A Piece Of The Copa Del Rey For Everyone

Real Madrid's victory over Barcelona in last night's Copa del Rey final has almost been eclipsed by the manner in which Sergio Ramos chose to celebrate the victory; dropping the cup under the wheels of the team bus. It's a fairly safe bet that he doesn't get asked to wash the champagne glasses when he's at home. We assume that the country's top trophy repair experts were awakened in the early hours of this morning.

Madrid won the game, but they didn't do it in a way that puts their style of play on a par with Barça's. A scrappy, bad-tempered first half was the result of Madrid playing to disrupt the natural style of their opponents. All of which is quite legitimate, but the story it tells is that of a team which does not regard itself as the equal of Barcelona. The important thing for Mourinho's team in the last few days has been to shake off the trauma of that 5-0 hammering in the Camp Nou earlier in the season. The second half saw Barça dominating but without managing to find a way past a Madrid team that was by now playing to win the game on a break or on penalties. At least the game was decided in open play. The only goal that hasn't come from the penalty spot in the 210 minutes of play between the two teams over the last few days.

It's strange this year to see so much attention focused on the cup, normally it's regarded by Spain's big two as a minor distraction from the the hunt for more significant trophies. With the league almost certain to be won by Barcelona it could still be the only title that Real Madrid win this season. The second wave of meetings between the two teams comes with the Champions League semi-finals where a defeat for either team will certainly be regarded as a failure. Madrid's cup, or what remains of it, will be viewed as meaningless by their supporters if Barça put them out of the Champions League. Mourinho, who is clearly not happy in Madrid, will need something more to show than the Copa del Rey if he's thinking of walking away bragging of another successful project. Barça fans will be equally upset if Mourinho foils their Champions League hopes for a second consecutive season.

It's more than a bit dreary the way in which the games between the same two teams are dominating the season, it's the principal reason why I'm not interested in blogging much about Spanish football any more. Scotland on the Med is becoming more and more the name of the game here. Almost completely overshadowed by the massive coverage of the ill-named "clásicos" was the news yesterday of the likely buy out of Getafe by investors from Dubai. We are starting to see in Spain a similar model to that which is happening in the UK where wealthy sugar daddies take over a club which they evidently have little interest in other than as a platform for their business or personal interests. The problem is that the current economic model of top flight football means that the vast majority of clubs are doomed to be in permanent financial crisis. The fans may be excited when they get a flashy new owner who pays off some of the debt and maybe buys a star or two. But then when that owner loses interest in his new toy...

I Can't Take It Any Mou!

This is from today's edition of Marca:

A fuller selection of front covers from the Marca-Mourinho love story can be found over at La Libreta de Van Gaal.

Promotion Is Clearly A Herculean Task

The new football season in Spain hasn't even begun and already the competition is tainted. A corruption investigation involving the fixing of refuse collection contracts in Alicante has also exposed attempts to buy off the opposition by those running the local club, Hércules. The team was promoted last season to the Spanish first division, in a very tight finish, and the surveillance recordings made as part of the corruption investigation have revealed that payments were offered to opponents in return for throwing the game.

The judge handling the original case is not very interested in this issue, bribing your opponents in order to win a match is not a criminal offence in Spain. At least not yet, the new version of the Codigo Penal to be introduced in December will make it an offence. However, with the existing law the judge has ruled that the recordings cannot even be handed over for investigation by the sporting authorities. Prosecutors are trying to get round this by suggesting that the offence could be fraud, via an attempt to fix the outcome of games which people bet on through the football pools.

Real Betis, the club from Sevilla that just lost out to Hércules in the promotion battle, is naturally doing everything that they can to challenge the promotion of their rivals. As one of the 'bigger' clubs in Spanish football they may have more chances than others would. So far the Spanish football federation appears to have nothing at all to say about the issue, a fairly typical response which they apply to most problems that arise in the sport that they are notionally in charge of. The idea of the federation as being little more than a glorified travel agency becomes ever stronger.

The Alicante corruption case also creates a variety of grand slam in the Valencia region. It means that all three provincial leaders of the Partido Popular are now involved in (different) corruption cases. The national PP, however, keeps a clean sheet by not applying their much vaunted code of ethics to any of the leaders involved. It would be a fine photograph if they all attended the first Hércules home game in the league this season.

The World Cup Is In Safe Hands

Yes, of course I'll look after it! What's that? My name? Iniesta....Esperanza Iniesta. Now give it to me, I want it, IT'S MINE, LET GO!!

The Octopus Population Is Already Rising

A family entered the Galician bar in Cartagena where I was having dinner on Monday night. They were still dressed in official “we’ve won the World Cup” regalia. The red shirts of the Spanish team, and one of them with a Spanish flag draped around her shoulders. The barman obviously knew them and after the greetings he asked “¿Quereis pulpo?”. “¡Pulpo! El pulpo ya no se come” replied the girl with the flag. So it seems that Paul the Pulpo has managed to convince at least some of the Spanish to stop eating octopus for a while. Didn’t work in my case though, I’d just finished a plate of what was rebadged as “Pulpo a la Roja”, so there is still some hope left for the traditional Galician bar.

I watched Sunday night’s game in a bar here that was naturally full of very vocal and passionate supporters of Spain. A combination of this, the dreadfully partisan nature of Telecinco’s commentary, the negative tactics of the Dutch and a general lack of football meant that much of the game was taken up with shouts for yellow or red cards and hopeful appeals for fouls and penalties. Although I noticed that when the referee decided to card a couple of Spanish players Telecinco then decided, temporarily, that too many were being handed out. The best moment of the commentary came towards the end with the memorable declaration that “los escoceses” had used up all their substitutes. This got an ironic round of applause for helping to break the tedium.

There was a lack of spectacle on the pitch and I was dreading the prospect of penalties deciding the game. Iniesta to the rescue. I didn’t stay for the ceremony after the game, instead I went to take a look at the Plaza de España in Cartagena, which soon filled with jubilant supporters getting wet in the fountain, letting off fireworks and generally making as much noise as possible. By the time I went back to the hotel a traffic jam had developed just down from the square. I’m sure it wasn’t on the scale of Madrid’s celebration, but a significant percentage of Cartagena’s population was out on the street to mark the event.

It's A Long Way From Switzerland To Germany

Not many people who watched Spain's first game in this World Cup, a defeat against Switzerland, would have been too insistent in pressing the pre-tournament notion that Spain were one of the favourites to win the trophy. Yet here we are a short time after with Spain facing Holland in the final.

To get there Spain had to finally find their game, in order to neutralise the threat of a German team that had scored 8 goals in its previous two games - although admittedly 4 of those goals were against England so perhaps shouldn't count? It all came right on the night, as the Germans were left chasing Spanish players and rarely came close to scoring. Spain helped themselves by not trying Maradona's revolutionary tactic of having a single midfielder.

Spain may have found their rhythm against Germany, but it's worth noting that the goal that won the game came from a very direct piece of play. Indeed the Spanish team is racking up a series of 1-0 victories as the domination of games isn't translated into goals. A similar thing occasionally happens to Barcelona, they can have a huge share of the posession but it's as if the precision machine isn't perfectly tuned, and the final ball never quite works out. That's the impression I had the other night, they still weren't quite at their best despite being clearly better than the Germans. Possession of the ball isn't everything, I read somewhere that Argentina enjoyed close to 60% of it as they were torn apart by Germany.

Of course having got rid of the Germans there are many now in Spain who regard the Dutch as a formality on the way to the trophy. We'll see how that turns out, this is far from being the greatest Dutch squad but they have players who can cause damage and have been more efficient than Spain when it comes to taking scoring chances. Both Sneijder and Robben, who have had excellent seasons, would surely enjoy the chance to remind Real Madrid supporters of what they can do after their departure from the new era Galacticos.

These wild swings between overconfidence and deep pessisimism are quite common in Spain concerning football. Before the quarter finals I could hardly find any Spanish person who thought they would get this far. Too many previous disappointments have left many Spaniards expecting the worst from their national team, despite the European Championship victory 2 years ago. All of that has changed now and there is a tremendous euphoria about the prospect of the final. I have friends who disdain football sending mails about where to watch the next game. In Madrid, the big screen moves to Cibeles for the final, I'm here in Cartagena for the match and will see whether they have a local equivalent. Win or lose, there's going to be quite an atmosphere tomorrow night.

Perhaps Red Is Just Not Their Colour?

There is a suspicion that sections of the political right in Spain regard all this World Cup stuff as a dangerous diversion, with any Spanish success threatening their chances of evicting Zapatero at the next election. They probably slept soundly enough last night. Apart from that factor, it seems that some of the same people are upset about the Spanish national team being referred to as "La Roja".

Despite their recent dramatic swing to the left, there are still some capitalist roaders inside the Partido Popular who associate the term "La Roja" with Dolores Ibárruri; more famously known as La Pasionaria. So they are calling for a change of name, although the proposed "La Furia" doesn't really seem to fit with the languid passing game employed by the Spanish players yesterday against Switzerland. It will surprise few readers of this blog to discover that the even more ultra Grupo Intereconomía has also got involved in the debate by insisting on referring to the national team with the far more patriotic "La Rojigualda".

Meanwhile the Spanish press has picked up today on the way in which both The Times and The Guardian managed to use the Spanish defeat as an excuse to write about the relationship between goalkeeper Iker Casillas and the TeleCinco journalist Sara Carbonero. The pretext for leading with a nice bit of celebrity gossip was a fairly lame suggestion that the presence of Carbonero in South Africa may have affected the performance of Casillas. That's why they call it the quality press.

Not Such A Good Day To Reform The Labour Market

There are many who suspect that it was no accident that the Spanish government chose today to approve the decree reforming the labour market. The idea being that both the Spanish people and their media organisations would be too busy with Spain's first game in the World Cup to pay much attention to the detail of the government's reform. With the Spanish team losing unexpectedly to Switzerland such a plan no longer seems such a good idea, with no feel good factor to distract attention.

The reform contains few surprises, most of it had already been leaked as part of the fruitless negotiating process involving employers, unions and the government. The already existing contract that provides for 33 days pay for each year worked in the event of dismissal is now set to become the standard for those who are hired on indefinite contracts. What's more the government intends to pay 8 of those 33 days out of a state fund. There is also a relaxation on the amount that must be paid by companies that are in economic difficulties, although it's not at all clear how such circumstances will be assessed to stop companies from faking their situation through accounting tricks.

Of the other measures that have been talked about, such as the adoption of the "Austrian" model of a fund which workers carry from job to job, there is still no sign although the government says it will introduce a law expanding the measures adopted. The reform as it stands at the moment is not going to get the backing of employers who are continually seeking to reduce the rights of employees. Although I see no signs of anything that stops them from continuing to make massive use of temporary contracts anyway. Nor is it accepted by the unions, although the decision to postpone strike action on the measures until after the summer only helps to reinforce the impression that this will be a token protest.

As for the all powerful markets I suspect it's only a matter of days before we get some well paid "analyst" to tell us that the next increase in the cost of financing Spain's debt is because the markets think the reform doesn't go far enough. Apart from the way in which such explanations are dreamt up over a good lunch, it wouldn't make any difference to the treatment Spain receives at the moment if they were to stick the severed heads of workers onto the factory gates. Despite all the fuss made about the need to introduce these measures, they are of little relevance in a moment when the possibility of any economic recovery taking place at all is more than just an open question. It might be a better strategy to choose some good news for the day of Spain's next match.

I've Got My World Cup Widget

At last the waiting is over and we get some football! World Cup fanatics who use the Mac or an Android phone may like the widget that El País have prepared. You can put it on a web page too, but I reluctantly realised that I was going to have to resize my entire blog to show it properly on the sidebar.

Expectations over Spain's chances have increased even more following their drubbing of Poland the other day, although a few Spaniards I have talked to are very cautious about being over optimistic this time; the memories of previous failures in this tournament are still too fresh. However, they seem to be regarded as joint favourites alongside Brazil. I just hope that it is entertaining, too often the World Cup is like a slowly deflating balloon as football gives way to tactics and the teams that manage to progress are the most cautious and boring. Yes, I am thinking of Italy.

Benítez Packs His Bags

Another adventure of a Spanish football coach in the English Premier League has come to an end with Rafa Benítez leaving Liverpool today. Benítez lasted quite a bit longer than Juande Ramos, who has yet to properly recover his career following his unhappy spell at Tottenham. For a while it seemed Rafa was made for Liverpool, after he arrived as a well regarded up and coming manager with an impressive track record at Valencia. Then came the extraordinary Champions League victory against Milan in his first season, a result which seems to have won him the unconditional loyalty of many of the fans regardless of the relative lack of success since then. You have to wonder how long he would have lasted without that great start.

This season has ended the dream, as Liverpool finished outside of the all important Champions League qualifying positions. Although there are obvious problems concerning the ownership of the club and its financial position, it's hard not to conclude that Benítez has his share of the responsibility. He became a slightly petulant figure at times, unable to deal with the mind games of the Mourinhos and the Fergusons; and always blaming the lack of success on the funds available for signing players. There lies the problem, because Benítez did get money to spend and often didn't spend it wisely. The result is a Liverpool team that is arguably poorer than the one that he inherited, something masked only by the continuing presence of Gerrard and the frequently injured Fernando Torres (especially when he is due to play his old club!). The departure to Real Madrid of Xabi Alonso, his best signing along with that of Torres, left a gaping hole in the team.

If the reported payoff is anywhere near to being accurate then he won't be suffering too much, especially with the rumours that he could soon end up at Inter Milan; albeit with a hard act to follow. Maybe Italian football will be closer to his idea of how the game should be played, several of those who played under him have criticised him for being a control freak unwilling to allow players to express themselves outside the bounds of his rigid tactical plan. The club may still be able to attract a relatively big name replacement although without much money to rebuild the team. One of the ironic consequences of the Premier League generating so much money is that it has attracted the attention of people who have zero interest in the sport but plenty of interest in the cash.

Madrid Gets The European Final It Didn't Expect

The car horns were hooting late at night in the centre of Madrid on Thursday. Of course it's not exactly an unfamiliar sound in the Spanish capital, but when so much noise is being made at such a late hour it's normally because Real Madrid supporters are celebrating one of their (increasingly rare) triumphs. This time was different however, it was the Atlético Madrid fans who were out making the noise even though their team had lost on the night against Liverpool. Over two legs in the Europa League semi-final Atleti came out on top and reached their second cup final of the season; they are already in the final of the Copa del Rey.

Nobody would have predicted such a situation at Christmas, but then Real were still in the Champions League and Atlético were close to the relegation positions in the Spanish Liga. Their league form hasn't improved that much, but in the cup competitions they have found a means of salvaging something from the season. It's a club with some talented players and disastrous management, and fans with a tremendous endurance and loyalty. It would be impossible to imagine Real Madrid supporters making the same sort of noise that Atleti's fans produced in Anfield, the fickle followers of Real rarely make that much noise when their team plays at home.

It's difficult not to enjoy the situation. As I walked through the recently pedestrianised square at Callao this morning I saw a bus that was parked offering the chance to anyone who wanted to hold the Champions League trophy. The final is to be held in Real Madrid's stadium later this month. There was already quite a queue but I didn't see Ronaldo or Kaka amongst those who were waiting. This after all was part of the plan behind the huge investment made by Florentino Pérez for this season, to win the trophy in their home city. It may have helped to heal the wounds of Madrid fans that Barcelona are not going to be in the Champions League final either. When the trophy was presented in the city a few weeks ago almost everyone was smiling except for Pérez, who sulked in the corner. Despite that small satisfaction, Real still face the possibility of not winning anything this season; if Barcelona don't slip up in the league.

We'll see whether Jose Mourinho comes to Madrid just with the hope of seeing Inter Milan win the final, or whether he will have more profound conversations with Pérez about terms and conditions. Entertainment will be guaranteed, at least off the field, if Madrid take him as their trainer. Meanwhile Atlético and their fans should enjoy the moment. The points gap in La Liga between the first and fourth places (which guarantee Champions League qualification) is currently greater than that between fourth and last. Those who are followers of teams other than the big two increasingly have to look to the cups for a bit of entertainment and excitement, because La Liga just hasn't got it.

A Crash Landing For The Galácticos

There is little to be surprised about with the exit last night of Real Madrid from this years's Champions League. It is after all the sixth year running that they have been eliminated at this stage of the tournament. It was all supposed to be different this time, following the return to the club of Florentino Pérez as president and the huge outlay on players now that Real Madrid are the only entity which the banks will still lend money to. Instead Galácticos 2 looks like it could go the same way as the first version, and for much the same reasons.

Even with a perfect start to the game, and a good first half, Madrid were unable to overcome Olympique Lyon and could easily have lost both games if it hadn't been for some slack finishing by the Lyon strikers. So what, some people might say, there is still La Liga. But the expression on Florentino Perez's face as the game ended suggests that this was the end of the season for him. The final of this year's Champions League is to be held in the Bernabeu stadium, and winning the trophy in their own stadium was intended to be the launch pad for years of domination by the new model Real Madrid.

Instead Madrid's supporters are now faced with the horrific prospect that it might be the captain of Barcelona lifting the trophy at the end of that final. Barcelona president Joan Laporta says that he is waiting until June to announce his political intentions, and I have no doubt that he has calculated just how many points in the opinion polls it might be worth to win the Champions League in the home of their greatest rivals. There are of course a few other teams less fragile than Madrid who still have something to say on the subject.

Madrid were beaten by opponents who played as a team rather than as a random collection of stars, a simple idea but one that Pérez and company still seem to treat with disdain. It's a hugely satisfying result for all those who see football as being about more than the price of the players. As happened in his previous reign, the new Madrid has come to depend on players who were unappreciated or on the list of likely discards; Van der Vaart, Diarra, Higuaín. Then there is the case of Raúl, who Pérez reportedly regards as having had far too much power inside the club. When the ineffective Kaka was substituted by Raúl last night we should have been treated to Florentino's expression - when things get tough the expensive imports are often nowhere to be seen.

Nobody should be fooled by the routine support given to trainer Manuel Pellegrini who was always unlikely to survive beyond the end of the season. Not because he's bad at his job - he's not - but because Pérez still seeks someone with a profile to fit his notion of the team. Remember Vicente del Bosque's exit from the Galácticos first version? Apart from anything else, one constant in Madrid is that the directors of the club take the credit for all success, and the blame for any failures is always passed to someone further down - usually the trainer. Pellegrini will survive, especially with the payoff he will get, and will probably be happier in a more modest team where he is allowed to pursue his own project.

Who was beside Pérez in the "palco" at the Bernabeu last night? Esperanza Aguirre, already in full electioneering mode and always desperately keen to get into the picture if there is any chance of glory to be celebrated. Any club with friends like that deserves all that it gets.

Credit Crunch? Not In Madrid

Something happens when Florentino Pérez is in charge of Real Madrid that means that most of what is written about the club is only incidentally about football. As Pérez assembles his latest random collection of galacticos, the press is full of reports on the commercial benefits of having players like Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo. Florentino himself seems confident that these expensive purchases are going to pay for themselves. He'd better be right because otherwise the club he runs is eventually going to have its own financial crisis. Pérez himself got elected as Madrid president without any rival candidacies, apart from one disastrous venture that lasted 24 hours. Interestingly, for a club that is supposed to be owned by its members, any candidate intending to stand was required to deposit 55 million euros to be able to stand for election. Now that's what I call an open contest.

This time around there is no massive property deal to fund the new signings, and it appears that most of the cash is coming from fresh loans from the banks. Caja Madrid, said to be one of the Spanish cajas facing problems because of its involvement in the construction industry has nevertheless managed to loan Pérez 75 million euros. This is surprising at a time when most individuals or small businesses looking for loans are finding them hard to obtain. Even more surprising was the revelation that the loan is interest free for the first two years. Caja Madrid justified the generous deal by saying that they loan money to those they know will pay it back. An odd statement when you consider that Real Madrid is already estimated to owe 4-500 million euros and we have businessmen climbing up cranes in Madrid to protest that the club doesn't pay them. Never mind, the rest of the customers will pay for it.

Looking at the team itself, so far it is not all going as Perez wants, despite the capture of Kaka and Ronaldo. It is said that Manuel Pellegrini was not his first choice as coach for the team, and although I think Pellegrini did great things at Villareal I don't see Madrid as being his kind of team; especially as Perez will be calling the shots on team selection, mostly motivated by the shirt sales of each player. The signing of David Villa from Valencia has stalled, despite the reported eagerness of Villa to go to Madrid. Valencia are in a desperate financial situation, provoked by their own attempts to ride the construction bubble. They need to sell players and their problem is that everyone knows it, so whilst they prefer a bidding war between Chelsea, Manchester (*2) and Madrid for Villa, Perez is trying to use the preference of the player to force down the price. It will be interesting to see how the survivors from last year's Madrid team will react to the new arrivals, especially with Ronaldo set to earn almost twice the salary of captain and club icon Raul. Not that Raul is having problems paying the rent.

Elsewhere, 70000 people took to the streets of Sevilla last week in a huge protest. Perhaps they were marching to demand action on unemployment and the economic crisis? No, instead the protestors were supporters of Real Betis marching to demand the departure of Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, the businessman who is the main shareholder in the club. The club was relegated to the second division at the end of last season and the fans are furious at Lopera. This, however, is the same Lopera who a few years ago the same fans would call "Don Manuel" and acclaim as a hero. Presumably if they get promoted again next season all will change again? Much as I like football as a sport, there are times when you wonder whether it is worth it.

The Return Of San Florentino

It seems that the patron saint of part of Madrid is not San Isidro after all, it's Florentino Pérez. At least if you're a Real Madrid supporter, judging from the reactions to the announcement by Pérez that he intends to stand for president of the club. With the team already virtually out of the running for the title, a situation finally confirmed last night, Pérez could announce his candidacy last week without being accused of disloyalty. The immediate reaction has been almost overwhelmingly favourable, with huge expectation being created about who might be signed if Florentino embarks on yet another "Galacticos" era. The names being mentioned are hardly surprising, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo are always on the list of possible Madrid targets. Ribery, Villa and Alonso have also been added.

This favourable reaction is curious for a number of reasons, the main one of course being that Pérez resigned as club president a few years ago after it became clear that his star studded team was going to experience a third succesive season without winning a trophy. He'd achieved economic success through marketing, but without it being accompanied by equivalent success on the field. He did also manage to wipe out the club's massive debt with the complicity of Madrid's administration, and the four huge office blocks that occupy the site of Real's former training ground could really be regarded as the main trophies from his previous period. Apparently they are having trouble filling them in these times of crisis.

Now he is back with more promises of the same amidst talk of a 300 million euro spending spree. The main problem with this plan is that the sum talked about is more or less the same as the gloomier estimates of the club's current debt. Given that now is probably not the time to engage in yet another dodgy property deal involving the Bernabeu stadium the question arises of where the money will come from? It's hard to find anyone willing to deal too closely with these questions, or to question whether a repeat of the previous experience is really the way for Real Madrid to compete with Pep Guardiola's Barcelona. What we are seeing is a variety of voluntary amnesia as if too close a relationship to reality might be harmful.

Pérez certainly shows no sign yet of having learnt from previous experience, and it will be interesting to see who his choice of team coach is going to be. There is talk of it being Arsene Wenger, but Wenger would be crazy from a footballing point of view to assume the job under Pérez. He would go from a job where he has almost complete control over the team to one where he would simply be presented with a random assortment of big name players that Florentino has chosen for him. He would of course be well paid for putting up with this, but it seems to go completely against his philosophy of the game. The success of Guardiola's team this year is not based around expensive purchases, indeed you could easily argue that getting rid of some of them was the basis of Barça's resurgence. It remains to be seen whether that lesson will ever be learnt in Chamartin.

We'll Take The Cup, You Can Keep The King

Ever since the finalists were known for this year's football Copa del Rey, there was speculation about the how supporters of teams from the regions with the strongest separatist sentiment in Spain would deal with an event named after the King of Spain. The answer came on Wednesday evening, as a sizeable percentage of Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona supporters greeted the Spanish national anthem with a chorus of whistling. I was listening to the game on the Cadena SER radio station and it was clear that the reaction was more than what the right wing press here describes as the action of a few radicals. The always voluble commentators of the SER were not quite lost for words, but clearly had problems dealing with what was happening until one of them finally said "well let's talk about football". You can listen to it here. On the public RTVE channel showing the game things were worse, as the station avoided showing the scene live and instead showed an edited version during the half time break. This decision, attributed to "a human error", has cost the head of the sports department his job. Who said sport and politics don't mix?

La Liga 2008-2009....One Match From The Title For Barça

Unless Villareal can take advantage of tired legs following the Champions League semi-final last week, Barcelona should be declared Spanish league champions tonight. It will be a fitting finish to what has been an extraordinary season for the club in Pep Guardiola's first year in charge. Everyone talks of this Barça as being a team that will be remembered amongst the best the club has ever had, although you need at least two or three successful seasons to be able to stake such a claim. Real Madrid kept the race open longer than anyone expected, although with a style of play that nobody regards as memorable. Juande Ramos can claim that he did what he was paid to do, and will not have done too badly at all out of his few months at the helm. The gap in class between the top two was evident well before last weeks meeting, and the distance in points would have been much greater were it not for Madrid's ability to gain points even when playing badly. The first game at the Nou Camp saw Madrid turn up with the sort of mentality normally more associated with a Getafe or any small town battling survivor, and their attempts to kick Messi off the park smacked of resentful desperation.

Madrid were easily beaten by Valencia last night, and it seems clear that the players regarded last week's hammering at the hands of Barcelona as the end of their title aspirations. If Barça win the title tonight then we may see the first candidates declared as early as tomorrow for the elections to be president of Real; it was seen as bad form to declare whilst the race for the title was still mathematically open. Given that such events usually involve huge turnover in the playing and technical staff it never does much for morale to know too early who will get the boot. A revived Valencia are keen to keep Atletico Madrid and Villareal at bay as they fight to guarantee a place in next year's Champion's League. Their revival coincided with the club finding the funds to pay the players, as Valencia's attempt to do their own "pelotazo" has gone badly wrong with the economic crisis making the idea of building housing where there used to be a stadium look less interesting. The same problem almost certainly means that star players like David Villa will be put on sale come the end of the season.

Meanwhile only the top half of the Liga can be regarded as being absolutely safe from relegation, no team has yet definitively lost their place in the top flight and remember that the name of Numancia is always associated with determined resistance. Despite not being completely safe, Athletic Bilbao decided yesterday to put out a second string team against Betis so that they could rest their players ahead of the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona. They won the game! The team that has really transformed their survival chances recently has been Barça's city rivals, Espanyol. They were seen as almost certain relegation fodder a few weeks ago, but a good run has seen them leap up to 14th place. It seems most likely that those who go down will come from the current bottom five of Osasuna, Getafe, Sporting, Recreativo and Numancia, but a couple of good results for some of these could still put those above them in trouble.

Just take a look at the current table for the Liga. The gap between first place and fourth is more or less the same as that between fourth and last! This may be an exceptional season, even Madrid have more points than the leader usually has at this stage, but the gap tells us something about what is happening in the game. The trend in Spain and elsewhere is for ever fewer teams to be involved in the contest for the title. In Spain this year the second tier of what we might call "big" clubs (like Sevilla and Valencia) hasn't even been in the race. I was always against the idea of a European Super League because I saw it just as a conceit of the richest clubs seeking to obtain an even bigger share of the riches in the game, but now I'm starting to think it might be a good idea and possibly the only way to revitalise the domestic competitions a bit. I know those who follow Madrid or Barça will not see things this way, but many neutrals are going to stop seeing the point of a competition which is always decided between two or three teams and where most of the rest are simply focused on guaranteeing their survival so that relegation doesn't put them out of business.

Hay Liga....But For How Long?

Until now I hadn't even bothered with the thought of doing a half-way summary on the Spanish Liga because, let's be frank, it all seemed a bit boring with Pep Guardiola's Barcelona seemingly running away with the title. Then, in the space of a week, Real Madrid manage to cut Barça's advantage by 5 points and the Spanish media shouts in unison "¡Hay Liga!". We'll see, there's no real sign yet that Barcelona are going to throw the rest of their advantage away, but it tells you everything you need to know about the advantage they built up that Real Madrid can win 9 consecutive games and still trail their rivals by 7 points. As for the other "contenders", it looks as if this year there might be a place available in the Champions League for teams that finish 20-30 points behind the real champions. As I'm about to go out and watch Real Madrid play Liverpool I think I'll focus on the Madrid club for this post.

The most remarkable thing about this season is that Real Madrid are able to put together such an impressive run given the way they started and the chaotic way in which the club is run. Having lost one coach and one president, nobody really imagined that Madrid would be a contender for anything this year. The departure of Bernd Schuster was already being predicted before the season began, he made little effort to hide his disenchantment with the club's choices on signing new players he didn't want and an unwillingness to accept the way the club operates just meant it was a matter of time before he was axed. His (temporary?) replacement is Juande Ramos, a much better coach than his unhappy spell in the Premier League suggests. Then there was the departure of the president Ramón Calderón, who was elected in murky circumstances and left following revelations about how the club's annual assembly was fixed in his favour.

We are left with a reasonable suspicion that the team works better when there is no president to mess around with it. Because Real Madrid does not have a team manager, in the Alex Ferguson sense of the word. Instead, most of the decisions concerning recruitment of new players are taken by the president and whoever he appoints to oversee the current coach. The latter often seems to exist merely to take the rap when things go badly, and even before Schuster's dismissal I noticed that Madrid had averaged more or less one coach a year since 1997. Calderón's sporting director, former player Pedja Mijatovic, was the main thorn in Schuster's side but is now said to be a dead man walking as he continues to occupy his post but exercises no power following the departure of his mentor. Even if Ramos was to pull of the miracle of winning the title this season, there is no guarantee that he won't be replaced by the next president. Both of his predecessors in the job, Schuster and Capello, were sacked shortly after winning the title and there will be fresh presidential elections in the summer.

The club is left as something of a prestigious wreck, having been the plaything of egotistical businessmen for too long. The fans should never complain about this situation, at Real Madrid they elect the president and their choices in recent years have shown a clear tendency in favour of people who have done very well out of Spain's construction boom. All of those mentioned so far as candidates seem to fit the familiar profile of figures who regard their economic success as proof of their fitness to run a football club; but it rarely works out that way. Amazingly, it seems that one of the candidates this time around will be former president Florentino Perez, despite his having walked away from the job when things weren't going to plan. Another potential candidate is Juan Villalonga, best known for having presided Telefonica a few years back; a job he got because of his extensive telecommunications experience and because he went to school with Jose Maria Aznar. Villalonga just seems to want to run a football club, and any one will do. Last year he was briefly given a role at Valencia, to do with economic exploitation of the club'ss assets, but then got quickly shifted out again as part of the infighting at that club - which is apparently struggling to pay its wage bill at the moment. Now there are even rumours that Aznar himself might form part of a candidacy, I assume that to be Villalonga's. A frightening thought but better than having him in charge of the country. All of this suggests that little will change, and that a club which has again succeeded in becoming heavily indebted despite its pelotazo a few years back will continue its erratic progress, with the silverware won unlikely to match the investment on expensive but mismatched players that underpins it.

Beware Of Ultra Violent Rage

Tuesday night’s Champions League match between Atlético Madrid and Olympique Marseille promises to be a tense affair, something which has little to do with what happens on the pitch. A court in Madrid this week sentenced an Olympique fan to 3.5 years in prison for offences allegedly committed in the previous game between the two clubs. The supporter involved, Santos Mirasierra (yes he is of Spanish descent), is a member of one of the groups of “ultras” who follow the French club.

The sentence Mirasierra was given is almost worth using as a case study in how the law can be misused by a zealous prosecution and complacent judges who find demanding proof of guilt to be a bit tiresome. The only offence which they could say with any certainty that he was involved in was pushing a policeman. The incident took place during a clumsy and aggressive action by the Spanish police to try and remove a banner from a group of Olympique fans. The police justified their action on the grounds that the banner contravened UEFA regulations. Strangely, UEFA disagreed with this judgement and even went so far as to impose a punishment on Atlético because of it. Of course, in standard UEFA fashion, what started as a punishment involving the club playing two games far from their own stadium ended up as a one game sanction played at home behind closed doors. The punishment was incomprehensible to Atleti fans and I certainly wouldn’t stand up for UEFA’s consistency in dealing with such issues, but the sentence against Mirasierra smacks of a judicial revenge for the fuss made over the incidents that night.

Apart from anything else, the trial of Santos Mirasierra introduced the interesting concept of co-authorship. What this means in the context of his sentence is that if you are in the vicinity of a group of people throwing chairs at the police and it turns out that you are the only person arrested then you are guilty of what everybody else did. Regardless of the absence of any evidence proving your involvement in the events. It’s a fantastic catch-all concept and it almost puts me off the idea of going to any more Spanish football games, where outbreaks of throwing all sorts of objects onto the pitch are distressingly common. Ah, but there’s the catch, when it happens in a purely Spanish game neither police nor club seem to be in the least bit worried. Indeed the ultras of some Spanish clubs are amongst the most pampered of supporters, often enjoying a close relationship with those in charge. Only this week we have had reports of how Real Madrid president Ramon Calderón enjoyed the vociferous support of a group of ultras in what promised to be a difficult club annual meeting.

No English Friendly For Madrid

It didn't take long for this item to make it into the Spanish press. It's hardly a surprising decision, the Spanish football authorities preferred to look the other way and pretend that no racism was involved rather than acknowledge what had happened the last time England played at the Bernabeu stadium, so there is little reason to believe that the same thing won't happen again. I anticipate multiple comments along the lines of "oh it's so unfair, here go the anglos again calling us racists when they're more racist than we are" in the Spanish media where this gets reported.

La Liga 2008-9....Who Will Provide The Competition?

With the Spanish Liga about to see its second round of games this afternoon, I'm a bit overdue with my pre-season post and wildly inaccurate predictions. The truth is I'm not very optimistic about this season, I have the feeling that it could turn out to be one of the most boring for several years. The reason behind that feeling is that La Liga seems to be heading towards an English style league where the title is disputed by a small elite group of teams, and the rest are simply dedicated to ensuring their survival in the top flight. Obviously football in Spain has long been dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid, but the last few years have at least seen other clubs that have been able to challenge the supremacy of the big two. There's the problem, the number of candidates likely to do that this season is smaller, and the best chance for a bit of tension lies in Madrid and Barça failing to live up to expectations. This is always possible and the first day of the season was encouraging in this respect as the big two both lost.

So who else could be a contender come the end of the season? I would argue that there are only three other teams capable of mounting a serious challenge; Villareal, Sevilla and Atlético Madrid. Villareal continue to demonstrate what can be achieved with limited resources but good management. Having survived the departure of players like Riquelme and Forlan they managed to make it all the way to Champions league qualification last season. Fortunately, they have held on to key players like Senna and Cazorla although their problem could always be that they lack the squad strength to maintain form throughout the season. I would still make them the best outside bet. Sevilla are another team that have a system for discovering inexpensive talent and which allows the club to survive the departure of key players. Last season they were rocked by the death of one of their players at the very beginning, and then the departure of Juande Ramos to manage Tottenham. They are still there as contenders but don't seem to be the team they were two or three seasons ago.

Atlético Madrid have had the most dramatic start to the season, they got a tough preliminary round draw in the Champions League but produced a thrilling second leg performance to make it through to the main part of that competition. The word was that any chance of strengthening their squad this season depended on that qualification, said to be worth €20 million. The big question is still whether they can reproduce that kind of form week after week, and they seem to be very dependent on the mood of the Argentinian “Kun” Agüero. An almost traditional lack of consistency, coupled with the distraction of being back in the Champions League, rules them out for me as potential title winners. Who else is there? I don't include Valencia amongst the top group at the moment. Despite the appointment of a promising coach the club is so badly run that they ended up flirting with relegation last season. Most of the summer was taken up with a farcical battle for control of the club, and it just doesn't seem to be a stable outfit at the moment; anything could happen.

Madrid and Barcelona have also provided plenty of entertainment during the summer. The Guardiola era has begun at Barcelona and the future of club president Laporta is still under threat as he only narrowly survived attempts to unseat him. It's a curious demonstration of how quickly people go from being heroes to villains. Talking of which, we saw the expected departure of Ronaldinho and Deco, although Samuel Eto'o was reprieved as the club failed in their attempts to attract a big name striker to replace him. Guardiola is a sterner figure than Frank Rijkaard and is already attempting to impose a bit more discipline than the laid back Dutchman was able to do. Given his legendary status as a player he should be given time to prove whether he can deliver as manager of the team. Unless things go very badly, he will probably outlast Laporta.

The spectacle at Real Madrid has ended up being about much more than their fruitless attempt to attract Cristian Ronaldo. In the end they were turned down by Villareal's Cazorla and Valencia's David Villa, and were said to have launched all sorts of desperate last minute bids for players. Their only significant signing was Van der Vaart, and Bernd Schuster is reported to be extremely fed up with the way he has been ignored when it comes to decisions about which players to buy. He should have known this might happen, it's the Real Madrid way and the man who selects the team usually has to accept that he will have little choice on the players who make up his squad. Finally, there came the ultimate humiliation for Madrid with the sale of Robinho, once touted as the “new Pele”. Although I don't really like the trend towards clubs being owned by mega millionaires, there was a certain satisfaction in seeing Madrid on the receiving end of tactics which they have used themselves to get players from other clubs. Their traditional method has been to unsettle players without openly bidding for them so that the player then declares his desire to go to Madrid. This is more or less what Chelsea did with Robinho, even if things didn't turn out quite the way they planned. It was a humiliating experience for Madrid, they are not used to players declaring that they don't want to stay at the club.

The failure of Real Madrid and Barcelona to attract big name players, together with the Robinho saga, is revealing about the shifts in economic power inside European football. The English league is far outspending Spain at the moment, not that this necessarily means we will see better football. Clubs that are not owned by the super rich have to generate income, Madrid and Barcelona have been good at this but are now finding it may be enough when there are people around who can always outbid them for a player. As for the rest, you won't find a Spanish club that has spent truly significant sums on new players. Which is why, in the end, the best hope for a bit of excitement in what I am very reluctant to call La Liga BBVA lies in the big two performing less well than expected. On the topic of sponsorship, I wonder whether Spain will end up with an equivalent to England's Coca Cola Cup. How long before we get the Copa Chupa Chups?



P.S. One very encouraging sign from the first day of the new season. Newly promoted Sporting Gijon were reported by the referee because of racist chanting from some of their fans. They were fined, the club accepted the fine without complaint and quickly published on their web page a condemnation of what had happened without making any excuses. A model for other clubs to follow, and a small lesson to those who would have us believe that such things are just an anti Spanish Anglo-saxon plot.