Spanish football is a peculiar beast when placed under a microscope, rather like a petri dish teeming with all the bacteria Fifa is currently trying to scrape from its gilded Zurich halls. There is no fit-and-proper-persons test in La Liga, as Racing Santander is currently being left to rue. Match-fixing was made a criminal offence just six months ago. Clubs are traditionally controlled by wildly unreliable clans like the Gil family at Atlético Madrid and the Ruiz-Mateos' at Rayo Vallecano – currently busily covering their own backsides as their Nueva Rumasa congolmerate goes under for the second time, leaving thousands of investors, and Rayo's players, on the bread line. If your club … [Read more...] about Real Madrid’s ‘señor’ status at play as Mourinho takes control
Liga
Depor’s glory a distant memory as team slides out of Liga
The only real drama during Saturday’s conclusion of the Liga season was at the bottom of the table, where Deportivo la Coruña were relegated after losing 2-0 at home to Valencia. After a see-sawing 90 minutes which could possibly have seen Mallorca, Real Sociedad, Osasuna, Getafe or Zaragoza drop instead, once-proud Depor followed Almería and Hércules down to next year’s La Segunda. Although they became the first side to be relegated with more than 42 points in a 20 team league, you could not really say Deportivo were unlucky. Their failure to score on Saturday was telling, and familiar. Under the restrained tactics of coach Miguel Ángel Lotina, the Galicians have been poor in front of … [Read more...] about Depor’s glory a distant memory as team slides out of Liga
Athletic Bilbao’s local lions belie football’s global trend
Athletic Bilbao’s selection policy is both its strength and an obvious demographic weakness: only players born in the area known as the “historic” Basque Country, encompassing Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Álava, Navarre and three French regions –or who were schooled in its youth ranks– are strictly eligible to pull on the red-and-white shirt. While this policy has been relaxed just slightly in recent years, the only sides in Spain to operate a policy anywhere near as defined by region are fellow Basques Real Sociedad and Barcelona, which currently fields a number of Catalans but also has players brought into the fold at an early age, such as Andrés Iniesta and Leo Messi. But Barça also has a … [Read more...] about Athletic Bilbao’s local lions belie football’s global trend
Hércules’ Italian job on Barça restores Liga intrigue
While staff at the Spanish Economy Ministry have been telling anyone who will listen for the last few months that “Spain isn’t Greece”, over at the football federation, they’ve had a rather more tricky time of it trying to convince us that “Spain isn’t Scotland”. Scotland in this context means a country with only two teams that ever look remotely like winning the domestic league. And over the last few years, while Real Madrid and Barcelona may not resemble Celtic and Glasgow Rangers in any way on the pitch, each pair of teams seems to enjoy a similarly vice-like duopoly on the silverware. So it was refreshing to see league champion and European powerhouse Barcelona humbled 2-0 by newly … [Read more...] about Hércules’ Italian job on Barça restores Liga intrigue
Seeking the perfect leader for a two-horse race
The Spanish league season that has just ended may have been a thriller, with Barcelona only securing the title on the last day of the season, but in a couple of ways it has been an entirely predictable affair. Once again, only two teams were ever serious contenders; and once again, Real Madrid seems intent on replacing its coach. Manuel Pellegrini, the former Villarreal manager drafted in to mould a team from an expensive but disparate collection of summer signings at Real Madrid, is a man whose days are numbered; so much so that the Chilean can count them on one hand. There is little in the way of reassurance emanating from the Bernabéu boardroom that Pellegrini will be invited to see … [Read more...] about Seeking the perfect leader for a two-horse race
Guardiola’s masterwork is based on Cruyff’s art
Barcelona’s latest triumph on a seemingly inexorable march to another domestic and European double –a 2-0 victory over Real Madrid in the Bernabéu on April 10– was described in the Spanish media as cartera ganado por cantera – roughly, the youth team beats the wallet. It has become one of Barcelona president Joan Laporta’s favourite jibes towards the team from the capital and the outspoken lawyer, who stands down from the stewardship of the club in the summer, is enjoying his personal finale immensely. “It was a victory for our mode of football and as a club,” Laporta told reporters after the match with thinly veiled glee. Of the two starting line-ups, Real’s contained one product of its … [Read more...] about Guardiola’s masterwork is based on Cruyff’s art