Monday’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 11
Monday 17 November 2008 12:00
Good Day
Sporting
La Liga Loca spent Saturday night injecting bleach into its eyeballs in a desperate attempt to banish the images of the Valladolid vs Real Madrid match from its brain, so missed out on this corker at the Mestalla.
Sporting’s swashbuckling football stylings have now seen the side win five of the six games played since being put through the football wringer at the start of the season.
Whilst Preciado’s players may find it hard to keep up their momentum, they look good for another season in the top flight. And as the club possesses one of the few sets of support that actually travels to games, that would be a very good thing.
On a similar note, there were only 100 odd Sevilla fans in Getafe on Sunday. A city with five million or so people can surely offer up more exiled supporters than that rather paltry, but noisy, number?
Preciado's boys coming good after hellish start
Valladolid
With the 19-year old goalkeeper, Sergio Asenjo in the starting line up, the average age of the Valladolid 11 was just under 30. Without him, it would have been 67. Still young enough to beat Real Madrid though.
Barcelona
A double day of delight for the Dream Boys. Not only did they slip past a Recreativo side that Guardiola feared would be hard to break down, but all of Pep’s rivals dropped points too.
Fernando Llorente
When La Liga Loca heard that Llorente had been called up to the Spain squad, the blog nodded in approval. Del Bosque had picked a striker that had been superb for Valladolid last season and was performing pluckily for Villarreal both in Spain and Europe, this time round.
But - and not for the first time - the simple-minded La Liga Loca had confused Joseba with Fernando. But maybe the Spain manager had too?
Vicente del Bosque has chosen the gangly ‘new Arizmendi’ striker busy entertaining all in San Mamés. Still, the floppy-haired forward popped up with a peach on Sunday to lead Athletic to their first win in seven.
Numancia
Maybe La Liga Loca was a little hasty in writing off Numancia’s survival chances after coming back from 3-2 down to win 4-3 on Sunday. So let’s check who they were playing... Oh. Still going down!
Plucky Numancia upset odds at Espanyol
Alvaro Negredo
Surely a better choice at the Bernabeu than Crespo? Or would that mean admitting another wrong move by Madrid by letting the Almería striker go in the first place?
Atlético Madrid
No matter what poor old Javier Aguirre does, the Mexican manager is derided and damned in the Spanish press.
First he was criticised for overplaying Kun Agüero, and then for resting him. And it has been a similar situation with Diego Forlán - another player who simply doesn’t have a 50-match season in his legs.
So, it is with a tremendous but inevitable air of ‘told-you-so’ self satisfaction that Monday’s papers are full of praise for the 4-1 win over a dreadful Deportivo which saw Kun and Diego starting together.
Together again: Forlan and Aguero
Sevilla
After seeing them in full Technicolor for the second time this season, La Liga Loca still isn’t enjoying Sevilla v2.
The side swapped flair for physical power over the summer, something that Javier Casquero agreed with in a wee chat with the blog after the game.
“They lost important players in midfield along with Dani Alves. These are players who made a big difference. Now, they play very high up the field and are very competitive,” said the Getafe midfielder.
Sergio Garcia
It was the only other day that La Liga Loca remembered that the Euro 2008 winner had moved to Betis from Zaragoza over the summer.
And that may be the same situation for the fans, after the midfielder/striker thingy woke up and scored a brace in a match where both teams wore green for some reason.
Bad Day
Bernd Schuster
Monday’s events at the Bernabeu may overtake the current ramblings of the blog, but it seems that Schuster’s goose is gandered.
Both Marca and AS are citing the German’s failure to lead Sunday’s voluntary training session as evidence of his lack of concern at the his side’s current sickly state.
The fact that he was attending his baby daughter’s baptism has been overlooked somewhat.
Bernd's week goes from bad to worse
Raúl
Another fine performance for Madrid’s sporting director. Bugger all for 90-minutes aside from a feeble late miss in a one-on-one against Asenjo.
La Liga Loca
The blog travelled all the way to Getafe and not one sniff - in the metaphorical sense - of the mythical Granero’s Bird.
Maybe Esteban’s angel went into hiding after watching her fella’s dreadful attempt at a penalty?
Espanyol
Judging by the weekend’s comments controversy on the blog, Paul from Barcelona’s crankiness was not helped one little bit by watching Espanyol go down 3-4 to Numancia. Brace! Brace! Brace!
“A big welcome today to over 200 vocal Numancia fans who had made the journey. And some journey it is too.
Steve Finnan started at right back for Espanyol. We hoped he wouldn't get confused as he was playing against a team in all red and that contained 11 Spanish players.
Numancia took the lead when a long shot from the number 6 (it's Numancia, you tell me their names then?) went in after good work on the left wing.
Espanyol equalised from a corner that found Moises, back to goal, who then in a kind of overhead kick, shot into the goal. An excellent finish.
1-1 at half time, about right and no warning of what was to come.
1-2: a break down the left and a stooping glancing header put Numancia ahead
2-2: Jarque's header hit the ground, the bar and defender before going in.
3-2: Tamudo brought down in the area. Penalty. Which he took himself despite his recent record and buried it bottom corner.
3-3: A great curling shot into the top right-hand corner.
3-4: With Espanyol pushing forward. Numancia raced away down the left and the guy hammered it from the edge of the area into the far corner. A worthy match winner.
So three points for an effective Numancia team who took their chances well and got a round of applause from the home fans. Well, we all secretly like Numancia don't we ?
For Espanyol it was pretty poor. Finnan looked off the pace, but then he's been injured. Some of our players are just not good enough. Simple as that.
Stray cat count... 0 (I'm getting worried)"
Paul, Barcelona
Finnan: Fit, but not yet firing for 'los periquitos'
Valencia
Two home defeats in a row in the league! Emery out!
“Something isn’t working,” mused Unai after the 3-2 defeat to Sporting.
Osasuna
Without a league goal in four matches. And only one scored in nine. Now La Liga Loca is no expert, but that doesn’t sound very good.
Villarreal
Still the only unbeaten side in the Primera but will be smarting after a losing the lead in injury time against Málaga - on a pitch that Manuel Pellegrini was not at all happy about.
“In my opinion you shouldn’t have to play on pitches in this state,” complained the Villarreal bigwig.
“And Rubinos (the referee) was under pressure. He gave a lot of fouls against us and in one of them they scored,” continued Pellegrini using the trusted ‘Fergie defence.’
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About Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot
When he isn't fighting the evil forces of flamenco or attracting libel actions for La Liga Loca,
Tim Stannard is building his media empire in Madrid. As well as contributing to Football365 and doing odd jobs elsewhere, Tim also works in the glamorous world of television as a producer, script writer, news editor, coffee boy and stand-in fluffer.
Simon Talbot? Well, he's a man of mystery.