The Pink Boot Wearing Predictions - Round 13
Friday 28 November 2008 10:00
Saturday
Getafe (14th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)
When Gabriel Heinze knacked his leg standing on a rake carelessly left lying around the club’s training pitches, the clumsy Argentine sustained Madrid’s 21st major injury in just four measly months.
The defender now joins Van Nistelrooy (badly wired dressing room hairdryer), Robben (accidental dropping of piano) and a host of other poorly players on the sickly sidelines.
“It’s true that there are too many muscular injuries being suffered,” confessed Yolanda Erburu, the spokesperson for Sanitas, Madrid’s healthcare providers, as Guti attempted to remove a jammed crumpet from a toaster with a carving knife.
Heinze joins Madrid treatment table posse
Saturday’s trip to Getafe will see one opposition player, Esteban Granero, joining up with a club that unfairly flogged him to the Coliseum last summer.
However, the beardy-wierdy midfielder - described breathlessly by Marca as a footballer who “players the guitar, goes to university and reads books!” - is ready to return to the Bernabeu, if required.
“Few people are capable of saying ‘no’ to Real Madrid,” opined Granero. Those people being Cristiano Ronaldo, Santi Cazorla, David Villa, Jim Magilton in his prime...
LLL Prediction - Draw
Sevilla (5th) vs Barcelona (1st)
And so, the moment of truth has arrived. The Numero Uno question. The Big Issue. Will any of the Primera-donnas be wearing pink boots on Saturday night in the biggest game in Spain this season?
Of course, like Ever Banega, there are other meaty matters very much at hand.
Has Barça’s bullying of the wastes and strays of La Liga been in vain? Will Sevilla be able to stop the Dream Boys’ dance of destiny? How jealous was Joan Laporta of Atlético Madrid’s attendance on Wednesday night? And what is Pep’s “special plan” that Sport are predicting in Friday’s headline?
La Liga Loca suspects it will be a V-necked fleece with tartan piping.
LLL Prediction - Draw
Sunday
Recreativo (20th) vs Villarreal (3rd)
Recreativo players may have woken up on Friday afternoon feeling perky and positive about Sunday’s clash against the club that has supplied most of their best players over the past few years.
After all, a handful of decent displays against Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid have led some crazy-types to believe that the side’s bottom of the table position is unjustified and - unlike Wayne Rooney in El Madrigal - Recre will eventually pull out of its nosedive.
But any glimmer of good times ahead for the heroes from Huelva was crushed like an iddy, biddy bug by the big boot of AS on Friday morning.
“The worst attack in Europe!” screams the paper on Recre’s rather paltry five goal tally - a total that does not rank well alongside other continental bottom-dwellers such as West Brom and Chievo.
LLL Prediction - Away win
Valladolid (9th) vs Mallorca (15th)
Jubilation and jolly joshing have been the themes of the week for these two middling meddlers of La Liga. Valladolid’s wins over Sevilla, Madrid and Villarreal have seen the purpled players getting a little bit too big for their boots, tuts José Luis Mendilibar.
“I’m a bit worried as I’m noting an atmosphere of dangerous euphoria,” frowns the Valladolid coach.
And it’s a similar situation at 15th place Mallorca, who also appear to have ideas above their current station. “We have the potential to go for a place between 6th and 8th,” said midfielder Martí, revealing the winner of the competition to pick the club’s new motto.
LLL Prediction - Home win
Mendilibar: Detecting dangerous levels of euphoria
Málaga (11th) vs Osasuna (19th)
A couple of years ago, Ludovic Delporte was La Liga Loca’s favourite Primera player. The Osasuna winger was a flying Frenchmen who had Diego Capel’s hairstyle while the Sevilla starlet was still in nappies and pretending to fall out of his playpen.
Delporte is set to play his 100th top flight game on Sunday against Málaga - providing he is fit that is, the Pamplonan’s big problem over recent years.
The driving force of Osasuna’s Champions League finish just three seasons ago should have already reached this milestone. Unfortunately, the 28-year-old possesses legs that could fall off at any moment and the dickiest of backs.
LLL Prediction - Home win
Almería (12th) v Deportivo (7th)
La Liga Loca would like to remind all its knowledgeable, worldly and impeccably-tasted readers that the latest edition of FourFourTwo magazine is still available - an edition that features the 100 best players in the world. And Raúl.
However the blog must point out that none of these fantastic footballers currently play for Almería or Deportivo. And probably never will, unless very, very bad things happen in their sporting careers.
LLL Prediction - Home win
Athletic (18th) vs Numancia (17th)
Winner of this week’s ‘blind optimism in the face of footballing facts’ award goes - once again - to Athletic Bilbao manager, Joaquín Caparrós.
Despite his side lying third from bottom the ‘appy Andalusian has argued that the challenge for the Basque club this year is to do better than last season’s side.
After 12 rounds, Athletic are almost on a par with the previous year’s performance, aside from the six-place, four-points difference.
LLL Prediction - Home win
Espanyol (16th ) vs Sporting (13th)
This week, the hard-hat wearing Espanyol squad was pictured wondering around their new under-construction stadium, due to be ready for action sometime in the spring of 2009.
But the new Perico palace could become one of the finest grounds in the second division if the club doesn’t buck its footballing ideas up on Sunday against Sporting.
“We smell of death,” joked manager ‘Tintin’ Márquez this week as the press speculated on his future - but it’s speculation that is misplaced says the Espanyol president. “There is no ultimatum,” says the Pinocchio Perico boss, Daniel Sánchez Llibre.
LLL Prediction - Draw
Valencia (4th) vs Betis (8th)
If any of the blog’s Valencia-based readers were stuck in a supermarket queue this week, tutting as a middle-aged gentleman found that all of his cards had been declined, then they may have been behind money-less Mestalla president, Vicente Soriano.
Marca write on Friday that the club’s credit line has been cut after requests from the club for more time to make repayments were turned down.
The paper quotes a source at Bancaja saying that “Valencia have exceeded the risk limit allowed by the Bank of Spain.”
The Mestalla club are expected to respond to this pecuniary problem by slapping a bit of lipstick on Nikola Zigic and making him stand seductively in their club shop window for the next couple of months.
LLL Prediction - Home win
Atlético Madrid (6th) vs Racing (10th)
La Liga Loca had planned a number of ways of entertaining itself during Atlético’s closed doors clash against PSV.
But it was too frickin’ cold to do any of them. Instead, the blog shivered, lonely as a cloud in the Calderón stands, as Radio Marca occupied themselves by shrieking at the players when they came near their own huddling spot.
"Well I'm not getting it..."
Perhaps the highlight of the encounter came when one member of Her Majesty’s press noted wisely that Maniche had a distinct advantage over the others in the near subzero conditions.
LLL Prediction - Home win
----------------------------------------------
FourFourTwo.com: More to read...
La Liga Loca home
Blogs home
Latest Spain news
News home
Interviews home
Forums home
FourFourTwo.com home
or
to add your comments
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.