La Liga 2007/08

61

Another top quality article from Sid Lowe this week. This time it’s on Real Zaragoza - my Pro Evo team of choice.

Why are Real Zaragoza so rubbish?
Four coaches in under two months, disenchanted fans and too many men at the top have left last season’s entertainers flirting with relegation
Sid Lowe
March 10, 2008 3:46 PM

It’s one of the great footballing mysteries of our time, as baffling as Bryan Robson’s ability to earn management jobs. It’s right up there with: what was going through Chris Coleman’s mind when he came up with a dodgy washing machine excuse (apart from the funereal drumming of the previous night’s minis)? Which tosspot invented those air-horns that haunt Spanish stadiums? How did Ramn Caldern mistake this man for Nicholas Cage? And where does Paco Chaparro buy his hair? The question is this: why are Real Zaragoza so rubbish?

Last season, Zaragoza finished sixth, playing some of the best football in Spain. Their coach, Vctor Fernndez, was widely liked and boasted nearly 20 years of experience. They had a goalkeeper who offered natty leggings, pink shorts and sharp saves, a qualified hair-dresser at left-back, and a nutter with a great right foot and a better right hook on the other side. They had Pablo Aimar, Sergio Garca and Andres D’Alessandro, three of La Liga’s top eight assist providers, and Diego Milito up front.

This summer, they lost defensive leader Gabi Milito to Barcelona but replaced him with Roberto Fabin Ayala, an evil master with league winners medals in three countries - and they made 15.5m euro profit into the bargain. Better still, the only other significant departure was Arturo Sis and he left to become a 50,000-euro-a-year stadium announcer at the Bernabu. Besides, if Zaragoza had lost a hideous combination of Hi-de-Hi, rabid TV evangelist and Smashie & Nicey, criminally handed a microphone and a captive audience, they gained plenty in return: Ricardo Oliveira, Javier “The Warthog” Paredes, Gabi, Peter Luccin and Brazilian playmaker Francelino da Silva Matuzalm - the man with vision, touch, goals and his name tattooed across his neck (which kindly saves his loved ones a trip down the morgue to identify the body in the event of a terrible accident).

They were, in short, all set for a tilt at the Champions League, AS declaring them “ready for something great”, owner Agapito Iglesias insisting they’d become a “European player” and Fernndez declaring his side would improve on sixth place and “get the fans going”.

Shame they’ve mostly been going for the exits. Zaragoza reached week 27 out of the Cup, out of the Uefa Cup, and fourth-bottom, only goal difference separating them from relegation. Worse still, they’d gone through coaches like Pedja Mijatovic gets through Brylcreem. Four in 51 days. They played Racing Santander three times in three weeks with three different coaches. Fernndez was sacked in January after nine successive defeats, Ander Garitano lasted nine days and Javier Irureta hung on for just six games, picking up four points and leaving Manolo Villanova in charge.

When Fernndez left he complained about feeling “unsupported” by the club; when Garitano walked, he said he wasn’t “mentally right”; and when Irureta departed last week he shrugged: “My message isn’t getting through.” All of which hints at the reasons for Zaragoza’s collapse. Matuzalm and Aimar’s injuries have been important, but their problems go deeper. An unstable club without a coherent strategy, Zaragoza lack direction with president Eduardo Bandrs, owner Iglesias, sporting director Miguel Pardeza and technical secretary Pedro Herrera whistling and looking the other way, leaving the coach with little support and still less authority.

All the more so when the coach is Fernndez, a man whose response to tough decisions is to run away screaming and hide under the bed, eyes shut, hands clamped over his ears. His lack of leadership left a vacuum that’s been all too evident on the pitch. Milito has 15 goals and Oliveira has 10 but, at the other end, where you need organisation, Csar has conceded more goals than any other keeper in La Liga.

“A dressing room is like a classroom,” says one insider. “As soon as there’s a lack of leadership, as soon as the teacher steps outside, the kids riot.” In Zaragoza’s classroom there have been fights and arguments, a free-for-all. And with Vctor gone, nervously huddling under a cloud of cigarette smoke in the staff room, the poor supply teachers have walked into a war zone with Bunsen burners hissing and punches flying, powerless to turn things round. Which is why Garitano and Irureta took one look and quickly admitted defeat, and why Javier Clemente refused to take the job, going to Murcia instead.

This is also why Zaragoza turned to their very own Mr Bronson to solve the crisis. Manolo Villanova first coached them 30 years ago and last coached them 20 years ago. He’s been player, assistant coach, coach, youth team coach, scout and technical secretary and was under contract to the club despite working at Huesca. He is Zaragoza through and through. In fact, if you sliced him open it would bloody hurt. Even though he’s hard as nails. “Sweet mother of God is he hard!” says one former colleague. “He makes Franco look soft.” “I am very straight with the players: I tell them ‘do this, this and this’,” admitted Villanova when he took over last week. “Anyone who doesn’t follow orders knows what awaits.”

Villanova didn’t just bark at his players, though. He also changed the formation on and off the pitch, adding an extra man to midfield at the cost of Oliveira and swapping the left dugout for the right - from where he could get at the linesman more easily.

It worked a treat too. On Saturday night, Zaragoza secured an aggressive 2-1 win against Atltico Madrid, coming from behind for the first time this season to climb into 14th. “There is life!”, screamed Equipo, AS declared it a “great victory”, and El Heraldo de Aragn ignored the musical evidence to announce: “Zaragoza moved harmoniously - like an accordion.” Not that the maos should get carried away. After all, they remain just three points off the relegation zone, winning at the Romareda is not unusual - it’s away that they have problems - and they rode their luck, winning thanks to their rotation policy (taking it in turns to boot Sergio Aguero), two great saves from Csar, a penalty from Diego Milito and an own goal from Pablo Ibez, who’d put his legs on the wrong way round again. At last there’s hope and a little order at the Romareda but, although they should survive, Zaragoza have work to do before school’s out for summer.

Results: Madrid 2-1 Espanyol [this week, no hay liga]; Zaragoza 2-1 Atltico Madrid; Sevilla 2-1 Levante; Osasuna 2-1 Almera; Athletic 2-0 Valladolid; Racing 3-0 Betis; Murcia 0-3 Getafe; Mallorca 7-1 Recreativo; Valencia 2-2 Deportivo; Barcelona 1-2 Villarreal.

62

Barca struggling their way to a 1-2 win at Almeria at the moment. Better second half from them, and they went for it by playing all their attackers, but they’re lacking any sort of fluency in their passing. Completely different attitude to the team that overwhelmed Celtic.

Real fecked up last night of course so once again Barca have been handed a chance to get back into the title race.

63

Almeria have just equalised with 5 minutes to go. Milito got sent off for two yellow cards and Almeria went with 4 up front and have just scored from a corner.

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I can’t believe how rubbish both Barca and Real Madrid are playing in the league over the past month. It’s almost as if they’re trying to outdo each other in terms of messing up their chances of winning the thing. Even some of the games where they’ve actually won they’ve been really, really poor such as Real’s win over Espanyol the weekend before last. But the 7 point cushion Real Madrid have built up should be enough as the games left run down and there’s no excuse for a team with the talent of Barca to be slipping up as regularly as they have been. They badly need a 'keeper and a centre back for next season.

65

Madrid have definitely been complacent, but the difference is they can afford to be.

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Good article from Sid Lowe again. That’s mad actually that R Madrid have lost 8 matches in 2008 but Barca are still no closer to catching them. Unbelievable lack of form from the top teams.

Does anyone want to win the worst La Liga in memory?

Real Madrid have lost eight times in 2008, yet they remain seven points clear of a plodding Bara side and the rest of the chasing pack

Sid Lowe
March 17, 2008 3:25 PM

It’s Pass-the-Parcel on the Gaza Strip, Musical Chairs in Texas, Roulette in Russia. The game no one wants to win. Like the Chuckle Brothers lugging a piano down a set of stairs, they keep talking about La Liga changing hands - to me, to you; to me, to you - only for it to end up in exactly the same place, the whole sweating, cheek blowing, side-splitting episode an exercise in futility so supreme you’d be better off playing scrabble with Jermaine Pennant. Every time someone opens the door to La Liga, someone else slams it shut again; every time Real Madrid try to offer Bara the title, their Catalan chums dash for exit like a diner in a Piccadilly sushi bar. As for the rest, they’re hardly bothering to play at all.

Hay Liga as they say in Spain - there is a league. Trouble is, even if there is a league (and it looks suspiciously like there isn’t) it’s rubbish. A slow bicycle race. Less a sprint for the line, more Douglas Bader answering the door to the postie after a particularly heavy night on the sauce. Not so much seeking a worthy winner as the best of a bad bunch. No wonder everyone spent the whole week banging on about Julian De Guzman’s promise to abstain from sex for a year if he scored against Madrid. It beats talking about the football. As Javier Clemente put it: “Madrid and Bara don’t play a pepper.”

On December 23, Madrid opened a seven-point lead, winning 1-0 at the Camp Nou , and prompting President Tourettes to declare: “Madrid are frightening”. On Saturday night they lost 1-0 to Deportivo La Corua, thanks to an own goal from Pepe. Which might not seem that bad - after all, Madrid have gone almost seventeen years without winning at Riazor - but for one thing: it was bad. Truly, deeply, desperately bad. A game so awful it left you whimpering for your 90 minutes back and the poor sods who actually paid-per-view demanding an €11.99 refund on the grounds that they hadn’t viewed anything. A game in which Madrid didn’t manage a single shot on target. A game so utterly pathetic AS’s Mad Madridista Toms Roncero declared it the “worst in Madrid’s history” and Caldern was proven right: frightening? Madrid were terrifying.

Worse still, it was a game that continued a desperate run. Since their clsico victory, the absences of Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Robinho, Sergio Ramos and Wesley Sneijder have exposed Madrid’s weaknesses. So too, although no one wants to admit as much, has the dip in (return to?) form of Ral and Guti. And, however much marvellously miserable manager Bernd Schuster tries to claim that defeats are “not defeats”, Madrid have been beaten eight times in 2008 - half their matches. They’ve lost four of their last seven in the league and only beat Recreativo and Espanyol with help from the referee.

They’ve spent €100m on players, none of whom are regulars; their president is busy threatening newspapers with excommunication if they mention Nicolas Cage, while insisting that he clocked Paolo Calabresi right from the start (which will be why he took him into a the dressing room afterwards) , and Schuster is at war with the world. In short, they’re in crisis. Out of the Cup. Out of the Champions League. And out of the league.

Oh. Right. Yeah.

Three months later and Madrid’s lead is still seven points; the same seven points it was after the derbi. Because if Madrid are bad, Bara aren’t much better. Unfit, poorly organised, plodding, with Henry missing Tea - all ex-pats out here do, Thierry - and Ronaldinho missing training, Messi injured again, Edmilson fit again, lacking a killer instinct or a Plan B, they are a mess. One especially adept at snatching failure from the jaws of success, as the last four games have shown.

Against Zaragoza a terrible decision saw them escape with a win they tried to surrender. Against Atltico, they were so superior it was embarrassing but lost to el Kun. Against Villarreal they were on top but were defeated. And last night, handed yet another opportunity, they twice led against Almera and twice conceded from set-plays. Which is fair enough: why work on set-plays when Almera, a supremely well-drilled side, have only scored a third of their goals that way?

Bara have collected a solitary point out of the last nine - a run so bad that while they remain stuck puffing on the stairs, Villarreal are just two points behind. The same Villarreal who yesterday collected their first home victory in four.

And that’s kind of the point. Because while Madrid and Bara have been poor, the saddest thing is that their challengers have been unable to take advantage or provide a half-decent title race. Atltico have a fantastic forward line but no defence, Villarreal panic near the summit, and Racing and Espanyol are over-achieving. Considering the problems that Sevilla have had - Antonio Puerta’s death, the Dani Alves soap opera, Juande Ramos ditching them, injury to Javi Navarro and Manolo Jimenez’s bizarre attempt to deny Luis Fabiano goals - it’s a wonder they’re this close. And, as for Valencia, the club that should have pushed for the title, they’re a joke, ruined by a fat bloke with a rubbish 'tache: Juan Soler.

Last week Soler finally left the Valencia presidency on the grounds of illness. He was right too: he’s made Valencia sick. Very sick. This is the man who sacked Quique Sanchez Flores and replaced him with Ronald Koeman with the team four points off the top and saw them brilliantly extend that gap to 26, just six off the relegation zone; the man who has created a hive of in-fighting and bitterness, ending up in court against his captain; the same man who in his three years since taking over a club that had just won two league titles and the Uefa Cup, has had seven coaches, seven technical directors, three medical chiefs, €187m worth of players and no trophies whatsoever. Sometimes you get exactly what you deserve. And sometimes, as Madrid look set to prove, you get rather more.

Results: Recreativo 4-2 Murcia, Deportivo 1-0 Real Madrid, Betis 1-2 Athletic (suspended in the 69th minute after Athletic goalkeeper Armando got hit by a bottle thrown from the stands. I repeat, a this was no isolated incident, but this time Betis fans - the ones that didn’t have punch-ups with the police - should be applauded for grabbing the idiot who threw the bottle and handing him over to the stewards), Valencia 1-2 Sevilla, Villarreal 2-0 Zaragoza, Getafe 2-1 Racing (With some quality lunacy from Too and a great goalkeeping display from Marcano, who’s a centre-back), Espanyol 2-1 Mallorca (Dear God, no. The chiki-chiki, no, Valladolid 0-0 Osasuna, Almera 2-2 Barcelona, Atltico 3-0 Levante.

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Can’t believe how much Bara have let Madrid away with it. Too many nervous performances. I think Valds gets too much stick as he’s not that bad. Definitely agree about the Centre back. Never rated Puyol, it’s just the fact he was born in Barcelona that has him as a favourite. Reminds me of Mick Jacob-will never be dropped.
I think a new manager wouldn’t go astray either.

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Sid Lowe writes some excellent stuff - can’t believe he made the Jermaine Pennant / Scrabble joke but it made me laugh out loud - and everything he says is spot on. I actually think Valdes is terribly inconsistent and a poor decision maker and I’ve also been surprised at how poor Milito has been been. I don’t like Puyol in the centre and he should play right back or not at all.

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A handy win for Barca and Real were beaten 3-2 at home by Valencia. Race is on again.

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Sid Lowe’s article this week:

The future’s bright, the future’s Valencia’s

Valencia’s wayward striker Javier Arizmendi has blown the La Liga title race open - again - with his first goal of the season
Sid Lowe
March 24, 2008 12:32 PM

The man in the luminous shirt dashed down the right wing and skipped gracefully away from the planet’s best footballer, leaving the World Cup winning captain, Fifa World Player and Balln d’Or sliding dementedly past like a McDonald’s employee on his way to the chip pan. Cutting into the penalty area, he looked up, feigned a cross and coolly clipped a clever finish into the net from a tight angle, leaving the world’s best goalkeeper looking almost as foolish as the world’s best footballer. A huge grin fleetingly stretched across his face before he disappeared under a squirming, sweaty pile of celebrating orange, writhing near the corner flag.

High in the northern corner of the Santiago Bernabu, Valencia’s fans were going bonkers. Over on the touchline, Ronald Koeman punched the air and breathed a huge sigh of relief, taking a step back from the blade glistening at his throat. Somewhere in the crowd, the Tele5 cameraman was cursing the fans who’d started leaving early, rendering his footage of a moment’s genius useless, a moving portrait of the back of some heads still deemed good enough to grace the early morning news bulletin. And in the press area, hacks craned their necks to see monitors, scratched their skulls, gawped at team-sheets and muttered “was that really…?” before blurting out: “I don’t believe it!”

“That’s what makes football great,” exclaimed El Pas. Or, to put it another way, the sun even shines on a dog’s arse some days. Steven Segal has a Hollywood career, Bernie Ecclestone pulled Slavica Radic, Djimi Traore is a European Champion, and the man at the bottom of the pile was Valencia’s No19, centre forward ngel Javier Arizmendi de Lucas. The same ngel Javier Arizmendi de Lucas who was top scorer for Deportivo last season. On five. The man who managed a colossal no goals for Atltico Madrid, scored three at Racing, two in his first year at Depor and none - not one - so far this season. The centre forward who’s played 100 league games and averaged barely a goal every 10; the centre forward so bad his coach started playing him at right back.

Javier Arizmendi is famous for two things and neither of them are goals: one is unfurling a Francoist flag while celebrating with the Spain youth team (and later claiming he didn’t realise what that fascist-looking eagle-type thingy was), and the other is boasting more hideous misses than Cornish Reader’s Wives. Like this one[/url] against Madrid , a worthy successor to Sebatin Abreu’s comically commentated [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vgXkTRPIrY]moment of madness. Some would argue that he’s the worst player in La Liga and, until the 87th minute between Madrid and Valencia last night, he was certainly the worst on the pitch. Or he would have been if he’d been allowed to play, for so bad is he that Valencia veered further left than Leon Trotsky just to avoid him, his team-mates deliberately, consistently and painfully obviously choosing other passes to avoid giving him the ball. Some - not just this columnist - spent the game shouting: “Koeman, you tosser, get Arizmendi off and stick Joaqun on, will ya?!”

But then, suddenly, with three minutes left and the score at 2-2 in a thumping good match in which David Villa and Ral had got two each, the man who never scores scored. Not just any old strike either but a brilliant goal; one so out of character you wondered if he’d tried to take it down to the corner to waste time but had accidentally run inside, beaten his man and scored a beauty, if for one brief moment he’d been possessed by the ghost of Dead Shot Keen. A goal that was as important as it was brilliant, clocking up Madrid’s fifth defeat in seven and - yes, yes, again - reopening the title race, cutting Madrid’s lead to just four points over Barcelona and - get this - just six over Villarreal.

More importantly, it was a goal that Valencia desperately needed, securing only their third win in 17 and changing the mentality at Mestalla. Late last Wednesday, Koeman - the coach who took over a side four points off the top and brilliantly led them to within just 26 points off the leaders - stood passively, the severed heads of Santiago Caizares, Miguel-ngel Angulo and David Albelda at his feet, the grinning figure of president Juan Soler at his back, as the flames licked up around his feet, eventually engulfing him. It might have been a papier-mch effigy, the climax of the Fallas festival, but the message was clear. Yet, four days and one Easter weekend later, Koeman - the real one - has rolled back the rock and announced that he is the resurrection and he is alive. If last weekend he sat alone grilled by the press while the club’s director of communications fiddled with his phone, a sly Judas smile creeping across his lips as he abandoned Koeman to his fate, last night he sat there beaming, as everyone clamoured to be his friend.

And it’s all thanks to four perfect days. On Thursday night, Valencia beat Bara to reach the Copa del Rey final, guaranteeing a Uefa place and the chance to salvage their season. On Good Friday, he celebrated his birthday. On Saturday, he pondered why’s it called Good Friday when the day Christ was crucified should surely be Pretty Bloody Awful Friday. And on Easter Sunday, his side defeated Madrid. Better still, the odd decision to drop Joaqun, who invariably performs brilliantly at the Bernabu, and replace him with Arizmendi, who invariably doesn’t, didn’t just not come back and bite him, it brought him the paper and his slippers.

“When you feel the knife up against you, you have to react,” admitted Koeman, and Valencia have at last reacted. Sure, they were aided by Bara’s self-destructive streak. Sure, they should’ve been beaten last night, owing much to Cannavaro’s clumsiness, Gonzalo Higuan’s inability to finish a one-piece jigsaw, and some fantastic saves by Timo Hildebrand. But in four days, Valencia reached a final, pulled away from the relegation zone hovering only four points below them, and defeated the top two. With 'tache-ridden flabby fool president Juan Soler at last gone, suddenly there is hope at Mestalla. Suddenly the future’s a little more bright, a little more orange.

Results: Mallorca 1-0 Deportivo, Sevilla 1-2 Atltico (maybe they really will get a Champions League place this time. Atltico superb, Aguero incredible - despite getting nutted), Levante 1-2 Villarreal, Zaragoza 1-1 Almera, Barcelona 4-1 Valladolid, Murcia 4-0 Espanyol (the Clemente effect? It’s been working for centuries), Madrid 2-3 Valencia, Athletic 1-0 Getafe, Osasuna 0-1 Betis

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Just reading Sid’s article there at lunch, great stuff this week. Looking forward to seeing Valencia at Bilbao next month. Soul Dressing was at Zaragoza’s game at the weekend, and they look doomed - they don’t look to have the stomach for the fight ahead of them.

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Barca lost 3-2 at Real Betis tonight after being 2-0 up after an hour!

This title race is quite frankly ridiculous.

The likes of VillaReal, Atletico Madrid and the likes deserve a good kicking for not being close enough to take advantage of all these horrendous Barca and Real Madrid slip ups.

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On the other hand, Madrid and Barcelona should not be making the kind of mistakes that are giving moderate teams like Atletico and Villarreal a squeak. It has been farcical alright, although Madrid now look to have nailed it. Backed Bar$a on Saturday night and didn’t lay off at 2-0. :frowning:

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Another loss for Zaragoza - there’s always talk of teams that are too good to go down but Zaragoza really do have some cracking players in Aimar, Milito, Sergio Garcia, D’Allesandro, Matuzalem etc. Unbelievable to see how bad they are.

Good draw for Athletic as well - not the getting a point at Recreativo bit but the fact that they came back from a goal down to get a late equaliser. Loads of teams now between them and the drop zone and they look good for staying up.

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Barca fooked up again tonight, drawing 0-0 at home to Getafe and failing to capitalise on Madrid’s dropped points at Mallorca last night. The crowd went ape shit and were waving their white hankies at the end. That’s a show of anger at the manager in Spain and means they want him out apparently!

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Loads of goals in most of the other games this week, most of which are up on TFKtube.

Athletico Madrid won 6-3 at home to Almeria which brings them closer to Villareal and Barca.

Athletic Bilbao had another win and they’re in the dizzy heights of eighth position now.

Zaragoza lost yet again, 0-3 at home to Betis this time. They’re in big trouble now third from bottom.

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Athletic for the UEFA Cup!!!

Lost money AGAIN on Barcelona, fook them, fook their manager, fook their badly dressed mono, and most of all fook their idiotic hankie and newspaper-waving fans. Arseholes.

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The white hankies were out again on Saturday night in Barcelona. I didn’t see the game but I watched the highlights on TFKTube and they seemed to be pretty poor again in the derby against Espanyol. It finished 0-0 and Messi only came on - I was hoping he’d get a full 90 minutes ahead of the CL game but now I’m not sure if he’ll be risked for the full game on Wednesday.

Athletic Bilbao hammered Valencia 5-1 last night. A few weeks back it looked like Koeman was getting on top of things at Valencia when they beat Barca in the King’s Cup over 2 legs and then won away to Real Madrid in the league. Since then they’ve reverted back to being an absolute shambles and they’re in danger of being relegated now.

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Bilbao are up in 8th place - cracking stuff hope they can keep this run going. That was some win over Valencia. Don’t know how much more time Koeman will be given, they’re in huge trouble.

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Koeman has been sacked - no real surprise.

Sid Lowe’s weekly article from yesterday:

King’s Cup half empty for Koeman

Despite the Copa del Rey in the cabinet, Valencia are preparing to say adios to beleaguered manager Ronald Koeman

Sid Lowe
April 21, 2008 3:37 PM

It was just before 11 o’clock last night when the chant went round one of Spain’s most emblematic, soon-to-be-bulldozed stadiums. Massive smiles stretched across the faces of fans who had just seen their side produce a fabulous 5-1 victory and they began hopping from foot to foot, swirling scarves from their wrists and bellowing at the Dutchman down on the bench: “Koeman qudate, Koeman qudate, Kooooe-man qu-da-te!” Never mind bitter chants of “Koeman, go now!” - the latest in a long and imaginative line from “Cper, go now!” to “Bentez, go now!” and “Claudio, go now!” to “Quique, go now!” - the call was for Ronald Koeman to stay.

The chants might not have been surprising, coming four days after Koeman’s team won their first Copa del Rey since 1999, but for one thing: the giggling fans doing the chanting were Athletic Bilbao fans. When Valencia ran on to the pitch at San Mams last night, Athletic gave them a guard of honour; by the time they trudged off the pitch at San Mams, Athletic had given them a kicking. The side that hadn’t managed to score more than twice at home all season and that had only once scored three - when they visited Valencia - had banged in five. Five more nails in Koeman’s coffin. “The dressing room,” said Ral Albiol, “is a funeral” - and the funeral was Koeman’s.

If Athletic’s fans called for Koeman to stay, Valencia’s fans can’t wait for him to leave - nor can the players, the board and the media. Today, an €8m pay-off permitting, they will get their wish. Even though they were happy enough sacking Quique Snchez Flores at 4:24am, puppet president Agustn Morera pledged he wouldn’t react “in the heat of the moment”, insisting “all decisions are agreed by the board”. What he meant was: “Right now I can’t get hold of flabby-jowled owner Juan Soler so he can tell us what to agree on.” Meanwhile, Carlos Marchena kindly pointed out: “Us players have to work with the coach, whoever he is. But if the board want our opinion, they know where to find us.”

Their opinion is that Koeman is a disaster. And they may have a point. When Valencia sacked Snchez-Flores, they were four points off the top; now, they’re 35 points off. Worse still, they’re just two points above the relegation zone and have the hardest run-in of the struggling clubs: Osasuna, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Levante and Atltico. They’ve picked up just 18 of a possible 66 points since he took over, winning just four in 22 and completing their worst ever season at Mestalla. Last night’s 5-1 defeat was their worst away result in 25 years and they’ve won just once in the last six, losing the other five. Mind you, that win was against soon-to-be-champions Real Madrid in the same week that they defeated Barcelona in the Cup, creating a sudden surge of optimism. And they did win the Copa del Rey.

Trouble is, the Cup has only revealed the depth of the division, making the warring parties even more entrenched. From Koeman’s point of view, winning the Cup showed he could succeed if only the players could be bothered more often; from everyone else’s point of view, it showed that Valencia could succeed if only he’d leave, some players slyly letting it be known that they’d ditched Koeman’s tactics and done it their way. Joaqun admitted that Koeman’s 4-3-3 has the players “running round with headless chickens”.

Nor is it just the tactics. Koeman lost much of a divided dressing room when he lacked the personality to stand up to Juan Soler’s demands to sack the Valencia Three, ending up in court and with Vicente, Silva and Villa looking for a way to leave. He lost Joaqun when he dropped him from the squad for arriving two minutes late to a team-talk, even though he had included Ever Banega, who’d been picked up by the police for drink-driving, prompting the winger to snipe: “Maybe next time I’ll get pissed and run a red light instead.” And he lost Ivn Helguera and more when he publicly berated the players for not being good enough, prompting Helguera to bemoan a “lack of respect”. “I don’t know if I have the squad behind me,” shrugged Koeman, “but I reckon four or five of them are on my side.”

The squad is indeed behind him. Right behind him, knives at the ready like the passengers on the Orient Express. What the Cup success really showed is that, apart from trusty poodle Jos Mara Bakero, Koeman is utterly isolated, that “four or five” is wishful thinking. As the final whistle blew on Wednesday’s final, he stumbled on to the field at the Vicente Caldern looking forlornly for someone to hug. The few players to embrace him did so half-heartedly, leaving Koeman to hover on the fringes as the photos were taken. When he finally left the stadium well after 1am, emerging into the gloom, he strolled about as if he was looking for someone to pat him on the back, say ‘well done’ or just smile in his rough direction. As the players came past, each and every one of them ignored him until eventually he boarded the bus. Alone.

Koeman has hardly helped himself, but the real culprit is a club that’s never at peace; the Dutchman walked into a viper’s nest, where sporting directors and coaches are at each other’s throats like a bunch of deranged emus; where, with honourable exceptions, fans are never satisfied; where president and shareholders are always at war, creating tension and instability. As Koeman boarded an empty bus on Wednesday night, the club handed out press communiqus saying there would be no formal celebration. No visit to the town council. No open-topped bus. No silly wigs. No offering to the virgin. And no one informing Koeman. Above all, no embracing of the one thing that could have brought the club together, revealing yet again what a miserable, self-destructive institution Valencia has become, one that’s about to put a fourth manager in charge. If they go down many will wave goodbye, but many too will wave good riddance.

Results: Barcelona 0-0 Espanyol, Atletico 1-3 Betis, Zaragoza 3-0 Recreativo, Sevilla 1-4 Almera, Villarreal 2-0 Valladolid, Levante 3-1 Getafe, Osasuna 0-1 Deportivo, Murcia 1-4 Mallorca, Racing 0-2 Real Madrid, Athletic 5-1 Valencia