel Gil-Marín himself. "We didn't have enough patience with him due to the media pressure," said the buck-passing owner.

The latest Atlético firing was predictable in every single sense. The day before the last coach but one, Javier Aguirre, was removed from his post, Enrique Cerezo claimed that "neither I nor anyone else is planning his sacking".

"We are responsible for our bad run," said Diego Forlán at the time of Aguirre's departure. "Abel wasn't to blame for what happened," said the Uruguayan striker eight months later.

Few would bet against a repeat run of the latest goings-on at the Vicente Calderón, in another eight months' time, at one of the most dysfunctional football sides in la Liga.

Tim Stannard

[Beast]

Madrid press pile pressure on Pellegrini

Tim Stannard

Wednesday 28 October 2009 11:32
It may have been a miserable Tuesday night for Real Madrid but it was a magnificent one for the glaziers of the city.

As Alcorcón’s fourth goal flew in, the squeal of protest from a fist-flying Florentino Pérez in his presidential high chair was so piercing that it shattered windows for miles around Alcorcón’s Santo Domingo stadium – the scene of what is being described in Wednesday’s press as the lowest point in Real Madrid’s history. Since the last one, anyway.

NEWS: Real humiliated in King's Cup


An omen of the wonderfully entertaining events to come were perhaps to be found in the tea leaves of Tuesday’s Madridista press, which featured the freebie-loving footballers at a promotional event for Audi the day before, accepting their sponsor-provided cars for the season.

The two Diarras selected the most expensive models worth around 160,000 Euros each, whilst a more modest Arbeloa went for a cheeky Coupé costing a mere 51,290 Euros.

An enterprising TV station visited the car park at Alcorcón to compare these pimp-mobiles with the models owned by Tuesday’s Copa del Rey opponents.

Unsurprisingly, the cars were a little less flashy, considering the average annual salary of a player in the Segunda B (third tier) outfit is 36,000 Euros - 4,500 times smaller than Cristiano Ronaldo’s pay-packet. It was the set-up for the mother of all pratfalls and Real Madrid’s pampered players duly obliged.

Tuesday's blog complained that the Copa del Rey was completely devoid of drama unless a team as utterly incompetent as Real Madrid stumble along and stuff things up completely. The Castle Greyskull outfit were booted out of the tournament by Real Uníon at this stage last season in a similar manner and - bless their satin socks - they look set to be following the same pathetic path, once again, against another lower-league outfit.

But Alcorcón can perhaps count themselves lucky to face a weakened Madrid side forced to field the likes of Benzema, Van der Vaart, Lady Gago and Raúl. And they took advantage of their injury-ravaged opponents by going 3-0 up by half-time and finishing the match with four. And very nearly five. Without reply.

However, Raúl is very much with the stiff upper lip and claims that there is all to play for in the Bernabeu on November 10. “If there’s any team that knows how to come back, it’s Madrid,” said the club captain, happily ignoring recent two-legged ties against Real Uníon, Liverpool, Betis, Bayern Munich, Arsenal...

Unsurprisingly, the reaction to the 4-0 reverse in Wednesday’s Madridista press is less than sympathetic.

“A disgrace!” yells AS from the front cover, “the joke of the century.” Inside, poor Tomás Roncero describes the game as “the biggest humiliation I can remember in my 44 years of militant Madridismo.” The crackpot columnist then wails that “millions of Madridistas were embarrassed in their homes.”

La Liga Loca thinks that tantrum-tastic Tomás should count his blessings. Real Madrid fans are normally humiliated at the Bernabeu. Or in bars. At least Tuesday night was more private.

Marca’s main role in the post-match panic is to ensure that Florentino Pérez should not be blamed for any of the recent reverses suffered by his expensively-assembled side.

“Get out!” blasts the paper’s front cover, on Wednesday, over a picture of Third-Choice Chilean Manuel Pellegrini. “Madrid haven’t played a decent, complete game of football all season,” notes Santiago Segurola inside.

Roberto Gómez agrees that the loss to Alcorcón was the worst in Madrid’s history and is all with the told-you-so in his column, tucked away on page 12.

“They called me anti-Madridista, anti-Valdano, anti-Pellegrini, but sadly time has proved that I was right,” ranted a not-sounding-sad-at-all Roberto.

“Florentino has played his role,” grovels Wednesday’s editorial which comes THAT close to calling for his firing. “It’s Pellegrini who hasn’t fulfilled his requirements.”

The Barcelona papers are - to be vulgar, but hey, this is Spain - p*ssing their pants with the hilarity of the situation. And who can blame them?

“Ridiculo Historico!” yells Sport with Josep Maria Casanovas writing that “this is the beginning of the end for Pellegrini.” Mundo Deportivo are equally as jubilant with a front cover blasting “Humiliation!"

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for miserable Madridistas who need something to cheer them up after their latest humiliation. Florentino Pérez is set to give a lecture to a university in Alicante on Wednesday night, on “the management model of Real Madrid.”

That's surely good for a few giggles to help turn those frowns upside down

[Beast]

Manuel Pellegrini is on the ropes after Real Madrid's greatest humiliation
The 4-0 defeat to third-tier Alcorcón in the first leg of a Copa del Rey tie means Real Madrid's coach is set for the bullet

Sid Lowe

It has already gone down as the greatest humiliation in Real Madrid's history. The neo-galácticos made fools of themselves; they had been left looking ludicrous after the 4-0 defeat by third-tier Alcorcón. The Catalan newspaper Sport called it a "ridículo histórico", while El Mundo Deportivo screamed: "Humiliated." They would say that, of course, but they weren't wrong.

Nor were they alone. Madrid's coach, Manuel Pellegrini, said he was "ashamed". The response was inevitable: so you should be. Not just ashamed, but out of a job. A poll on Marca's website showed that 85% considered it the greatest "ridículo" ever. Madrid are not yet out of the Copa del Rey but even if they turn it around in the second leg in two weeks' time there will be no undoing the damage done to them last night. "They still might get through but no one will ever take this dance from us," said the Alcorcón president. Like Lady Macbeth, there's no way Madrid can properly rid themselves of this stain.

Besides, without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, few believe they can turn it around. And by then, they may be under new management: Madrid's president, Florentino Pérez, is an extremely bad loser and last night Madrid were thrashed by a side from Spain's Second Division B. Madrid face Getafe at the weekend and Milan next week. Two defeats, even one, and few expect the coach to survive.

It could have been worse, too. Last night's defeat was no fluke. Alcorcón had three shots in the first two minutes, when the final whistle went they were still going forward, and fans responded by recalling Vicente Boluda's ridiculous boast from last year and chanting: "this is a chorreo".

The goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek was Madrid's best player. Ah, you might say, Dudek. That explains it: true to the tradition of treating the Spanish Cup with the contempt it deserves, Madrid were playing with a team of subs. Only they weren't. Ronaldo was injured, Kaká, Iker Casillas and Xabi Alonso left out. But Raúl played. And Karim Benzema. And Esteban Granero. And Guti. Madrid started with £110m worth of players on the pitch. Not one youth-teamer was included.

Speaking of youth-teamers, let's put this into perspective. Alcorcón's squad cost around £1m. Madrid's annual budget is £420m. On Monday afternoon, Madrid's squad were handed new cars by the club's sponsor – after driving them about in the (indoor) snow for the press first. They were worth more than £2m. That £2m could keep Alcorcón going for two years.

The average Alcorcón player earns £36,000 a season (although one lucky lad can supplement that with his earnings from the pizza shop). That is less than Ronaldo makes in a day.

Last night their stadium held 4,000. But only because they'd put some temporary seating in. More to the point, they play in Spain's Second Division B – the third tier, split across four, 20-team regional groups. More akin, in other words, to the Blue Square than La Liga. Put it this way, Real Madrid's youth team play in the same league as Alcorcón. In fact, Madrid's youth team have played them seven times and only ever lost once, 1-0.

Two hundred and fifty-four million pounds' worth of summer signings for this? It's a con, screams mad Madridista Tomás Roncero in AS. A galactic con, of course. "The fans," he writes, "are disgusted." Not least because they believe that this is not purely chance, nor an isolated, freak result.

Madrid have not convinced this season; they have scored lots of goals but their performances have been unconvincing – there's been little width, little possession, little fluidity, little control. Casillas has made more saves than any keeper in La Liga. Now, even the results are deserting them. While Ronaldo has been injured, Madrid have won just one in five. They have played two genuinely good sides (and "genuinely good" might be an exaggeration) and lost to both of them – Milan and Sevilla.

Pellegrini has consistently turned to the goalscoring stats to defend himself but they have not scored in their last two games. He has insisted that Madrid are a team in construction, that they must be patient. But Madrid don't have the time. Pérez certainly doesn't – for £254m he wants results yesterday.

Madrid's president is not a man to stand by his coaches – except, like a hostage taker, to thrust them into the firing line, shielding himself behind their bullet-ridden bodies. He went through six in three years last time. Pellegrini has lasted a couple of months; he may not last much longer. "Go now!" screams the cover of Marca, alongside a picture of the coach. "Pellegrini leads Madrid to a historic disgrace." "One thing is clear," says the paper's editorial, "Pellegrini has failed."

The concerning thing for the coach is not what they are saying but the fact that a paper so close to Pérez is saying it at all. That they are attacking him so bluntly, so directly and so consistently. That it is the culmination of a drip-drip campaign that has been running for a while. That they are doing so with complete impunity. Some would say connivance. Blaming Pellegrini means not blaming anyone else – especially Pérez. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Real Madrid's coach, not for the first time, has been sacrificed already.

[Beast]

The Lesson Madrid Will Never Learn




Now the last thing that this peace-loving column wants to do is to begin by insulting that strata of Spanish society that are both Real Madrid fans and Marca readers by calling them mindless, half-wit drones incapable of independent thought.

So this is why it will merely repeat the cold hard fact that, after a less than sensational spell for the Bernabeu club that saw defeats to AC Milan, Alcorcón and a goalless draw at Sporting, one poll in the sports daily claimed that 62% of voters wanted Manuel Pellegrini fired after just eight league games in charge of the club.

Another poll published on the same Friday said that just 13% thought that the Chilean coach was actually to blame for the side's early season teething problems.

And herein lies the fundamental problem at Real Madrid.

Everyone, from the club president to the cleaners know quite well that the manager is rarely to blame whenever the good times go bad at the Bernabeu. But that doesn't stop them being booted out at regular intervals to manage the mood of the masses.

As an under fire Pellegrini pointed out, last week, "Real Madrid have had eight coaches in five years and only won two out of eighteen titles." The former Villarreal boss failed to mention that those two trophies were the league titles of 2007 and 2008 and were won by coaches who were fired either minutes after celebrating their success as in Fabio Capello's case, or in a matter of months as with poor Bernd Schuster.

"The same criticism, the same names," sighed the club's latest scapegoat at Friday's press conference, which continued to be dominated by Tuesday's 4-0 reverse in the first leg of a Copa del Rey match against Alcorcón - a side the size of an English non-league outfit lying to the south of the city.

Pellegrini wasn't even able to blame the weakness of the squad sent to face the fixture. There were no wide-eyed youth teamers to be seen. 250 million Euros spent over the summer means that Karim Benzema and Raúl was the forward line that faced the lowly opposition.

Instead, the professorial manager had to ride with the punches as sections of the Spanish press called for his head on a platter, after the defeat. Or more accurately, Marca did - the paper whose main role these days is to make sure that El Presidente remains blameless and stain free at all times.

"Florentino has played his role. It's Pellegrini who not fulfilled his part of the deal," tutted an editorial in an edition that had the paper's director listing twenty reasons why the perfectly capable Pellegrini should be sacked after just five months and replaced by Sven Goran Eriksson, just one of the candidates for the new boss suggested by Marca.

Whilst Marca were right to say that Real Madrid have been outclassed by the only two strong sides they have played, Sevilla and Milan, and have yet to find their feet in the new season, Pellegrini cannot be completely blamed for a less than spectacular start to the year.

Over the summer, the Chilean coach announced that he was planning important roles in the new campaign for the Dutch duo of Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder. Unfortunately for Pellegrini, both were bundled out of the Bernabeu fairly late in the day with the excuse that their sales were required to balance the books.

However one of the main real reasons for the double flogging was that the massively petty Florentino wanted to purge the squad of the players signed by Ramon Calderón, the previous president, irrespective of the damage to Pellegrini's plans.

The money raised was apparently required to fund the purchase of Karim Benzema, from Lyon. A far smarter move would have been to have hung on to Robben and kept Spanish international striker Alvaro Negredo, who has been in fantastic form for his new club, Sevilla.

Unfortunately, Negredo's media profile is not high as Benzema - a player who has shown signs of a bright future, but only in flashes. Pellegrini's problem is that he is under pressure play Benzema in every encounter despite a record of just three goals - or one every 256 minutes so far this season.

The Frenchman's inclusion often comes at the expense of a system that sees Kaká pushed out to the wings and relied on the genius of the still injured Cristiano Ronaldo in the early stages of the season.

The Chilean coach must also put up with the likes of Guti, too, a player that his bosses opted to keep over Sneijder. The 'maverick' - and take that word as you will - midfielder began his latest week at Madrid by turning up for training last Sunday two hours late, giving the clocks going back as his excuse.

He continued by being utterly useless in the Copa del Rey defeat, sticking his middle finger up at fans, and telling Pellegrini to "shove it up his arse" when told he was being substituted at half-time.

But it's not just the top-performing players who have been forced out of the club to make way for Florentino's dream team that have caused issues for Pellegrini this season, but the footballers that are still there but sidelined for not being sexy enough.

Gonzalo Higuaín is a case in point. The 21-year old banged in 22 league goals in 34 games for Madrid, last season, and has dug his side out of numerous holes with a string of astonishing last minute winners.

However, because of the political impossibility of Pellegrini dropping Benzema, Ronaldo or Kaká - and not to mention Raúl - the Argentine international has made just two league starts this season.

Luckily for Higuaín and Real Madrid, the club captain was rested ahead Tuesday's Champions League clash against Milan, and the young striker got his chance to begin Madrid's game on Saturday night and grabbed two brilliantly taken goals to give Real a much-needed 2-0 win against Getafe.

"He's Madrid's secret weapon," screamed AS the morning after, as if they had just discovered the player called up to Diego Maradona's latest squad that takes on Spain in a fortnight's time.

Although Florentino Pérez claimed on Sunday that he was "happy with Manuel Pellegrini and is sure that he will end the season positively," there is no good reason to believe a man with a reputation in Spain as 'the devourer' of managers.

The club president's sense of self-preservation and the personal risk to his all-important reputation is far too strong to allow Pellegrini to have any sense of security of the Bernabeu bench.

The memory of the suited and booted Real Madrid president sitting in a grotty municipal stadium on a Tuesday night, watching his expensively assembled outfit going through what the Spanish press called "the club's biggest humiliation" is not one that will be forgotten anytime soon.

Johan Cruyff wrote over the weekend that "everyone knows that the coach isn't in charge at Madrid, but others are." The Dutchman was quite right in his opinion, especially when compared to the current situation at Barcelona.

When Pep Guardiola said he wanted Deco, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o gone, they were gone. And when he said he wanted Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the Swedish striker came, despite the doubters in the Catalan capital.

The only control that Manuel Pellegrini has at Real Madrid is over the DVD player in the team coach. And even then you suspect that it's Raul who really holds the remote control.

And this is why an Arsene Wenger did not come to the Bernabeu last summer. And this is why Jose Mourinho never will, the second of the managers that Florentino wanted to lead his Galactico reboot.

But this is a message that Madrid's rulers will simply never get through their thick skulls.

Almost any manager in the world could be tempted with the opportunity to stand on the touchline at the Santiago Bernabeu with the knowledge that he was in charge of the team from top to bottom with the range of powers of Sir Alex Ferguson.

But with the size of egos of the presidents at the club, it's never going to happen. And Real Madrid will forever be just two bad results away from sacking another scapegoat.



Tim Stannard

[Beast]

A taxing week
Phil Ball

The fact that Sporting Gijón lie seventh in the league, with a quarter of the games now played, is probably the fairest thing to highlight at the start of this week's column. After beating Espanyol 1-0, they have garnered sixteen precious points from the ten games so far played, and as averages go would be very happy to end the season on something around 60 points, their present haul multiplied by four. They managed 43 last season, when Betis went down with 42, but 62 points saw Valencia into Europe. Ah - lies, damned lies and averages! Best to wait until Christmas before making any rash predictions.

But it's been that kind of week. All eyes on progress. Further up the ladder, Real Madrid continued their spiritual recuperation process with a disciplined performance in Milan, earning them a draw in a game that could have gone either way. Barcelona also managed a draw against their bogey men from Russia, Rubin Kazan, at five below zero. In a sense, it was a worthy draw, but their further progress in the competition whose cup this year gleams on their home shelf is now beginning to look a trifle complicated. It would certainly be a shock to their system to bow out at this stage, and would be a mortal blow to their morale. Madrid should go through, but may not lead the group in the final reckoning - a factor that has dogged them for the last few seasons. Sevilla turned out to be the first side to pass though and Atlético the first to bow out, though both outcomes were entirely predictable.

Meanwhile, over in a sleepy stadium in deepest Extremadura, the Estadio Principe Felipe to be precise (the 'Prince Philip Stadium' - isn't he supposed to be an Atlético Madrid fan?), Club Polideportivo Cacereño were aiming to climb out of the bottom four of Group 2 of Segunda 'B'. This worthy ambition was to be carried out against an illustrious visitor - Alcarcón no less. The game had been subject to some media attention during the week for the obvious reason that it was to be Alcarcón's last game before the extraordinary event that awaits their modest players, some of them part-timers, on Tuesday night in the Bernabéu. The club's directors had desperately attempted to bring the game, scheduled for Sunday at 17.00, back to Saturday to give them time to prepare for the biggest day in their history so far. But Cacereño were having none of it, citing administrative reasons, and the league was powerless to act.

On top of potentially messing up Alcorcón's chances by obliging them to travel back from Extremadura Sunday evening - meaning a late night and a dozy final training session on Monday, Cacereño pulled off a 1-1 draw, which did them little good but which also served to keep their visitors in 6th place, a result which leaves them eight points adrift of the leaders, Guadalajara. Ah - try pronouncing that one John Motson! Funnily enough, Real Madrid 'B' play in this very same league, and beat Nastic 'B' 4-2, but still lie well below Alcorcón in 14th place.

Alcorcón's away record is none too impressive with only one win recorded so far this season, but although Real Madrid are unlikely to be interested in these statistics, their visitors for Tuesday night have not conceded any more than one goal for any of the away games played so far this season. Ronaldo will not figure on the team sheet on Tuesday night, but other big guns may well be brought in to resolve matters. The game is taking on quite extraordinary dimensions here. Real Madrid have cut the entrance prices drastically, and every ticket for sale has been taken up. Allowing for those ticket-carrying members who stay at home, the club is expecting a near-capacity crowd. It's all a bit weird, a sudden about-turn at the Bernabéu in a desperate attempt to seal the recovery process after the monumental embarrassment in the aftermath of the first leg defeat. In historical terms, it is akin to the great European nights in the capital, where the side would play a home leg already in arrears from the away game, and stage an epic 'remontada' (comeback) under the floodlights. From this tradition, well understood in Madridista circles, the phrase 'miedo escénico' was born, supposedly from the lips of Jorge Valdano, then a player who figured in several of these legendary nights. It translates roughly as 'stage fright', but refers to the visitors who had somehow to resist the baying vertical walls of the Bernabéu and the impossibly partial atmosphere that was generated. They rarely did, of course - giving rise to Valdano's phrase.

It's a long time since Real Madrid have figured in this normally epic context, and so it is with some irony that they should be setting up such a circus for Tuesday night. A lot is at stake - more than the cup itself. Madrid have not won it since 1993 and it remains the only major trophy not won by Raúl, who first appeared a year later. But the players are aware that they need to slaughter their humble visitors, to re-set the world's configuration which was put out of kilter by the upstarts from the suburbs. They have to do it by 5-0 at least, for any goal by Alcarcón will set the winning margin very high indeed. Anything is possible, but the game has been cooked up by the media here to boiling point, especially coming in a week where there will be no further competition due to international games at the weekend.

Madrid themselves prepared for the event by beating their neighbours 2-3 in the Calderón, after leading 0-3 at one stage. Once Sergio Ramos was sent off, things turned rather uncomfortable for the visitors, up to then cruising impressively and taking advantage of the usual comedy of errors that one associates so easily with Atlético this season. In the end, Iker Casillas saved them with a providential stop from the roaming Agüero, and the big two pulled away from Espanyol in 9th place, in the sense that after ten games Barcelona now have twice their neighbour's points tally. Espanyol can still believe in a Europa finish this season, but the gulf that has already opened up is significant.

This leads nicely onto the next issue. Last Tuesday a governmental amendment to the 'Beckham Law', set up in 2004 by the previous government, the Partido Popular, stated that the 24% rate tax agreed for foreign footballers earning over 600,000 euros must be almost doubled in the budget for 2010, up to 43%. The parliamentary argument, yet to be ratified, argues that this would bring Spain into line with other European countries who have 'significant' football leagues. The LFP, the Liga de Fútbol Profesional which forms a part of the umbrella institution, the RFEF (Federation), came out on Thursday and threatened strike action if this goes ahead. It softened its stance on Saturday after a meeting with delegates from all the clubs, and agreed to a timetable of negotiations with the government department responsible, but the glove has nevertheless been slapped down. In a first exchange of fire, government sources insist that the plan is 'non-negotiable', but they would say that.

One of the problems is that the government may be right. Another of the problems is that the head of the LFP is José Luis Astiazarán, the same man who took Real Sociedad to ruin, where just as the ship was sinking and the water was lapping around his ankles, leaped across the water at a passing speedboat and was whisked to safety by various friends of the same school-tie and wetsuit. He then emerged several weeks later as head of the LFP on a hefty salary, whilst the club over which he had presided fell into administration and the Second Division. It could only happen in Spain, but three years down the line the same man is taking the government to task for a fiscal reform that he says will bring La Liga to its knees and harm its privileged position. What he means is that without this whopping incentive of a piddly 24% loss of earnings, folks like Becks and Ronaldo will cease to come to these shores, the league will collapse, the sponsors will disappear, the TV rights will dry up, and death and plague will ravage the land. Football is a multi-million pound industry, thundered Astiazarán (who, incidentally, gets his hair cut in the same place as me, every six weeks or so), and will cease to be such a big tax earner for the government if this legislation is passed. This was enough to bring out the threat of a strike by the players, said José Luis, before being calmed down a little by the avuncular Florentino Pérez on Saturday in Madrid.

Strike action eh? By whom? By the rest of the players on behalf of the 43 players who declared earnings more than 600,000 euros in last year's tax fest? Come off it Joselu! There were 1,960 contributions to the tax purse last year from professional footballers, so I'll leave it to you to work out the percentage of them who earned more than 600 grand. Let's just say it's pretty small. And whilst it may be true that it only needs a Messi and a Ronaldo to sex up a league for media purposes (and maybe a smattering of the 41 big cheeses left), it hardly hints at a mass exodus from these shores. Besides, the law will not refer to monies already earned, and will only apply to future imports.

If the law is passed, clubs will simply re-adjust their cloth in order to make the package attractive enough. It's true that it may put one or two players off, but some sort of realism is surely required here. Astiazarán is not the sort of chap who would have noticed that Spain has just announced unemployment figures of 18.1%, double that of the average in the Euro zone. As a piece of moral legislation therefore the idea isn't a bad one. But moral is not a word that interests the LFP boss very much. His arguments are entirely fiscal.

Some of us, however, are more interested in football. It used to exist fairly well before all the bodies that Astiazarán quotes jumped on board and turned it into the debt-ridden monster that is is rapidly becoming. An entertaining one for all that, but it's hard to swallow a call for industrial action to protect the lifestyles of multi-millionaires. Interesting one that - a sort of silver-spoon socialism that only those pampered since birth (Astiazarán) could possibly dream up. As the arch-leftie Arthur Scargill memorably said of Tony Benn, 'He wouldn't recognise a grass root if he tripped over one'.

But let's not get too working-class hero here. It's just common sense. Why should Spain continue to be the exception? In the LFP's defence, it might be argued that the issue works both ways, and so why should the government bother changing the law if it affects so few? The answer is probably that the PSOE government, despite the awkward reality, would still like to appear to be the nominal socialists they once were, and if there is an easy way to help achieve this, football enters into the fray as one of the contributors. But that doesn't make the idea wrong. They should have consulted with the LFP - a definite gaffe that was destined to annoy, but I still can't see what the fuss is about. Cloth will have to be cut sooner or later. The game might begin to retrace its roots, and people might even be able to afford to go to football matches. Now there's a radical idea.

[Beast]

Groundhog day for Atlético as Real dish out familiar Madrid derby pain

Over 50 clubs from Saudi Arabia to Merseyside have beaten Real since 1999. Agonised Atlético still aren't one of them

Sid Lowe

The clock showed 04:00 at the Vicente Calderón stadium in Madrid but it might as well have showed 06:00 at the Cherry Street Bed and Breakfast in Punxsutawney. The bloke with WG Grace's beard shook his head sadly; the lad in the Torres Liverpool shirt loudly defecated on his prostitute mother; and the kid in the pink jacket threw down the packet, sending a thousand sunflower seeds scattering. Behind them, journalists sought out previous match reports and hit Ctrl C, Ctrl V. To their right, fans diced with death, angrily booting the corrugated sides of the stand, perched precariously 100 feet over the motorway. Jesus wept, not again! This is getting absolutely ridiculous! Every. Bloody. Time. 04:00 in Madrid, 06:00 in Punxsutawney. Groundhog Day!

Crushed by the inevitability of it all, even the swirl from the silly cigarettes couldn't ease the pain. In the South Stand, the red and white smoke of pre-match flares hadn't even blown away. But Atlético Madrid had been. The Raúl-remembering banner that inadvertently said it all by declaring "Our cast-off [is], your best player" was still to be folded. But Atlético Madrid already had. To the west, the cathedral looked silently down as if piously, patronisingly whispering: "Pity the fools." In the North Stand, below the clock and the dotted lights reading "Atlético 0 R. Madrid 1" an advert asked: "Need a taxi?" 55,000 fans could have been forgiven for dialling 915478200 and screaming yes. Taxi for Atlético Madrid.

It was the Madrid derby and they told us it was special; this time would be different. Never mind that Atlético Madrid were in the relegation zone or that Real Madrid were 15 points ahead, this would be a real match. Telemadrid announced that their "heart was split" – which was a surprise as no one realised they had one – and dedicated nine hours to it. Marca gave up 19 pages, one of which explained how Sergio Agüero has special shorts that keep his willy warm. And AS offered 15 pages packed with squiggly lines, the obligatory picture of the galácticos arriving at their hotel, and the Morata Atlético supporters' club declaring: "Madrid don't scare us; this is a different Atléti; this is a new Atléti."

A new Atléti with a new coach and a new dawn. By the stairs in the main stand girls in red handed out copies of Forza Atléti declaring Quique Sánchez Flores "the chosen one" (which he is if you don't count Michael Laudrup, Luciano Spalletti or any of the others), the man bringing solidarity back. Players queued up to say how great he is. And newspapers reported that training sessions were longer. The last time Atlético beat Real, Agüero was 11. So were Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuaín. And Spain was still using pesetas. But that run was going to end.

Thing is, if Atlético have showed signs of improvement under Quique there was no escaping that they'd been beaten by Athletic Bilbao and knocked out of the Champions League by Chelsea. Besides, they said much they same when Abel Resino arrived and look how that turned out. And if it was really true that training sessions had got longer every time they said training sessions had got longer there'd be no time for actually playing games. Tomorrow might be another day, but tomorrow night is another night – cold, dark and lonely.

The illusion lasted four minutes. That's when it started happening all over again. The club that have witnessed more false dawns than Truman Burbank should have suspected as much. Sergio Ramos pushed over Cléber Santana and found Kaká, whose shot flew past Sergio Asenjo. 1-0. After 24 minutes, Marcelo made it 2-0. After half an hour, Atlético hadn't had a shot. After an hour, Gonzalo Higuaín robbed Luis Perea and made it 3-0.

It was depressingly familiar, utterly pathetic, like a highlights reel of derby nights past, played out to the sound of a kazoo and crashing cymbals. Atlético had conceded an early goal. Just like in 2008 and 2007 when they trailed after 34 seconds, or December 2003 when it took just 14, or six months earlier when it was 3-0 within half an hour. Just like always – it was the seventh time in nine derbies they'd trailed inside 10 minutes. They were screaming blue murder at the referee, even though murder's surely more likely to be red. Just like in April 2004 and February 2007; just like they always do. They'd gift-wrapped a ridiculous goal. Just like in January 2008. Even worse than in January 2008: statistically, Atlético have their worse defence since 1955.

In short, they'd blown it. They were going to lose. As always. Only, for a moment, it seemed they might not. At half-time, Quique sent on the "injured" Agüero; as he had against Chelsea, Agüero made Atlético a different side. On 65 minutes, with Higuaín having made it 3-0, Manuel Pellegrini – who'd just been hit by a stone thrown from the crowd – decided it was safe to send on Raúl. Two minutes later, Agüero raced through and was hauled down by Ramos. Red card. With Madrid down to 10, Marcelo at left-back, Fernando Gago on in midfield and Raúl up front, they lost control. Diego Forlán scored on 78 minutes. Agüero scored on 80. 3-2, 10 minutes to produce a miracle. Atlético steamed forward. The silence was broken; roars of "Atléééééééééééti" rang out. For the first time in 76 minutes, their fans believed they could actually win.

They shouldn't have. The hope only made the ending more cruel. Atlético, noted one observer, were just a calientapollas (prickteaser). Simao missed a sitter. Forlán had one disallowed. And then, in the 91st minute, Agüero was sent clean through … and "Saint" Iker Casillas saved. Atlético had taken a different route but arrived at the same destination, AS declaring it the "never ending story". Like a song from Status Quo or an episode of CSI, Marca insisted: "Some are always the same." Glory had slipped away in the dying seconds. Just like in October 2006; Casillas had denied them again. As the fans departed the stadium announcer played Atlético's hymn. Appropriately, the record was broken.

Since October 1999, Al Nasr Saudi Club, Al-Ahly, Alavés, Alcorcón, Almería, Anderlecht, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Betis, Boca Juniors, Celta de Vigo, Deportivo, Espanyol, Galatasaray, Getafe, Grazer, Hanover, Internazionale, Juventus, Las Palmas, Levante, Liverpool, Lokomotiv Moscow, Málaga, Mallorca, Manchester United, Milan, Monaco, Murcia, Nastic, Numancia, Olympiakos, Olympique Lyon, Osasuna, PSV, Racing, Rayo Vallecano, Nexaca, Real Sociedad, Real Unión, Recreativo, Roma, Servette, Sevilla, Spartak Moscow, Sporting Lisbon, Tokyo Verdy, Toledo, Valencia, Valladolid, Villarreal, Werder Bremen and Zaragoza have all beaten Real Madrid. Atlético have not. Somehow, every time the big day arrives, they wake up at 6am in a freezing Pennsylvania town all too aware of how it's going to end.

Talking points

• The other piece of big news from the Calderón on Saturday night may just be the beginning of the slow death of the old Real Madrid – the swansong for record scorer Raúl, whose absence from the starting XI for the third successive game – the first time that's happened in seven years, other than through injury – again served Madrid almost as much as Atléti always do. Defeat against Alcorcón might turn out to be the best thing that co

uld have ever happened to Pellegrini, allowing him to ditch Raúl and Guti. Since then, Madrid have stopped rotating and started looking like a reasonable side. It is not just that Raúl is too slow – as he chased on to one through ball on Saturday you could have sworn he was going backwards – or even that he's simply not as good as the other strikers; it is that his presence conditions the shape of the whole side. Without him, Madrid look much more balanced. Without him, Kaká actually plays in the right place.

• Valencia keep winning. They're still fourth and David Villa is top scorer on eight. They were given a major helping hand by Real Zaragoza's decision to play with their back four right up on the half-way line, though. Valencia scored three goals that all came the same way – with a simple ball into the wide open spaces behind Zaragoza's defence. Jermaine Pennant didn't play, by the way. Alex Sanchez, though, did – the first player with only one hand to appear in La Liga.

• Barcelona won 4-2 but still didn't look quite right against Mallorca. Pep Guardiola insists they are playing better than last season but, for once, he's convincing no one. Mind you Zlatan Ibrahimovic did provide a superb assist.

• The jinx still works. Villarreal lost this weekend. No disgrace in that, though. They performed superbly but were beaten 3-2 by Sevilla in a great match at the Sánchez Pizjuán. Villarreal's football was impressive; so was Sevilla's ability to deliver the knockout blow. Speaking of Sevilla, today could be a big day for Jesús Navas, who's expected to get a call-up for the Spain squad. The 24-year-old, who has suffered from anxiety attacks when leaving Andalucía before, says he is ready to join the selección at last. And they're ready to have him.

Results: Tenerife 2-2 Málaga, Getafe 0-2 Deportivo, Barcelona 4-2 Mallorca, Atlético 2-3 Madrid, Valladolid 0-0 Xerez, Sporting 1-0 Espanyol, Racing 0-2 Athletic [Carlos Gurpegui scores four years later], Almería 2-0 Osasuna, Valencia 3-1 Zaragoza, Sevilla 3-2 Villarreal.

[Beast]

`Destitute Depor` Lead Way In La Liga
Posted 09/11/09 11:35



Journalistically speaking, this week's column should be focussing fully on the latest edition of the Madridileño derby, the match that was by far the biggest in la Liga this weekend.

But this column says big old balls and poo drops to Saturday evening's encounter. After all, another win for Real Madrid against Atleti in the Vicente Calderón is not really newsworthy fodder these days. The rubbish rojiblancos have only managed two derby day victories in 33 attempts and the last time one of those freakish encounters occurred was over ten years ago.

Nevertheless, this didn't stop Atlético fans being full of beans, once again, about the possibility of rogering Real Madrid, despite their club lying in the relegation zone. And this didn't stop Atlético fans being stunned into silence, once again, within minutes of the kick-off as Real Madrid ran away with a 3-0 lead that was kicked off by Kaká's early effort - another traditional feature of these Calderón clashes.

Although a red card for Sergio Ramos facilitated a late rojiblanco rally to pull the scoreline back to 3-2, it was yet another dismal defeat for Atlético Madrid in this twice-yearly tussle.

'The days and months pass, the climate changes,' wrote Tomas Roncero in Sunday's AS, 'but still Real Madrid wins the derby.'

Although the highly-charged affair at the Calderón was a supremely entertaining encounter - in comparison to the Premier League's 'Super Sunday' that soon cleared the bars in the Spanish capital - there was just as much fun to be had a few hours earlier at Getafe's Coliseum stadium. But this is 'fun' in the 'bleak, drizzly, grim tactical battle' sense of the word.

A horrendously inconsistent Getafe were taking on Deportivo, the 'surprise package' - to lazily use the cliché - of the Spanish season that had gone into Saturday's encounter sitting snugly in the European places.

All in all, quite an achievement considering the club remains completely broke due to the money splurged during its Super Depor days and is without anything that could even loosely be described as a striker.

Indeed, the Deportivo club president Augusto Lendoiro was in court the previous week facing accusations - all denied - that he had forged the signature of an auditor to declare that the Galician side was in fine financial fettle to obtain a UEFA license to play in the 2007/2008 UEFA Cup competition.

But under the management of the notoriously miserable and teary old-timer Miguel Angel Lotina, Destitute Depor have been grimly grinding out results like nobody's business.

Four out of five of the previous league victories for the club from La Coruña had been 1-0 wins. But more impressively, not a single goal had been conceded in this remarkable run. And it's a good thing too considering no player in the Deportivo squad has managed more than two league strikes so far this season.

The down side of Deportivo's need to focus on defence first is that the the side is generally awful to watch. However, there was a certain masochistic pleasure to be had on Saturday in seeing the centre-back, Diego Coletto and Lopo send every ball back into Getafe's half in a superbly disciplined display. But what was even more thrilling was being able to watch Lotina working his clean sheet shimmery at close quarters.

For the entire second half, your correspondent was just a couple rows behind the Deportivo depressive after he had been banished to the stands for insulting the referee for the ludicrous sending-off of the side's 'striker' Riki - the forward who continues to produce fantastic Frank Butcher impressions from English fans whenever he touches the ball.

By this point in Saturday's game, Deportivo were already 1-0 in front after a cross from Felipe was headed in by the free-scoring old-timer, Mista. But this did not stop Lotina muttering both to himself and his technical team who had joined him for much of the second half, especially after the referee decided to send midfielder Sergio off too in the 72nd minute.

However, some 12 minutes before his side had been reduced to nine men, Deportivo had doubled their lead after a goal from Felipe and the now eight-man defence was easily dealing with everything Getafe had to offer. Which was not a great deal really, to be fair.

With a pump of the fist and something that could possibly be described as a smile, Lotina rushed towards the dressing rooms to congratulate his players on yet another win - the club's sixth in ten games - and yet another clean sheet.

Despite the result that leaves Deportivo in a fantastic fifth, the boss was not going to forget what happened in the game and attacked the referee for dismissing two of his players as well as himself.

"It was one rule for Getafe and another for Deportivo," fumed Lotina.

Deportivo's playing style is not for those who like their footie to be fast and flowing. An uncompromising and immensely organised defence is backed up by three defensive midfielders and a deep lying striker.

The side's attacking threat comes exclusively from Brazilian left-back Felipe, partnered with Mexican international José Andrés Guardado.

But with the limited resources that Deportivo have, there is not much more that the team can do and so will continue to be the footballing definition of the word 'effective'.

But Deportivo are not the only plucky side fighting the powers that be in La Liga. Mallorca have used a 100% home record to plop the Balearic side into 6th, despite a 5-2 defeat to Barcelona in the Camp Nou on Saturday night.

However, their form is on the brink of failing as the squad has yet to receive October's wages from the side's increasingly hard-to-find owners and are waiting for hefty payments from win bonuses.

"Sooner or later, this is going to end up affecting the team," warned defender Iván Ramis.

Sitting one place behind Mallorca, it's seventh-placed Sporting who have learned from last season's less-than-pragmatic approach to football with a more disciplined modus-operandi this time round, typified by a 1-0 win over Espanyol on Sunday evening.

These three sides are proving that whilst the big-spending boys at the top of the table continue to dominate the agenda in la Liga, it is still possible to flourish in the game in Spain on considerably more modest means with a bit of organisation and the odd salary payment here and there.

Round 10 results

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


Tim Stannard