Good Day, Bad Day: Round 19
Monday 25 January 2010 15:00
Good Day
Dani Alves
La Liga Loca is uncertain whether Dani Alves’ goal was a mishit cross or flukey shot. But it isn’t that bothered about finding out, really.
It was just a cracking strike and topped off a superb performance by the cheeky Brazilian, which produced an assist and a nightmare night for Valladolid’s vanquished defence.
“If he weren’t human, Alves would be an almost perfect machine,” gasped Juan Cruz in AS over the full-back’s performance.
Saturday’s 3-0 win away at Valladolid was similar to many other matches from Barcelona this season: let the opposition have a wee nibble for 20 minutes before devouring their opponents like Maniche and a Big Mac.
With Deportivo set to stuff Real Madrid in Riazor once again next week, La Liga Loca has a sneaky feeling that Barcelona’s lead at the top of the table is about to be considerably larger than five.
Sevilla
Saturday was an extremely good day for Sevilla, with the team’s 1-0 win over Almería not bad considering the sixth-placed side were absolutely atrocious and only had a jammy goal and another fine performance from Andrés Palop to thank for preventing what should have been their fifth league defeat in a row.
Getafe
Due to some Bernabeu business, La Liga Loca completely missed Getafe’s glorious 1-0 thrashing of Atlético to officially become “the second best side in Madrid."
Pound for pound, a sniffy La Liga Loca would probably move Getafe up a position in that particular chart.
Sunday’s win in the Coliseum gives Getafe 30 points to make it the best Primera start for the side in their top-flight history.
Villarreal
It was a game of Russian roulette for Villarreal, claims Monday’s Marca.
Luckily, Ernesto Valverde’s side avoided having their brains plastered over El Madrigal against Zaragoza. But only just.
At 3-0 up and coasting, Villarreal decided to give their fans some Sunday evening stress by letting their opponents grab two before picking up a fourth with just minutes left through a ponderous Ariel Ibagaza effort.
“In the world of football, everyone suffers,” noted Valverde after the game.
These days, this is especially the case for his own side’s supporters.
César Sánchez
It may not have been a great match for his Valencia team-mates in the goalless draw at Tenerife, but the 57-year-old goalie spared the blushes of the failing forward line against a tenacious opposition team with some cracking saves.
Racing Santander
The 1-0 away win at Sporting was Racing’s third in four and... and... everyone stopped reading after the word ‘the’, didn’t they?
Cristiano Ronaldo
It was a truly touching moment. Cristiano Ronaldo down on his knees, looking to the heavens for an explanation for yet another heinous slur against his good name.
All that was missing was an Anakin / Darth style “Nooooo!” and a frantic fist wave in response to his second red card of the season.
The Madrid forward is fulfilling nearly all of La Liga Loca's pre-season expectations of him.
Gallons of pouting, oodles of needless stepovers, scaring the pants off Villarreal defenders and some cracking goals along the way - the most recent being the second effort against Málaga on Sunday night.
All that’s missing is a series of uncomfortably-squatting, boob-flaunting floozies bragging about their nights of passion with the wondrous winger on the infinite number of gossip programmes filling Spain’s airwaves.
Most importantly of all, Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the few Primera performers capable of getting into La Liga Loca’s Good Day section and...
Bad Day
Cristiano Ronaldo
...the Bad Day section, having ruined (or embellished, depending on which way your milkshake is sucked) his fine brace against Málaga with a swipe of the elbow to rearrange poor Patrick Mtiliga’s face.
Even militantly Madridista Marca admit that the second-half red card was a fair cop guv'nor, but Monday’s editorial still pleads forgiveness for the player from the fans.
“He made a mistake, but he’s not killed anyone,” claims the column.
Even more remarkably, the paper fails to include Ronaldo in the Top Ten heroes and villains section of their weekend review and chooses to make Guti the top performer in the world’s wild weekend of sport.
La Liga Loca feels that it would have been a very different outcome had, say, Zlatan Ibrahimovic seen red under the same circumstances.
Kaká, Karim Benzema
It may be a tad unfair to rip this underperforming pair to shreds every week, but it’s fun and that’s all that matters really after another game when they both did next to nothing.
The blog chatted to Málaga’s defensive nut-job Weligton (yes, Weligton) after his side’s defeat to try and get him to dish more dirt on Dumb and Dumber.
But the Brazilian centre-back refused to put the boot in and simply said that they were both great players and it was very enjoyable to play against the pair. Bah!
Felipe Luis
Destitute-Deportivo may have won their home clash against Athletic Bilbao - wholly undeservedly, by the way - but the sight of Miguel Angel Lotina in tears on the bench shows that it was a very bad night indeed for his team.
It was the night Depor lost their brilliant Brazilian left-back Felipe for the season after he snapped his ankle when going in for his side’s opening effort and having the blameless Gorka land on top of his exposed leg.
“I would rather have just 20 points and Felipe fit,” admitted the emotional Deportivo boss after the 3-1 victory that leaves his side in fifth.
Atlético Madrid
Not so much a bad day for Atlético but a fairly ordinary one for the Rojiblancos after their latest balls-up.
“A horrible Atleti,” note Sport, attacking the side for lacking “a soul and football” in the defeat to Getafe.
“Atlético are back to insulting their fans,” says F Javier Díaz in AS in response to the team’s first defeat in the Coliseum with his colleague Iñako Díaz-Guerra noting that “the only other team in Madrid with serious options of making into Europe this year are Getafe.”
Zaragoza
La Liga Loca has always been a little slow off the mark in pretty much all aspects of its life.
This explains why the blog is only now starting to grasp the notion that Zaragoza may well be going back down to the second division after Sunday’s 11th defeat of the season.
Espanyol
Missed chances, a controversial penalty, and only a point at home against Mallorca.
A knee-knacked Paul from Barcelona can merely mutter about “being stitched up Xavi-style” at Sunday’s encounter in El Prat Cornella.
Get well soon! And the same for your team, too.
Valladolid
Once again, Valladolid’s crazy offside-trap-on-the-halfway-line scheme fails to live up to the coach’s expectations.
Xerez
New manager. New perm. New defeat.
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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