La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 15
Monday 21 December 2009 11:30
Good Day
Atlético Madrid
La Liga Loca is in an uncharacteristically frisky mood, having woken up to a big bunch of snow in Madrid.
But the responsible BBC-listening blog is well aware that this is bad news for old folk, travellers and pedestrians looking to cross the road without being mashed - a group it will soon be joining.
But it has decided to make Atleti the fairy at the top of the Good Day tree on the account of the Rojiblancos not losing their Sunday evening encounter with Tenerife.
That’s not to say that the Calderón club didn't try their very best to make it 45 weeks in succession in the Bad Day section, but an iffy penalty for Tenerife was saved by Sergio Asenjo whilst the youngster blocked a Nino effort with just 10 seconds left on the clock.
Atlético’s fine start to the new season sees them in 15th place and just two points from the relegation zone.
La Liga Loca salutes you.
Rafael van der Vaart
Unlike Lady Gago, the Dutch fella opted against sulking, whining and getting his agent to moan to the press during his ongoing absence from the starting line-up.
Instead, Van der Vaart kept on working hard, made an impression when he did feature - including the near-impossible feat of a goal against Alcorcón - and has been rewarded with a series of sparkling starts.
Rather than being stuck out on the wings or in midfield, the Dutch international is now in his favourite Kaká-shaped second striker position and demonstrated what a classy piece of footballing booty he really is with two goals against Zaragoza on Saturday night.
One Rafa pointing upwards
Fernando Llorente
A first-minute strike from Fran Yeste, set up by Fernando Llorente, led to the expected feisty, filthy footballing contest against Osasuna being more than a little dull - mainly thanks to the abject surrender of the visitors.
But it was still a good night for the possible World Cup player Llorente, who added a goal soon after his early assist.
Roberto Soldado
Two more goals, making it 10 in la Liga for Soldado has got Michel’s spider sense tingling with the Getafe manager predicting that “if he stays at this level, then unfortunately he won’t be with us for much longer.”
All the blog will add to this is that some club, somewhere, is in for a huge disappointment.
Valladolid
Playing Sporting in about -50 degrees on what appeared to be an ice-rink brought a desperately needed win for Valladolid, thanks to a lovely but very late effort from Haris Medunjanin.
Gustavo Munúa
Some decent recent performances have finally been rewarded with Málaga’s 2-1 victory over Mallorca being the southern side’s second win of the league campaign.
But the biggest winner of the day was Málaga keeper Gustavo Munúa, who not only beat his Mallorca counterpart Dudu Aouate in a very real sense whilst they were both at Deportivo, but did it again on Sunday with a string of fine saves while Dudu’s dunderings handed the home side all three points.
Barcelona
Six titles, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Bad Day
Jermaine Pennant
La Liga Loca had a natter with the Zaragoza man soon after the 6-0 walloping by Madrid - perhaps the perfect end to the perfect day for poor old Pennant - and found the winger in a bit of a dark place.
However, less-than-jolly Jermaine did say that he would be back with Zaragoza in the new year after a week in Blighty but that the squad still had no clue as to who the new manager would be.
Pennant considers the ostrich approachTo be fair to the Englishman, Pennant had absolutely no chance to shine in a game where Zaragoza only managed a single shot on target and where they were cat food from the moment the game kicked off.
Marca director Eduardo Inda
The blog's not sure if it has handed out a ‘Moron of the Year’ award before, but it's going to start now.
This year’s hands-down, no-contest winner is Marca director Eduardo Inda.
Aside from selling his journalistic soul to Florentino Pérez some time ago, Inda triumphed in 2009 with his “20 reasons why Manuel Pellegrini should be sacked” article followed soon after by “seven more reasons why Pellegrini should go” special.
Well, it had gone embarrassingly quiet on that front with Real Madrid doing reasonably well of late.
But the lunacy was back on Monday - perhaps after a little nudge from the Madrid president - with the paper’s editorial responding to a handy 6-0 win at the weekend by bitching about the Madrid boss failing to start with Karim Benzema.
“Good managers are capable of playing all their big stars at the same time,” moans Marca. “The Bernabeu is demanding its stars and Benzema is one of them.”
For a start, the Bernabeu was deathly silent on Saturday and wasn’t demanding anything aside from the overhead heating being cranked up to 11.
And isn’t the real reason for the paper’s peculiar stance down to the fact that Saturday’s win was built by Gonzalo Higuaín, Marcelo and Rafael van der Vaart, who all happen to be Ramón Calderón signings?
Hugo Sánchez
It’s Christmas, so it’s high time that Almería fired their coach in a move that La Liga Loca may have a good rant about in the days to come.
Last year Gonzalo Arconada was royally Scrooged by his bosses; this time around it's Hugo Sánchez who has been festively fracked after Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Espanyol.
Sevilla
Seven points lost at home against the titanic trio of Málaga, Valladolid and now Getafe.
Useless from Sevilla. Absolutely useless.
*Have a 45 minute window in your life? Well you can waste it by watching La Liga Loca wittering away on RMTV’s season-so-far review show Extra Time, repeated throughout the festive period.
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About Tim Stannard
La Liga Loca is the playground for the evil, more childish half of Tim Stannard’s psyche to be let loose. The other 50% is a contributor to FourFourTwo magazine, Football365, Sabotage Times as well as other publications such as UEFA Champions Magazine and When Saturday Comes. He is also a regular guest on Real Madrid TV’s Extra Time show and works as a TV producer extraordinaire for hire. To contact Tim directly email laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk