La Liga Loca

All quiet on the Atlético front... for now

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

La Liga Loca’s Atlético Madrid-loving acquaintances – the blog has no friends, friends make you weak – have been doing their very best to avoid the ongoing Galactico parties at the Bernabeu.

But the lack of activity at their own club has made this a tough task. Like the thousands of sleep-starved Madrileños, Rojiblanco supporters have been scowling and growling at the Florentino fiesta with pillows clamped to ears.

With the duelling duo of Enrique Cerezo and Miguel Angel Gil all with the Speedos on their holidays and unlikely to be sending each other postcards, the main news in Atleti’s wacky world has concerned a number of departures and the not-that-surprising arrival of the out-of-contract Juanito from Betis.

Midfielder Miguel de las Cuevas has moved to Sporting without anyone giving a flying fig, while goalkeepers Leo Franco and Gregory Coupet have done one on frees to Galatasaray and PSG respectively.

And with third-choice goalkeeper David De Gea wanting to bunk off to pastures new to get playing time under his gloves, the club are looking to accelerate the move for Spain’s U21 genius goalie, Sergio Asenjo, from Valladolid.

However, the Pucela side are a tad distracted and recovering from the news that former player and ex-sporting director José Luis Perez Caminero has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering.

The former Spain international is currently on bail – and holidaying at Eurodisney, apparently – but has a good fortnight to come up with an explanation to a judge as to why he was changing large amounts of lower denomination bank notes into 500 Euro notes.

A change is as good as arrest

Overall, the Vicente Calderón has been silent apart from the shuffles and scuffles from the constant crowd gathered around the tethered and barcoded figures of Diego Forlán and Kun Agüero, with one of the two set to leave this summer to help the club out of its latest financial fix.

Indeed, an ever-expanding pile of debt and the need to fund the construction of a new stadium has seen the club indulge in a bout of belt-tightening the likes of which Maniche can only dream of. And it’s for this reason that Atleti will not be indulging in its annual summer advertising campaign, which is always good for raising titters or gasps of shock.

Previous years have included the famous ‘year in hell’ campaign after Atleti’s relegation to the second division and a famous spot featuring a depressed child asking his equally sad-faced father why they support Atlético Madrid.

“It’s strange that a club that has forever been anchored to sad acts of amateurism on a sporting and institutional level, has been an example to follow in the world of sports marketing,” writes Iñaki Díaz-Guerra in AS, lamenting the absence of more advert action from the Rojiblanco club.

But with Atleti still trying to shove a stubborn Maxi Rodríquez towards Tottenham and José Antonio Reyes to literally anyone who will take the whining waste of space, the world of Atlético Madrid shouldn’t be quiet for too much longer.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Zombies, bouncers, shooters & a sea-lion

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

When last mentioning the Segunda-bound Real Betis in blog dispatches, La Liga Loca made the rather snooty suggestion that only a couple of lagered-up flamenco singers and some confused tourists would be participating in the march against club owner Darth Manuel Ruiz de Lopera.

For the kerzillionth time, the blog was shown to be quite wrong in its prediction.

An admirable 60,000 turned up in their green-and-white shirts to defy Darth’s zombie army and offer unrepeatable suggestions as to what Don Manuel could do with his club.

But since then, things seemed to have quietened a little in Seville. This is partly due to the fact that it is simply too hot to do anything down in Andalusia for the next three months, never mind go on a march.

However, many Betis fans may be thinking that there's no reason a club run by lobotomised loons can't get promoted to the Primera. After all, it happened last season for their fellow Andalusians Xerez.

Before becoming the newest champions of the second division ahead of Tenerife and Zaragoza, Xerez first announced their name to the wide world of sport when club president Joaquín Bilbao was arrested.

This being Andalusia, it was never going to be for something like tax-evasion or book-fiddling. Oh no.

Instead, Bilbao was nicked after a big night out that involved an ill-advised punch-up with a Russian bouncer and busting some caps into the door of a 'gentleman’s establishment' that had closed for the night.

"Yer name's not dahn... 'EE'S GOT A SHOOTAH!!"

Fortunately for Joaquín, his driver took the rap for the shooting business, but the global attention and a night behind bars meant that El Presidente was forced to step down from his role at the club.

Xerez then joined the ever-growing list of Spanish sides that have been unable to pay their players, but still managed somehow to finish top of the league and win promotion to the top flight for the first time in the club’s history.

Sadly it is likely to be a short stay, as Xerez have rather carelessly just lost the man who got them there.

After only being offered a one-year contract extension and a transfer kitty the size of Maniche’s brain, Esteban Vigo this week told his bosses to spin on it and moved back to the second division to manage the brilliantly-named Hercules.

Their own manager, former Real Madrid player Juan Carlos Mandía, has moved to Racing Santander.

That’s because the annoyingly long-named Juan Ramón López Muñiz has gone back to his former club, Málaga.

And that’s because their former boss Antonio Tapia has gone on to manage Betis.

While La Liga Loca was initially a little bit sad to see the back of Betis, it is now looking forward to spending the year with a club whose news-making prowess already includes brothels, drive-bys, economic meltdowns and losing managers before the season begins.

But there is one more addition to the story that could make La Liga Loca so happy it barks like a sea-lion.

Xerez are exploring the possibility of inviting one of their former coaches to take over the reins... a certain Bernado Schuster.

The blog is prepared to start a whip-round to make it happen.

*You can catch the more telegenic half of La Liga Loca on pundit duty on Real Madrid TV on Tuesday night from 19.00 UK time for their live coverage of Kaká’s presentation. Sky Digital channel 446.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Ronaldo: Rubbish and ‘a bit gay’ say Barça press

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:00:00 GMT

In the fortnight between La Liga Loca leaving Spanish shores and being dragged back kicking and screaming, millions of protesters took to the streets of Iran, Jacko popped his clogs and the campaign to oust big loser, Vicente del Bosque, began in earnest.

But absolutely nothing has changed in the news bubble of Barcelona where local rag ‘Sport’ is still banging out on about the evils of Cristiano Ronaldo a full three weeks after Madrid’s latest footballing bling-buy was announced.

Continuing the assumption that their knuckle-dragging readers are subservient half-wits without the ability to form a coherent thought of their own - probably not far from the truth - the Barcelona daily ran four editorials on Friday alone ranting that Real Madrid / Florentino Pérez / Cristiano Ronaldo are funny-looking and smell of wee.

“Why has Florentino Pérez come back?” asks Joan Vehils without bothering to give an answer to his poser.

But it’s still the signing of CR7 that still has the paper’s panties in a bunch.

However, a campaign that started out as gentle rib-tickling over Cristiano’s supposed rompathon with Paris Hilton and tendency for wearing flowers in his hair has now turned into something considerably more unpleasant.

Friday’s edition saw the downright mean Lluis Mascaró having a whopping dig at the Portuguese midfielder for “showing his pimpish prowess with his appearances in night-clubs and his brainless bimbos.”

He also notes that one of Ronaldo’s ex’s called him “a bit gay.”

"He said she said I'm a bit what?"

The not-at-all-jealous columnist ends his rant by writing proudly that “it is the antithesis of what Guardiola has in his dressing room” - a dressing-room which appears to be planning post-match bible study classes from what La Liga Loca can tell.

But if that wasn’t a big enough boot to Cristiano’s very busy balls, his colleague, Josep Maria Casanovas, lowers the tone even further by sniffing that “the Camp Nou is interested in the goals of Villa rather than the controversial charisma of Ronaldo who is on his way to becoming a metrosexual icon.”

As La Liga Loca has been a world-famous metrosexual icon for some time now, the blog would like to know what Casanovas is really trying to say here - ignoring the moronic implication that the former Manchester United man is not really known as a goalscorer.

Not enough ham in his bocadillo for you Josep Maria? Someone who wears pink shouldn’t be allowed to play in la Liga? May not be man enough for the secretary-banging, hard-drinking, Mad Men of Sport?

"I know what you're thinking... the white t-shirt was a mistake"

Still, the blog must respect Casanovas’ opinion. A gentleman has the right to stick to his guns, etc, etc. Unless that man will write whatever he is told by his Barcelona bosses of course.

Take this example from our subject’s column in April 2007 when the Catalan club were reportedly contemplating a summer swoop for the Man United man.

“Barcelona cannot let him escape. He’s got everything - class, speed, skill, a great strike and a winning mentality. As a footballer he is unique and also as a media icon. Let’s not forget that in modern football, image and marketing are also very important.”

Or perhaps a little something from July of last year when Deco and Ronaldinho were moving on and the club was looking for replacements.

“We know that Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká appear to be untouchable, but Barcelona are famous for hunting down the best players.”

So, to recap, in Sport’s world a Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Real Madrid is a pimping, preening, waste-of-space who is a bit too effeminate for their tastes.

But wearing the shirt of Barcelona the midfielder would become a dazzling footballer, a goal-machine, and an important source of marketing income.

If this is just the beginning of an almighty war of words over the season to come, La Liga Loca feels that it's good to be back after all.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The battle for the soul of Betis begins

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Andalusia is a land where out-of-tune wailing by battered old hags is considered music, where the locals speak as if their mouths are full of chorizo and where it’s always really, really hot.

But very soon, the region down in the sticky south of Spain will be playing host to the mother of all battles, a fight to take back the light from the forces of evil, a scrap to rival any trailer for a Lord of the Rings rip-off.

To tell you the truth, it will probably end up being a couple of hundred beered-up loons wandering down the street holding a very wide banner before going to the pub after about five minutes.

"Don't worry, I've got supplies"

Nevertheless, a very excited AS have spent many days bigging up a struggle that is now taking place for the heart and soul of Betis.

Now that the sobbing from the club’s fans has died down, along with the laughter from everyone else over their ejection from top-flight football, the supporters of the Seville-based club are as frustrated as Maniche facing a childproof honey pot and looking for revenge for their relegation.

Yet another movement has been formed with the goal of removing majority-shareholder, Darth Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, from the club by forcing Betis’ godfather to agree to sell the stake he has held since 1992.

But Darth de Lopera is in no mood to move his dirt-filled coffin to pastures new.

Indeed, he plans a bigger, brighter future for the second division side with the dotty old codger promising to turn Betis into the “Real Madrid of la Segunda.”

But probably not in the ‘humiliated by anyone half-decent’ sense.

“I will take the team to the Europa League, the Champions League and once again we will go to Madrid... and that is what Manuel Ruiz de Lopera is working for,” bellowed the biggest of Beticos, slipping easily into the third-person school of insanity.

Aside from several swarms of locusts, a 200,000 strong zombie army and Hugo the Husky, De Lopera stands quite alone in his campaign to keep control of the Betis helm.

AS reports that the rebellion against Don Manuel began a long way from Spanish shores with a small group of Betis fans in Kosovo walking to a UN building to protest against his leadership. No-one is quite sure what they thought that would achieve, mind.

Not even the appointment of former Málaga man, Antonio Tapia, as the new coach could stop this juggernaut of a campaign which has taken on the slogan: “for your dignity and future, Betis.”

Next to make their vexed voices heard were Seville’s local politicians.

“Betis deserve to be relegated, they have done things so badly,” complained José Antonio Grinan, president of the parliament of Andalusia and a man who now has to sleep with the lights on. And with a battle-axe in hand.

The next stage of the campaign to oust the local Lord of the Flies is a march that is set to take place in Seville’s city centre on Monday evening.

Marca report that it will be attended by 112 fan groups, some bullfighters (of course) and former Betis waster, José Mari.

But Darth de Lopera has continued to blame everyone but himself for the team’s recent failures.

“I brought in the coach that everyone asked for and the signings they asked for, because they wanted Betis in the UEFA,” complained the Beelzebub of Betisland.

Despite all the clamour, La Liga Loca feels that De Lopera won’t be leaving the club anytime soon.

Unless, perhaps, Monday’s protesters are armed with garlic and stakes as well as banners and chants.

Lopera: "I have a cunning plan"

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Competition winner

A big blog pat on the back to Phil Jones for his winning entry to help Florentino Pérez name a sponsor to brand the Santiago Bernabeu and raise a bit of cash for the club.

A year-long subscription to the world’s greatest footie magazine is on the way....

The FourFourTwo judges were most tickled by the idea of the “Laxostar Santiago Bernabeu - where not just the football flows freely - also the verbal diarrhoea. And Madrid are always loose at the back.”

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Galactic gush delivers delirium and disgust in Spain

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

“It’s insane! It’s obscene! What about the children! Frack me!”

Just four of the descriptions of La Liga Loca’s conceptualist art exhibition currently on display outside its penthouse apartment. And melting rapidly in the summer sun.

It’s also four of the descriptions plucked from Friday’s Spanish press to describe Real Madrid’s overdraft-straining, bank-busting attempts to reach the sparkling, promised land of the Champions League quarter-finals.

And maybe, just maybe, a decent Copa del Rey run too.

The double whammy of the Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo deals has split the battle-lines in the Spanish press in a fairly predictable way.

For those of a Madridista bent, the 180 million Euro spunkathon is unquestionably a Very Good Thing. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a heretic who deserves disembowelling.

For the Catalan papers, Florentino’s recent splurge is the work of Satan himself. As is the norm in this particular wacky world, there is no time or space allowed for any opinions in between.

Pérez’s back pocket-dwelling paper, Marca, blasts on Friday’s front page that Ronaldo is “the signing of the century” and gives 10 good reasons justifying Madrid’s outrageous outlay for his diving services next season.

One of them is that he is the new official hunk of the Real Madrid team. Something that Paris Hilton has also noted, according to tabloid titillation.

Roberto Gómez (whose love for Ramón Calderón has seen him severely sidelined at the paper) claims that Kaká and Ronaldo’s arrival in the Spanish capital means that “Real Madrid win, football wins, we all win!”

The paper’s editorial thumbs its nose up at those who doubt the financial sense of the double deal by arguing that it will generate more money than it costs.

Angel or demon?

The column also chooses to ignore the final years of the last Galactico age and David Beckham’s trophy-starved spell at the club by opining that “having a team with the biggest icon in world football is a guarantee of success.”

Over in AS-land, editor Alfredo Relaño writes that “in just one week, Florentino Pérez has excited Madridistas and appalled everyone else.”

Although he acknowledges the moral issues over such a big splash of cash bang in the middle of a recession and with four million unemployed in Spain, he too falls in step with the Pérez party-line.

(The paper also finds the space to print a letter from a Barcelona fan and AS reader claiming that Relaño is “the best editor of all four of the big sports papers that we have in Spain.” And the most modest, no doubt).

Inside, Emilio Pérez de Rozas writes in a tremendously sycophantic column that “Madrid owe 500m Euro and are spending 300m more. But it doesn’t matter. Pérez oozes power and credibility.”

La Liga Loca says "Get a room."

Those looking for moral outrage and more than a hint of fear need only go to the Catalan-crazy press for some self-righteously angry reaction to Ronaldo’s expected arrival in Madrid.

“It’s mad!” yells Mundo Deportivo on the reported 94m Euro transfer fee for Ronaldo.

“What message does this kind of behaviour send to the world and especially to children? What values does it promote? That everything can be bought?” rants Jaume Miserachs, getting his Puyol-patterned panties in a big old bunch.

Sport follow a similar theme, with Josep Maria Casanovas predicting the end of the world following Madrid’s latest move.

“An immoral and shameful sum... a provocation... a bad example in these times of crisis... Pérez is in love with the image that no-one can resist him and that he can do everything... the most scandalous signing in the history of football.”

As far as La Liga Loca is aware, Casanovas is already hammering away on Saturday’s editorial, entitled “WAAAAAAH!!!! IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!!”

With David Villa’s signing due any day now, the hyperventilating hyperbole in the Spanish press has only just begun.

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Seedy stuff from la Liga’s lower reaches

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Now the fairly Philistine La Liga Loca is dimly aware of three great works of Spanish fiction - Marca, Don Quixote and, er, Don Quixote.

But it seems that a fourth may be added to this very short list.

And it goes under the somewhat cumbersome title of ‘The Spanish Second Division’.

Over the past few days an unruly gang of match-fixing stories have elbowed their way past the Kaká and Eto’o headlines like a granny in a supermarket queue.

Regular readers with long, long memories may remember the news from the end of 2008 of Real Sociedad president, Iñaki Badiola, producing a tape which he claimed had the then Tenerife player, Jesuli, admitting taking a 6,000 Euro bung to lose a game against Málaga at the end of the 2007/08 second division season.

BLOG: The New Perico Prince and Murky Malaga

“This is absolute nonsense,” blustered Málaga owner Lorenzo Sanz in response. “Badiola is the cancer of football.” Accusations then wormed out of the woodwork on fishy goings-on at other league games in the same season.

Unfortunately, La Liga Loca is unable to shed any light on whether any of these allegations turned out to hold water.

To date, naff-all appears to have happened in any investigations - if they ever took place, that is.

Instead everything seems to have been swept under a carpet the size of Portugal.

But the rancourous reek of rigging returned at the end of May with El Mundo publishing claims that members of Segunda A side Castellón were offered money to lose April’s league clash against promotion-chasing Real Zaragoza.

The paper reports that a player informed Castellón manager Paco Herrera about the attempt to buy his footballing favour. Herrera then told his club bosses, who passed the information onto the authorities.

El Mundo also published claims from fellow second division side Gimnastic that members of their squad had been offered fees to lose encounters - including one whopping offer of 300,000 Euro (promptly turned down).

There's yet more skulduggery afoot in the Spanish Segunda B division (a regional version of England’s Division 1) with allegations from Cadíz that offers were made to two of their footballers to help lose the play-off clash against Real Union, the side that shot to fame last season for knocking Real Madrid out of the Spanish Cup.

For the record, Cadíz prevailed in the two-legged tie and won promotion.

One of the squad members involved in the allegations, Dani Cifuentes, claims that he was offered 90,000 Euro to give away a penalty. The player says that the proposition was made through his agent (who is also, notes Marca, a Real Union shareholder).

“An unknown man called him with an offer that I told him from the beginning I would not accept,” says the right-back, who reported the incident to his club bosses.

Cadíz goalkeeper Kiko Casilla also claims to have been offered 120,000 Euro to throw the crucial promotion clash.

On Tuesday, Cadíz club president Antonio Muñoz confirmed the stories from the club camp and said that he had the name of the person trying to buy off members of his squad.

“We know who it is,” said Muñoz. "I spoke to this person and told him to his face that what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot say anymore. I can’t give names as I have no proof."

Stories of incentive payments are hardly new in Spanish football. But they normally concern sums of money paid to players of sides with nothing at stake to win games and are especially common during relegation battles.

Getafe president Angel Torres claimed last week that “We were the only team not to be given incentives on the last day – and we stayed up.”

Indeed, there are strong arguments at all levels in Spain that these bungs are no worse than standard win bonuses, paid for by a third party.

However, these stories of players being offered money to lose games is a different kettle of footballing fish.

While it is heartening to hear of honest footballers coming forward to report attempts to buy them off, there has to be concern over the number of players who may be less keen to turn down significant amounts of cash in encounters where there may be little else to play for.

The matter needs a thorough investigation by Spain’s footballing authorities. “Every year, you hear more and more about people buying or trying to buy matches,” complained Mario Bermejo, a player for second division promotion-chasers Xerez.

But strangely, La Liga Loca does not hold high hopes that an in-depth study into match-fixing will take place anytime soon.

After all, who knows what else it would uncover?

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New Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez is considering taking a sponsor’s name for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

All you have to do is send your helpful ideas on who they should be and why to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 11 - with the best suggestion winning the prize.

(Usual FFT terms and conditions apply.)

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Real Madrid finally end search for new Guti

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

With the briefest of announcements posted on their website in the wee small hours of Tuesday morning, Real Madrid had spread the word that they had doubled the number of playmakers who don’t really want to be at the club but would hang about for the cash anyway.

The arrival of Kaká on a six-year deal for a reported transfer fee of 62.7m Euro means that Madrid no longer have to rely on just the one fancy-pants footballer to pull out of nasty-looking clashes due to communions or ‘hurty’ legs - something that Guti managed brilliantly in the closing weeks of the last campaign.

"Oooh, it feels like a six-weeker"

“For a few seasons now, I know that Madrid have been looking long and hard for the new Guti,” explained the team’s Director General, Jorge Valdano, in an exclusive chat with the blog.

“With Van der Vaart we really thought we had a player on a our hands who had that same ‘show me the money’ mercenary streak of genius,” explained the former Argentine international. “But it never really worked out. Kept saying he was fit.”

But with Kaká announcing in a bustling press conference in Recife that “it wasn’t my plan to leave Milan but economic circumstances said it had to be,” pundits in the Spanish capital are certain that Madrid have finally got hold of the perfect player who can sulk through seasons long after Guti has become nothing more than a bad memory.

“The fundamental issue with Guti is that he’s a home-grown player who doesn’t want to play for the club,” explains Marca’s editorial on Tuesday.

“Every time he doesn’t fancy a game of football for one flimsy reason or another, it costs Madrid relatively little. Now, Florentino Pérez has bought a player who not only doesn’t want to be at Madrid, but is bankrupting the club due to his wages and transfer fee. That takes some skill,” praised the paper.

"Come and have a go if you think you're mardy, love"

As the clean-living Kaká was at Brazil’s training camp he was forced to deny reports that he was leaving Milan having grown tired of rejecting the constant offers from owner Silvio Berlusconi of "a fun time down at my villa" and explained that he was happy to be helping out his former club in a tough economic climate.

“A lot of companies are going through bad times and Milan is one of them,” explained Kaká on the motivations for his move to Madrid.

Real Madrid’s latest advertising hoarding is not expected to be unveiled at the Bernabeu until the end of June after duties with Brazil are completed, so it’s still not known what impact the former Balon d’Or winner will have on the squad at the capital club.

The most immediate reaction has been from Raúl, who was heard howling at the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning after discovering that a lower tax bracket for the Brazilian superstar will make him the best-paid player on the team.

At least until Cristiano Ronaldo arrives, that is.

Skint skipper stages stadium sit-in

Sergio Ramos is said to have low expectations as to whether the born-again, evangelical, teetotal, Jesus-owned Brazilian will be up for his traditional ‘drinkie Sundays’.

However, the man that Kaká is set to replace remained defiant over his role at Real Madrid over the next few years in a short chat with La Liga Loca.

“This just means that I’m going to have to up my game,” explained an unconcerned Guti. “I like challenges. Except physical ones,” added the midfielder.

“Family events are no longer going to cut the mustard when it comes to excuses. Next season I’m looking at bunions, scurvy, Yom Kippur. Nothing will be ruled out.”

Guti ended his talk with the blog by discussing his hopes for the new campaign. “I’m determined to prove that when people think of someone who really doesn’t want to play for Real Madrid, then they think of me straight away. Not some ponce from Brazil.”

Note: None of these conversations took place. Right?

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The former republic of Real Madrid

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Valencia - the ultimate community club

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

All over la Liga, Spain’s football clubs have been taking one for the team and helping out their most loyal supporters in these dark financial days.

Almería have announced that they will be dropping their season ticket prices by 30 percent for the new campaign. And this has nothing to do with a whopping 28 percent fall in attendances for the 2008/09 season from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Real Betis have decided to give their supporters a break from the old routine by swapping tedious trips to the Camp Nou for second division Sundays against Salamanca.

AS are reporting that construction king Florentino Pérez is contemplating the building of a Real Madrid Epcot centre - the third major infrastructure project being bandied about by a club president who appears to see cement mixers where fans see a stadium.

The paper enthuses that the family-friendly park will be stuffed with rides such as the Guti-themed ‘Spaced Mountain’ and an ‘It’s a Small World’-style boat-ride based on Real Madrid’s back four where you enjoy the sight of slow-moving figures repeating the same rib-tickling actions again and again.

Pellegrini switches to flat back three

But beating all these funtastic efforts hands down are Valencia, the club whose bold campaign allows everyone in the city a go at being president.

A busy weekend for the men from Mestalla saw the club appoint their seventh head honcho in just 15 months. In fact, a busy weekend for the men from Mestalla saw the club appoint their third head honcho in just four days.

The latest east coast eruptions began on Thursday when the then president, Vicente Soriano, was forced to step down by the club’s biggest creditors, Bancaja, for having failed to sell the old Mestalla or do anything whatsoever to improve the club’s disastrous financial position.

Psst! Wanna buy a ground?

In copying Ramón Calderón’s resignation speech, Soriano claimed he was leaving his position “with a clear conscience” but that he was also going “with a dagger in my heart because I have not been able to reorganise the club.”

(In many ways Soriano got off lightly, considering a number of his predecessors at this most viscous of clubs have left the post of president with actual daggers in their hearts).

Taking over from the second biggest majority shareholder was Javier Gómez, but he only lasted two days before Manuel Llorente moved into the hot seat.

Llorente was the club's Delegate General between 1998 and 2004 (and involved in a corruption scandal in this time, warn El País) and is the choice of Bancaja, who are the real trouser-wearers at the club these days.

“The role of president is not one that is a pleasant experience,” noted Llorente on taking up his new role.

Llorente has said that if the likes of David Villa are to be sold, then it will be for as much money as possible. But according to an article in Monday’s El País he is hardly in a position to make demands from any potential purchasers.

In a terrifying read for Valencia fans, the paper reports that the club’s debt at the end of June will stand at 547 million Euro with 70m having been lost this season alone. In the past six years the club has spent 300m Euro more than its total income from the same period.

"Come on lads, it's not that hard"

It makes one wonder why those in charge can't be thrown into the slammer on the grounds of complete idiocy. The issue with such an action is that it would set a precedent that would see a good 90 percent of those running the game in Spain doing time.

But then again, that might give a chance to those who may actually know what they are doing to have a go. A bold step forward for la Liga.

-----------------------

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All you have to do is send your helpful ideas on who they should be and why to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 11 - extension, folks, get writing! - with the best suggestion winning the prize.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Atlético go for Abel replacement

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

They may be completely unable to agree on the colour of ham or be in the same room together, but the terrible twins running Atlético Madrid have met in the middle over the appointment of Abel Resino as the side’s manager for next season.

Or the first few weeks of it anyway.

Club president Enrique Cerezo and the spawn of Jesus Gil, Miguel Angel, have decided to hand the former Rojiblanco goalkeeper a year’s extension to his previously very short contract for the admirable achievement of sneaking Atleti into a fourth-placed finish.

However, La Liga Loca’s Atlético man on-the-inside has nudge-nudge wink-winked that Cerezo wanted Juande Ramos as their sacking stooge for the new campaign rather than Resino.

El País joined in the conspiracy fun by reporting that Gil has been working behind his boss’ back on the Abel deal, in the same way that the Atlético Delegate General kicked Javier Aguirre out of the club without so much as an SMS to the out-of-the-loop Enrique.

And this perhaps explains Mr President’s ‘Hey, everyone, just chill’ attitude on the week’s contract speculation.

“I don’t understand why everyone’s in such a hurry,” shrugged Cerezo.

Cerezo: "What's happening?"

Incidentally, for those wondering whatever happened to Javier Aguirre, the flat-topped trainer is now managing the Mexico national side through its post-Sven season and has completely recovered from his excellent experiences down at the Vicente Calderón.

“I’ve been to a neurologist, a cardiologist, a dentist, a nutritionist, I’ve lost weight and back exercising,” beamed a fit-as-a-spaniel Aguirre after his 31 months running the Rojiblancos.

And Aguirre is now looking to bring his managerial stylings to the Premier League in the near future.

“My dream is to go to England. I’ve made some contacts there this year and I think my destiny will be to head there in 2011. I’m sure of it.”

Getafe have also made a move in the managerial market and made Michel their main man for the next two campaigns - the footballing equivalent of being stuck with Spanish gossip harpy Belén Esteban after a nuclear holocaust and realising she’ll have to make do for the survival of the human race.

(Ed: Parental guidance advised on an Esteban image search.)

Oop North, Osasuna have rewarded José Antonio Camacho for his efforts in keeping the club up with more of the same for next season.

And Villarreal have been fast-as-lightning kung-fu-fighting by appointing Ernesto Valverde – who took Athletic Bilbao and Espanyol into Europe before going to Olympiacos – as the replacement for Third-Choice Chilean Manuel Pellegrini.

Valverde to the fore as Pellegrini disappears

Just about everyone has gone to ground in Betis-land - probably for their own safety - although manager José Maria Nogúes admits that he will be stepping down after just a few short months in charge of the relegated club.

“I had the chance to show I could work in La Primera,” chirped the straw-clutching coach.

The unfortunate sap expected to bring Betis back to the big time is ex-Málaga manager Antonio Tapia, who stifled his giggles by describing the role as “an amazing job.”

The great news is that one of the managerial heavyweights of Spain may be returning to the peninsula for more action. And in a worse mood than normal.

Having been fired by Fenerbahce, Luis Aragonés was approached by an intrepid Spanish TV reporter who asked after his feelings over his dismissal.

The former Spain coach considered his options and responded: “Why don’t you f*ck off, you moron?”

And there was more bad language to be heard in what was an entertainingly awful week for Ramón Calderón.

First off, the former Real Madrid president was back in court to answer questions on his involvement (or otherwise) in the alleged vote-rigging at the 2006 presidential election.

And this is not to be confused with the court case investigating his involvement with alleged ballot-tinkering at the club’s AGM in December.

“I left [Real Madrid] so I would be left in peace,” complained Calderón. “But I’ve not managed it.”

On Thursday, Ramón got to fulfil one of his duties as the head of the Spanish FA’s centenary celebrations by opening an exhibition in a shopping centre - a speech that was drowned out by a booing and barracking 200-strong crowd.

La Liga Loca knew that megaphone would come in handy one day.

-----------------------

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Madrid go for "Third-Choice Chilean"

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dash and darn it.

Despite La Liga Loca and millions of its readers praying long and hard to all things unholy that either Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho would be joining the jamboree in Castle Greyskull, Manuel Pellegrini was the chosen chump to claim that his new position as manager of Madrid was a dream come true.

Had either of the club’s first two choices come off, then the blog could have sat back with a big bag of popcorn and watched the frantic football fun unfold.

A bewildered Wenger would have been crying on the manager’s desk within minutes of his arrival at the Bernabeu, while Mourinho would have been banging Jorge Valdano’s head on it.

“I (THUMP) am (THUMP) in (THUMP) charge (THUMP) here! Are (THUMP) we (THUMP) clear! (THUMP, THUMP, THUMP)."

"Talk to the hands..."

On a side note, perhaps the best news of Valdano’s posting as ‘Director General and Assistant to the President’ is that the former Argentine international will no longer be writing his frackin’ awful columns in Saturday’s edition of Marca.

Spain is finally spared from endless pretentious prose on football being a beautiful game that must be cherished, etc.

If La Liga Loca snoozes for even a second at the Santiago Bernabeu next season, then the blog will be writing 'BORED' in big letters on a Post-It note and slapping it onto Valdano’s forehead.

But it’s Manuel Pellegrini who now holds the nominal role as coach for the next two years (or weeks) and the Chilean is just hoping that the same firing fate that has happened to his predecessors isn’t repeated.

"Remember, Manuel, we don't want to see sh*t on a stick"

Unfortunately, the Chilean coach is none too optimistic on the matter. “It would be absurd to think that it isn’t going to happen to me,” mused Manuel to Marca.

Despite today’s mischievous La Liga Loca headline, Pellegrini is a perfectly fine choice for Madrid. He has proven success at working with young talent as well as handling the more Riquelme-esque problematic players (yes, you, Señor Guti).

However, the role of Madrid manager is more about managing upwards and making sure that the buck of blame doesn’t stop with you when things go all Pete Tong. Something that Bernd Schuster failed to work out.

"We're right behind you, son"

After all, there’s a reason why the emergency signs on the walls of the Santiago Bernabeu are organisational charts rather than exit-arrows.

Real Madrid’s BAP (Blame Avoidance Plan) for this year sees Florentino Pérez as the big, fat fairy on top of the tree but with a number of easily disposable branches below him.

Such as the no.1 Vice-president, no.2 Vice-president, Secretary to the Board, Director General, Director General of the Presidency, Sporting Director and Chief Minion - a role played this time round by Zinedine Zidane.

As always, the thorny issue of who will be in charge of the hiring and firing of the footballers is still fairly fluid, with Valdano claiming that “we will only sign the players that the coach likes.”

The new sporting director, Miguel Pardeza, feels that “many of us will participate in making the decisions.”

Pellegrini himself isn't fussed either way: “Dude, I’m just in this for the payoff after six months,” he didn't say.

-----------------------

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La Liga Talentspotter

The former republic of Real Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

To avoid a repeat of the deplorably dishonest presidential elections of 2006, a poll the local Colombos are still combing through - “One more thing before you go, Mr Calderón...” - Real Madrid’s bigwigs came up with a rather nifty plan... don’t have them.

And that’s pretty much how Florentino Pérez came to strut onto the stage at Castle Greyskull on Monday afternoon to announce the return of truth and justice to the “world’s greatest sporting institution,” making it sound more like a life insurance company rather than a club where men have fun kicking a ball about.

Although there was never any doubt over the outright winner of the Real Madrid rat-race, Pérez was reclaiming his place at the Bernabeu buffet a fortnight early, seeing as he was the only one whose candidature was accepted.

The seats held their own protest

That’s not to say there weren’t any other challengers for post. There were, but all failed to meet the exacting requirements listed in Madrid’s statutes.

Namely: must have been a member for 10 years; must be Spanish; must be stinking rich; must have the initials FP.

As president of the multi-trillion dollar ACS corporation, Florentino's not short of a bob or two.

And this is why he was the only presidential pretender who could come up with 57 million euro - or 15 percent of the club’s deposit - required to enter the official race.

The original idea of the cash deposit was the heart-warming notion that anyone wanting to stand in the race would have to be so rich that stealing from the club would not be a motivating factor for taking role.

And, to be fair, this statute has prevented a couple of shady characters getting anywhere near the Bernabeu this time round.

Juan Onieva’s presidential campaign lasted just one day after his electoral video featured a six-fingered JFK and he made the claim that Barack Obama became a Real Madrid fan by seeing the team playing in black during their ninth European Cup win.

"Real Ma-WhoInTheWhatNow?"

The last candidate to pull out of the poll was Eduardo García, a peculiar 29-year-old who was backed by an organisation for the disabled (OID) that has just been fined 120,000 euro for illegal activities.

Or, so say Marca, a pro-Pérez paper with an interest in making all other competitors look less than wholesome.

However, this ruling over a multimillion-euro deposit or ‘aval’ means that anyone who is not fortunate enough to be filthy rich or have filthy rich friends cannot be president of Real Madrid.

But despite this notion that Pérez and his posse are too rich to need to stick their paws into the Real Madrid cookie jar, the new president has reportedly forced his 15 buddies on the board to sign promises not to exploit the club for their own means.

Unless it involves selling off the training ground or other pieces of real estate, that is.

In fact, it's hard to know quite why he needs 15 greying old men on the club’s payroll to help him run the team’s affairs.

“It’s as if he is going to start a special journey into space rather than run the club for four years,” notes Roberto Palomar in Marca.

RM's new website editor reports for duty

In a five-minute acceptance speech only briefly interrupted by the Real Madrid anthem blaring out over the speakers, Florentino Pérez called for “the unity of the fans.”

To tell the truth, La Liga Loca feels that this demand is a little bit rich considering that not one of the 70,000 club’s socios were able to vote either for or against their new figurehead.

After all, even Ramón Calderón got a good 10 percent of the ballot in the 2006 election – the one that was suspended after accusations of vote-tampering.

While it is true that the whole changeover process was managed in a more dignified manner than three years ago, it doesn’t alter the simple fact that Florentino Pérez’s return to the Bernabeu was a coronation, not an election.

At no point did members get the chance to challenge the wisdom of potentially increasing the club’s debt by some 200m-300m euro, should all of the current transfer rumours come true.

There was no opportunity for supporters to cast doubt on his claims of wanting to ‘Spanishize’ the squad, considering the 17 purchases of his last tenure included just one Spanish player, Sergio Ramos.

Instead, Pérez has returned to Real Madrid with a cheesy smile and flashy names - Look, Zidane! Look, Kaká! - in the hope that everyone will forget that what was supposed to be a democratic institution has turned into a monarchy.

-----------------------

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New Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez is considering taking a sponsor’s name for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

All you have to do is send your helpful ideas on who they should be and why to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 4, with the best suggestion winning the prize of a lifetime.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - The Final Round

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Diego Forlán

By the end of his 32-goal campaign, the Atlético forward was scoring the kind of efforts that, had you pulled them off on your PlayStation, would have made your friends beat you to death with a lamp.

Atlético Madrid

The cathedral bells were ringing in a distinctly doomy way as La Liga Loca made its way down to the Vicente Calderón on Saturday night. There were thunderclouds quite literally gathering above the stadium.

As the game against a nothing-to-play-for Almería kicked off, streaks of lightning tore through the sky and the heavens opened onto the fans below.

Unfortunately, there is no spooky or supernatural ending to this particular tale. Unless you count Atleti playing out a fairly comfortable, Champions League-qualifying, drama-free, professional win as something worthy of The X-Files.

"This could be a case for Mulder and Scully... oh no, hang on..."

Getafe

It would have been a travesty had Getafe gone down, considering the side hadn’t spent a single minute in the drop-zone. In the end, they survived by the skin of Michel’s blindingly white teeth.

The former Madrid player is set to be in charge at the Coliseum next season, with club president Angel Torres saying a deal will take “about five minutes.”

Sporting, Osasuna

Two sets of brilliant fans helped push their sides to safety in games that they both had to come from behind to win.

Joseba Llorente

With Giuseppe Rossi and Nihat having spent recent months perfecting their impersonation of strikers – as in work-dodging picket-line refuseniks – it has been Joseba Llorente who has helped drag Villarreal into the Europa League places.

The double strike against Mallorca on Saturday night was the former Valladolid man’s seventh and eighth goals in the final seven matches.

Gonzalo Higuaín

About the only Real Madrid man who actually gave a flying hoot during their pathetic five match run of defeats.

Unfortunately for the Argentine striker, his 22 league goals won’t be enough to keep him up the Bernabeu pecking order next year, with the infinitely more marketable Kaka & Co. set to take his place.

To be blunt, if Higuaín isn’t a starter, then the new regime at Real Madrid are idiots.

"Clear off, we need the space for an advert"

David Villa

His two strikes against Athletic were surely a parting gift for a club where he scored 86 league goals in just four seasons.

Espanyol

After La Liga Loca witnessed a cat eating its own vomit in the stands at the Montjuic, Paul from Barcelona took a solemn oath to watch over the blog’s feline friends.

Unfortunately for Scratchy, our intrepid correspondent has now seen his last match in what is now Espanyol’s former stadium.

“They say some teams were already thinking of their holidays. Well. Málaga were on the beach with a bucket and spade and a large 99.

"They made as much effort as I do when 'er indoors mentions washing up. Saying that, Espanyol played really well and could have won by a load more in what was a meaningless match.

"Well that's another season done and dusted and your correspondent is a happy man for the following reasons:

1) That's Montjuic finished with. Happy memories but a new stadium awaits and it's cracking.
2) Espanyol finished 10th - yes, 10th. Top half. Two months ago Espanyol were five points adrift at the bottom. What a turnaround.
3) Hopefully we can shift some deadwood in the summer - Valdo, Lacruz etc.
4) Three weeks ago I put money on Betis going down (nothing against them, just good odds).

"Stray cats: 0.

"A good summer to all and I’m off to celebrate by attacking the police and smashing shop windows. That's what real supporters do, isn't it?”

Paul, Barcelona

A last look at the juicy mountain

BAD DAY

Betis

Wow. Not even in La Liga Loca’s wildest dreams – and they're pretty odd – did the blog think that it would be Betis going down on Sunday.

A stunning achievement for the Seville-based side, and worthy of pats on the back all round.

As to be expected after such an unfortunate event, the already frustrated fans went Bético ballistic with rocks and barriers being hurled at police and attempts made to burst into the dressing room area of the club’s stadium.

The players of both sides were unable to leave the ground until an hour-and-a-half after the game when the lynch-mob had been dispersed.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño claims that this was the inevitable conclusion to the Darth de Lopera era, a rule that “had pretensions of greatness but ended in failure.”

It's a similar message in Marca’s editorial - well, the bit that doesn’t discuss the brilliance of Florentino Pérez - with the paper noting that the club was treated as a simple family business or a third-division outfit by its ‘management’.

However, both papers have chosen to pull their punches over the whispers of corruption and incompetence that have dogged the second division’s newest members and something that may have played a part in Betis’ downfall.

Guti

The part-time Real Madrid midfielder spent the week complaining that no-one ever believes him when he claims to be injured, then pulled out of the squad for Sunday’s clash with Osasuna with a hurty ankle.

And this makes one particular letter to Monday's AS all the more entertaining with one enraptured reader declaring her love for Guti, someone who “will always be one of the best in the world. I admire you as a person and as a player.”

Florentino Pérez’s first act as Real Madrid president-again should be to strap raw meat to Guti’s body and kick him into the South Pacific from a helicopter.

"Yeah but how big's your house, Stannard?"

Antonio Tapia

The sight of Málaga’s end-of-season shrug of indifference was enough to make the manager leave the club after three seasons. “I’ve finished my cycle here,” said Tapia after the 3-0 defeat to Espanyol.

**********

End of Season Business

Throughout the year, La Liga Loca has been entertaining the masses with its weekend predictions which possessed all the accuracy and comedy factor of a shot from Fernando Gago.

So, with the end of the current campaign upon us, it’s time to see how la Primera would have looked if every one of the blog’s wayward guesses had been right.

All-in-all, barring a few glaring anomalies, La Liga Loca fared fairly well by getting the top six right - not necessarily in the right order, mind - and by predicting two of the bottom three. And who could have guessed Betis?

The final Weekend Predictions league table:

1. Barcelona
2. Valencia
3. Real Madrid
4. Sevilla
5. Villarreal
6. Atlético
7. Valladolid (!!!)
8. Sporting
9. Athletic
10. Getafe
11. Espanyol
12. Betis
13. Racing
14. Mallorca
15. Deportivo (wishful thinking)
16. Osasuna
17. Málaga
18. Almería
19. Recreativo
20. Numancia

**********

Competition Time

For your chance to win a year’s subscription to the greatest magazine in the universe, remember to enter FourFourTwo’s end-of-season competition.

New Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez is considering taking a sponsor’s name for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

All you have to do is send your helpful ideas on who they should be and why to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 4 (legal note: usual FFT terms and conditions apply), with the best suggestion winning the prize of a lifetime.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Fountain-Splashing Weekend Predictions

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Mallorca (9th) vs Villarreal (5th)

If the rumours swirling around the Spanish press are to believed, then Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini will be strapping himself into the Castle Greyskull ejector seat next week before being blasted into orbit some time in November.

But the wise and wizard-like Chilean coach - who looks a little like something living on Fraggle Rock but with Jedi powers - claims to know nothing about such trivial transfer talk.

“I know nothing,” confirmed Pellegrini.

AS’ clearly insane or quite sozzled Villarreal correspondent compares the Real Madrid-centred stories to receiving a telephone call from a friend telling you that Brad Pitt is getting married.

“I would take good care of a very angry husband,” warned the very random Javier Mata to no-one in particular.

LLL Prediction - Home win

"Que?"

Deportivo (7th) vs Barcelona (1st)

El Pais reports the city-centre carnage in the Catalan capital from Wednesday night’s fiesta of tomfoolery as 199 arrests, 238 injuries and 100,000 euro in damages.

“Less than 2006,” chirped a local council official looking back to the last time Barcelona won the Champions League.

Perhaps the best part of such behaviour - all deplorable of course - is the return of the word ‘antidisturbios’ or 'riot police' to the blog.

One of those who got on the wrong side of their big sticks, write El Pais, was a 55-year-old gentleman who decided to end the evening off by lobbing metal balls at the local constabulary.

In perhaps the funniest piece of writing La Liga Loca has read all season, Marca’s editorial on Friday is hopping mad at the 300 Barcelona fans who went to Madrid’s centre of celebration, the Cibeles fountain, to lark about in the water and sing songs.

“The insults to the goddess, Guti and Real Madrid are nothing more than a lack of respect to one of the symbols of Madridismo,” fumed the po-faced paper.

“They accused me of doing what with a what?” gasped Guti, the next day.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Atlético Madrid (4th) vs Almería (10th)

Atleti only need a piddling point to secure a knockout in the Champions League qualification stages in the summer, so La Liga Loca asked its rojiblanco insider if... ahem... the club would be... ahem.... making quite sure that at least the draw would be secured.

“Not a chance,” replied the indignant insider noting that Almería coach Hugo Sánchez would quite enjoy messing up Atlético’s big night.

“I won’t be helping anyone,” hollered Hugo on the suggestion that the infamous suitcases would be arriving at his club from Villarreal’s direction, the other team in the running for a fourth-placed finish.

LLL Prediction - Home win

EasyValencia (6th) vs Athletic Bilbao (13th)

While the hard-up board of Valencia were scrabbling around the local dumpsters for their dinners, AS is reporting that a bean-counter at the club has worked out that unless the land of the old Mestalla is sold by the June 8, payments to all the institution’s creditors will be suspended and proceedings for Spain’s equivalent of administration will begin.

Meanwhile, another arm of the club has approached a gambling company and asked them to stop taking bets on where David Villa will be playing next season.

Mainly because the enterprise in question, Unibet, is one of the club’s sponsors.

LLL Prediction - Home win

"Lies, it's all lies I say..."

Sunday

Numancia (19th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

It was confirmed this week that Sevilla manager Manolo Jiménez will be spending another season on the Andalusian bench.

Another year of somewhat limp football for the fans but endless speculation on his immediate future from the likes of La Liga Loca.

“We haven’t renewed Manolo Jiménez,” announced the not-exactly-endorsing-his-coach club president José María del Nido, “but he has renewed himself.”

LLL Prediction - Away win

Espanyol (12th) vs Málaga (8th)

While Sevilla may have their managerial business sorted for the season, Málaga are still haggling over the future of their coach Antonio Tapia.

It appears that talks remain at an impasse with the boss of the Southern side fancying a spell in the Premier League, rather than a relegation scrap in Spain next season with the club having sold all its brightest stars.

Meanwhile, Espanyol fans have a transfer story to rival any 'Ribery to the Camp Nou' nonsense being drummed up down the hill, with the rumour that Norwich City superstar Mark Fotheringham will be joining Steve Finnan on the Perico sidelines next season.

Watch those season tickets fly out of the club shop over the summer!

LLL Prediction - Home win

Osasuna (18th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

On Thursday evening, Florentino Pérez unveiled his board of directors set to take over the running of Real Madrid’s affairs next week.

And replacing 15 greying old duffers in suits are 15 brand new greying old duffers in suits.

It’s a portly posse without a single female face or anyone who appears to be under the age of 45. And it’s a group who’ve definitely had more hot dinners than you’ve had hot dinners.

In a busy day for Madrid’s new Dear Leader, Florentino popped into the office of his campaign HQ - sometimes known as Marca - where “he came, he saw and he conquered,” according to the paper.

During his visit, Pérez was probed thoroughly by Marca’s bigwigs and was asked seven questions on whether he thought his possible predecessor, Ramón Calderón, was a scoundrel or merely a cad.

One of the topics in a fairly fluffy piece that did raise the interests of La Liga Loca was the idea that the Santiago Bernabeu stadium would take on a sponsor some time soon.

“We can’t rule it out if a brand comes along that works for Real Madrid and produces income,” admitted Pérez.

And this has inspired FourFourTwo to dig deep into its pockets with a competition for you to win a year’s subscription to the magazine by suggesting the best brand possible for the club’s stadium.

“The Slumberland Santiago Bernabeu - for the quietest of nights” is just one not-that-good example.

Send your entries to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 4. The most inspired entry will win a year of football fun from the greatest magazine in the world (usual FFT terms and conditions apply folks).

LLL Prediction - Home win

Over to you folks...

Racing (11th) vs Getafe (15th)

In a country where family feuds can carry over for generations, it’s no surprise that the heckles are still high from last season and a testy Copa del Rey clash between these two teams.

In a second-leg semi final affair, Getafe were accused of being big old cheats for continuing to play on - and score - after a Racing player had gone to ground.

It was a goal that saw Getafe safely through to a final where they were eventually battered by Valencia.

“It’s crazy to talk about what happened last year,” says Getafe keeper of the week Oscar Ustari.

La Liga Loca feels that this opportunity for perfect payback will be enough to bring nothing-to-play-for Racing the win over Getafe. And relegation for the Coliseum club according to the blog’s calculations! Oh no!

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sporting (17th) vs Recreativo (20th)

Recreativo club president Francisco Mendoza reacted in the traditional way to a tough time for his team by firing someone sharpish to cover his own relegated posterior.

Not wishing to sack his second manager of the season, Mendoza picked sporting director Oscar Arias as the man to carry the club’s can for a somewhat disappointing end to the season.

Taking over the still warm seat is Alfonso Serrano, who has already announced that the non-sacking of the coach was merely a postponement of the inevitable.

“It has to be someone who knows the division, this is vital,” says Serrano on his choice for new manager.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (16th) vs Valladolid (14th)

And so the worst team in Spain off the pitch, faces the worst team in Spain on it.

Valladolid have only picked up three points from 30, while Betis have fans who support their players by offering up death-threats, abuse and egg-throwing.

But this won’t stop the Betis players giving everything for the cause on Sunday evening as they seek a win and survival. That’s what green-shirted striker Ricardo Oliveira said anyway before wandering off with his mobile.

“We are playing for our pride, for our lives, for our... Atlético Madrid? Forlan going? How much?.... Really?”

LLL Prediction - Home win

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Spain in consensus over Barça brilliance

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:30:00 GMT

There were only two people in Rome who weren't completely sucked in by the enthralling action of the 2009 Champions League final.

The first was the very desperate housewife, Eva Longoria, who was caught flicking through a magazine during the second-half with the same look of disdain and despair as Maniche faced with a Caesar salad.

The other was the lead commentator for Spanish TV channel Antena 3, who spent much of the match apologising for the pesky encounter getting in the way of their broadcasting of crap cop show Los Hombres de Paco.

Indeed, as soon as the final whistle went on what was a fairly historic night for a certain Catalan club, the channel blocked the screen with a plug for the programme and went off for advertisements for a good 45 minutes. That’s how it felt, anyway.

NEWS: Brilliant Barça crowned kings in Rome

Fortunately for Antena 3, the ending of this season’s fantastic footballing finale means that the station can return to its normal, low-budget, wobbly-set, grubby little ways.

While La Liga Loca was all with the ire after yet another testing time in front of the television, nothing - bar the Spanish government renaming Catalunya ‘Raúllandia’ - can bring the Catalan press down from their cuckoo-land cloud on Thursday morning.

“Emperors of Europe!” yells the Mundo Deportivo headline, with the paper reporting that some 100,000 celebrating supporters turned up in the city-centre before the inevitable attacks on the local plod and the 134 arrests.

"Celebrate good times, come on!"

La Liga Loca has no idea what the paper’s website says, as the sheer volume of whizzing and popping from its numerous epilepsy-inducing logos and banners caused the blog’s struggling browser to crash repeatedly.

Sport's front page says “The best in the world!” in Catalan. At least that’s what La Liga Loca thinks it says. It’s either that or “The flour of your mother!”

“Barcelona is the best team in the world and only the Champions League was missing for this fact to be beyond discussion,” writes a hyperventilating Josep Maria Casanovas in a giant-sized gushing tribute to Pep’s Dream Boys.

Over in Madrid, Marca and AS are just as full of goodwill to all Catalan men - but ruing the fact that while Barcelona were celebrating the greatest day in the club’s history, the police were camped out at Castle Greyskull investigating corruption allegations.

“Barcelona’s football had no antidote,” writes AS editor Alfredo Relaño. “The Treble, exquisite football, local players, Guardiola... perfection.”

Pep reaches for the stars

Marca’s headline declares the current Barcelona team to be “a work of art” and praises the first ever Spanish side to win the trio of titles in one season.

“There can be no doubts,” opines the paper’s editorial. “Barcelona are the best team in the world.”

Bernd Schuster had been let loose on Manchester United’s tactical deficiencies during the game, with the former Madrid manager telling Sir Alex Ferguson that “you can’t play that away against Barça, so far back, with such fear, just waiting for them to come.”

After the game, a truly stunned Pep Guardiola joked that he would be “Leaving the club straight away. I can’t do anything to top this.”

In fact, that’s not entirely true. Next year’s Champions League final is being played at the Bernabeu - a final that Barcelona already have every chance of winning.

Now that would be a sight to see.

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The dream final: God's XI vs Wimbledon

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Cynical old La Liga Loca has been around for a few centuries now in one form or another and is all too aware that ‘dream finals’ rarely turn out that way.

So knowing already that Wednesday’s affair will be to football what Guti is to commitment, the blog has taken pleasure from seeing what Photoshopped front-cover Sport would produce ahead of the critical clash, instead.

And as ever, the Barcelona-based paper did not disappoint.

The pressure was definitely on after their splendid effort from two years ago which portrayed Joan Laporta as God and Frank Rijkaard as Moses handing down the president’s Ten Commandments before the new season.

"Here, take these tablets"

But Sport delivered the goods with some gusto on Tuesday with an effort that featured the Barça players as gladiators - or rather, the heads of Barça players jammed onto the bodies of gladiators.

To be fair to the paper’s art department, Messi and Piqué looked just fine thrusting their swords in the air.

But Thierry Henry resembled a Russell Crowe body-graft that had gone very badly wrong and poor old Xavi looked like the tiny-headed man from Beetlejuice.

Wednesday’s edition trumpets the ‘super final’ between Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo - Wayne Rooney appears to be completely unheard of in Spain - with what feels like 28 pages of drivel from the keyboard of Josep María Casanovas.

Much of his thesis portrays Manchester United as the vulgar plaything of evil capitalists unlike the pure-as-a-kitten's-trump Barça who “are completely the opposite, a local entity that strives to be a multinational of passion and feeling.”

Casanovas is also under the assumption that Barcelona will be facing a late-'80s Wimbledon side by huffing that Manchester United play “typical English football: the sooner the ball is with the strikers the better,” as opposed to the culé club's “quality, spectacle and good football.”

"Italy here we come!"

Mundo Deportivo are quite beside themselves, with Joan Josep Pallàs calling the Champions League clash “the most important that Barça have played in their 109 years.”

On its website, MD is updating a minute-by-minute account of the day with the first post at 07.23 noting that a large number of fans are flying to Rome that morning.

After putting up some links to opinion polls in the paper, the YTS student in charge of the column appears to have given up the ghost on the section at 08.55... or gone for the traditional second breakfast.

AS are getting into the spirit of the occasion with editor Alfredo Relaño poking his stick into camp culé for the evening. “Despite everything, I see Barça as favourites as they play good football, extremely good football.”

Barking mad Madrid fan Tomás Roncero will not hear of such crazy talk and claims that he and “99.9 percent of Madridistas will be with Rooney and Ronaldo tonight,” while scoffing that Real won their third European Cup – something Barcelona are trying to achieve tonight – some 51 years ago.

Third time lucky in 1958

Marca attempt to get into the Champions League mood with Wednesday’s editorial lauding “the best final possible between the two best teams in the world.”

But Marca being Marca, the paper also finds time to throw some praise in Raúl’s direction by berating the 11 percent of Madrid members who want to turf the club captain out of Castle Greyskull, according to the paper’s opinion poll on the topic.

“He doesn’t deserve that,” fumes the paper. “He is the most professional, most serious and most committed player in the side.”

Raúl was also the second best player in the last round of action, according to the paper’s season-long ‘Raul-award’ vote.

But despite the Madrid captain’s fine, match-winning performance against Mallorca in the awful 3-1 defeat, he is still one place behind Leo Messi in the overall rankings - a position that the judges may well be ‘adjusting’ at the end of the season.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world will be watching God's chosen ones vs Vinnie Jones's Crazy Gang.

Just don't blame La Liga Loca if the dream final's a disappointment.

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NEWS: Ronaldo - United have practised penalties
NEWS: Xavi - Barca have not practised penalties
NEWS: Thompson: Barca to beat United on penalties
NEWS: Carrick confident of conquering Catalans
NEWS: Sheringham tips Reds to reign in Rome
NEWS: Henry and Iniesta train ahead of final
NEWS: Evra - Marking Messi will be easy peasy
NEWS: Messi - Classy Catalans deserve to win in Rome
NEWS: Rijkaard: United have got no chance
NEWS: Rio's Rome hopes hinge on Hull
NEWS: Henry and Iniesta on course for final
NEWS: O'Shea coy on Rome start speculation
NEWS: Ferguson anticipating fantastic final
NEWS: Foreign Office advice for fans heading to Rome
NEWS: All white on the night for Reds in Rome

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 37

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Good Day

Manolo Jiménez

In a truly massive win for the mediocre, Sevilla secured third spot on Saturday night after a last minute 1-0 over Deportivo.

But this achievement may not be enough to keep the side’s manager in a job mind, with Marca reporting that club president José María del Nido and his board will assess Jiménez’ future over the next few days.

The man himself fancies another season with Sevilla but will have little choice in the matter. “I’ve had other offers but my main aim is to stay here,” claimed the coach who appears to have the backing of his footballers but not of the fans.

Diego Forlán

Oh dear. The blog does sound like it has taken a big old bottle of downers today, but does the fact that the top three strikers in Spain have racked up a whopping 86 goals this season leave la Liga in the ‘Belgium’ category of divisions?

The kind of league that has coefficients to balance out its simplicity for strikers?

Diego Forlán’s hat-trick against Athletic moves the rojiblanco forward onto 31 goals, while David Villa and Mad Sammy Eto’o are on 29 and 26 respectively, suggesting that defences are fairly dire in la Primera.

To put things into a little bit of perspective, the top three goalscorers in the Premier League (Anelka, Ronaldo and Gerrard) only mustered a paltry 53 in comparison.

"Easy, easy, easy..."

Villarreal

The east-coast club has moved on from its Champions League sulk just in time with two battling wins over Real Madrid and now Valencia.

Villarreal are still two points from Atlético and may well be sending some suitcases in Almería’s direction next weekend, in the hope they can roger the rojiblancos and give Villarreal a sniff of a chance of moving into their fourth-place spot.

Ivan Alonso / Nikola Zigic

The anti-Julien Fauberts of la Liga. Two players who came in during the winter transfer window to save their respective sides as opposed to dozing and disappearing from training.

Alonso’s two goals for Espanyol against Almería saw the Pericos keep their Primera position for another year and Zigic’s solitary strike against Recreativo helped Racing recover from a worrying wobble to move into mid-table.

Sporting

Mmm. Interesting. Sporting’s survival plan appears to be panning out just as a local journo hinted it would a few weeks ago.

La Liga Loca’s spider-sense is definitely tingling. Or it could be wind from a dodgy bocadillo at the Bernabeu.

A quite ludicrous own-goal from nothing-to-play-for Málaga gave Sporting a win last weekend. And it was another victory for the Asturian side on Saturday with the same 2-1 result, but this time against Valladolid.

Mallorca

The only club to beat both Real Madrid and Barcelona this season. However, this statistic is coloured slightly by the fact that Mallorca were a little lucky to play the two sides when neither could give two honking hoots about their games.

Getafe

A 1-0 win over Numancia moves Getafe into 15th and three teams between themselves and relegation next weekend. Surely even manager Michel cannot mess this one up?

Bad Day

Marc Muniesa

“Get in!” thought La Liga Loca immediately warming to the young Barcelona defender.

The 17-year-old had come on as a second-half substitute and put in a crunching tackle on Antonio Hidalgo - the kind of meat-mangling murderholds Osasuna specialise in.

The challenge produced a red card from the referee - this being Spain and all - which was followed by what appeared to be a blub or two from Muniesa, sending the Catalan kiddie back down to the bottom rung in the blog’s estimations.

“The others told me that at least I got a standing ovation,” sobbed the tearful teenager after the game.

Guti

Dropped from Sunday’s squad for ‘technical reasons’ and for missing Saturday’s training due to attending a communion, said Juande Ramos - the same Juande Ramos who still found room for the 8 kilos overweight, bench-napping Julien Faubert.

Real Madrid

“Wenger! No... er... Mourinho!... er... Pellegrini... er Valdano... er Laudrup... er Ramos.... er...”

After Madrid’s fourth defeat in a row - and a really, really pathetic one at that against Mallorca - the list of candidates willing to take over at Castle Greyskull is a bit like Mariano Pernía - getting thinner by the day.

Osasuna

To beat Barcelona in the Camp Nou and still be in relegation trouble is very bad luck indeed.

However, the bright light on the Pamplonan horizon is the visit of, train-wreck in football form, Real Madrid to their ground next weekend in what is sure to be a bruising encounter.

Guti is already flicking through his medical encyclopaedia looking for new excuses not to play.

"I'm too sad to play..."

Betis

Things would have to go very wrong indeed for Betis to go down next weekend, but it would not be completely unthinkable.

After holding their own, as it were, against Málaga on Saturday night and being 1-0 up, the visitors were stunned when a cracking Albert Luque strike sent Betis packing with a measly point for their efforts.

Valencia

A terrible fortnight for Valencia included losing to both of their Champions League rivals and the publication of a sensational story suggesting that Silva, Mata, Albiol and Villa would be poached en masse by Florentino Pérez.

But the real blow for the very cash-strapped club is that the men from Mestalla will be left without Champions League football for a second consecutive season and the revenue it brings in.

Numancia, Recreativo

Gone, gone, gone.

TVE

A second week in succession for Spain’s state broadcaster in the Bad Day section.

Last time around the TV channel made the list due to a splendid effort in showing the Manchester United vs Arsenal title-decider some three hours late.

But that was nothing compared to Sunday’s sterling work.

With the channel flicking between the Newcastle and Hull relegation-tinged clashes, a genius decided to end the broadcasts with 10 minutes to go in both games to show handball instead.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Six-Fingered Weekend Predictions - Round 37

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Villarreal (6th) vs EasyValencia (5th)

And so two fine, upstanding, terrific teams must face the humiliation of a bruising barnyard scrap in their chase to overhaul... (sigh) ...Atlético Madrid in fourth place. Oh how low has la Liga sunk?

While Villarreal went about their business this week in their normal, quiet, professional, blatantly boring way, Valencia were buoyed by the visit of some fans to their training ground - supporters who came to lift the spirits of the side as they face the final two matches of the season.

Of course, what with Valencia fans being Valencia fans, this is absolute nonsense.

Instead, a potty-mouthed posse went to the club’s training camp to yell abuse at the squad and accuse them of being “a UEFA Cup team" - a wholly incorrect and unjustifiable statement. They meant “Europa League team," of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Barcelona (up top) vs Osasuna (18th)

La Liga Loca was planning to stay loyal to its adopted home - only by handy extradition loopholes, mind - and cheer Barcelona all the way in next week’s Champions League final.

But it simply doesn’t think it can handle the consequences of what would happen should Pep’s Dream Boys pick up the treble.

The puke-inducing Catalan press are already impossible to bear, so only Zeus himself knows what would happen should Barça win Wednesday’s Roman rumble.

“Never before has Barcelona been so respected, feared and admired,” writes Sport's Josep Maria Casanovas, a man who doesn’t seem at all concerned that he has a girl’s name.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Deportivo (7th)

Friday’s AS reports that Deportivo manager Miguel Angel Lotina has finally come to the realisation that his stable of ‘strikers’ are an absolute shower of, er, shame and is set to ditch a bunch of them over the summer.

Four of those set to be pushed out into the Bay of Biscay are Riki (26 apps, 6 goals), Mista (13 apps, 1 goal), Omar Bravo (9 apps, 1 goal, returned to Mexico) and Bodipo (19 apps, 4 goals).

What Deportivo need now is the phone number of a club willing to buy their hopeless, misfiring, waste of space cast-offs.

Quite possibly a phone number with a Newcastle prefix.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Getafe (16th) vs Numancia (19th)

Normally, when Vicente del Bosque talks one should listen. Except this week when he appears to have supped several bowls of silly soup.

When asked to comment on the latest names being thrown into the hat of those looking to be fired five months into a contract with Real Madrid - a hat that now includes Laurent Blanc, Michael Laudrup and Brian Molko from Placebo - the Spain manager suggested temporary Getafe coach Michel.

Molko: "We'll play four-four-two in four-four time"

“He’s the Guardiola of Madrid,” opined the man who was not sexy enough for Florentino Pérez some six years ago.

And it’s a fine theory apart from the small fact that Guardiola brought promotion to Barça’s B team after just one season in charge and is on the brink of winning the treble with the big boys.

Michel, on the other hand, managed to relegated Real Madrid’s second side and failed to promote Rayo Vallecano during his spell at the club.

Just like Guardiola, then.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (20th) vs Racing (12th)

A Friday wouldn’t be a Friday without La Liga Loca’s hopeless prediction on the weekend’s dog of a game that turns out to be a brilliant blinder.

LLL Prediction - Draw (and a goalless one at that)

Valladolid (13th) vs Sporting (17th)

Goodness grief, this match has caused all manner of trouble and strife this week.

It all began when Valladolid sent just 1,859 tickets to the institutions at Sporting, costing a rather steep 75 euro each.

“Gits!” was the reply from the club that generally takes the entire population of the town to every away game.

“We want the Zorilla to be full of Valladolid supporters and not Sporting fans,” explained the quite cool Pucela president, Carlos Suarez.

Sporting’s response was to threaten to send 4,000 to the match, with a good 1,500 of those without tickets.

“Fine!” said Valladolid’s city authorities.

“We’ll just stop you getting anywhere near the town,” was the stern message but “without overlooking the rights of the citizen,” explained local suit Cecilio Vadillo on Valladolid’s plan, which completely overlooks the rights of the citizen.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Málaga (8th) vs Betis (15th)

Betis - the Venus fly trap of la Liga - looks a tempting treat to those footballers that don’t know better.

But they soon discover that death or the loss of limbs is the only way to escape.

It appears that there could be quite a few departures from the club this summer, with Capi, Emana and Odonkor just three players who have all expressed their desire to get out of Dodge and the clutches of De Lopera.

Clambering over their bodies in the stickiest of scrambles will be Arzu, who’s had eggs thrown at his car and was booed for his goal celebration against Almería last weekend.

“It was dedicated to my grandfather and daughter,” explained the very unhappy bunny. “The situation here is insupportable. All the normal people have gone.”

LLL Prediction - Draw

Athletic (11th) vs Atlético (4th)

Having had three days off during the week, you’d have good reason to assume that the nothing-to-play-for Basque club will simply roll over and allow their tummies to be tickled by their visitors on Saturday night.

But shame on you for doing so, because Athletic have a very good reason to try their damnedest against Atlético Madrid - cold hard cash.

The end of the season in Spain has brought about the inevitable rumours of win bonuses being paid by teams C with an interest in the result of a match between A and B.

Suitcases: often stuffed full of Euro

In this case, it’s both Villarreal and Valencia looking for Athletic to do their Champions League chase a favour by stopping the current rojiblanco surge.

“It can’t be proved, but it’s no secret that Athletic will be on bonuses for this game,” nudge-nudged Jesús Hernandez in Friday’s Mundo Deportivo.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (10th) vs Espanyol (14th)

Espanyol are the winners of this week’s Grumpy Sourpuss Taking Themselves Far Too Seriously award.

Noemi Rubio is a young lady who plays for the club’s women’s team alongside Luis García. But she is also... gasp... a Barcelona fan.

Poor Noemi was outed on Facebook when photographed wearing the club’s colours and attending the Copa de Rey final.

When the images came to light, the female footballer was immediately suspended and it has been announced that her contract will not be renewed in June.

“She is conscious that she has damaged the feelings of members and fans of Espanyol,” wrote some idiot from Espanyol in a statement oblivious to the notion of freedom of expression.

LLL Prediction - Home win (and a heavy one too as blog punishment for petulance)

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Mallorca (9th)

The La Liga Loca curse continued this week with the withdrawal from the Real Madrid presidency race of Eugenio Martínez Bravo.

The blog had managed to have a chat with the candidate just a few days before and thought he would be a fine choice as the next Bernabeu bigwig on the grounds that he wasn’t a megalomaniac who wanted to stick a roof on the club’s stadium.

Unfortunately he’s not a billionaire either, which means he's unable to raise the 57 million Euro required to stand in the race.

But that left room for another candidate to announce his plans for the club should he win June’s presidential poll.

Juan Onieva was a VP under Lorenzo Sanz and fancies another crack at the club’s expense account.

In an entertaining presentation, Onieva revealed his plans to make Hugo Sánchez his manager, hand over 3 percent of Madrid’s budget to unemployed members who are struggling to pay their mortgages and make Barack Obama an honorary member of the club.

But most entertainingly of all, his slideshow featured a photograph of a cheery, waving JFK - with six fingers.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Ramón Calderón has his day in court

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

In general, La Liga Loca is not normally the jealous type.

But it must admit to being a tad envious of the easy-peasy world of Spanish sporting journalism, where libel law is scoffed at and how to make stuff up without a shred of evidence is a much-admired attribute.

It is a very different business in the no-fun, nitty-picky UK.

For example, La Liga Loca could tell you the completely true and well-known story in Spain of how ******* was caught ******* ** ***** *** * car bonnet and ****** ******* by ****** ******** ***** ****.

But chances are some tea-spluttering lawyers will have removed most of the offending allegations, to avoid the risk of having the entire corporation bankrupted in biliseconds by a back-beeping dumper truck full of lawsuits.

Innocent until proven guilty is a completely alien concept for many sports dailies - especially when it comes to Marca and that moustache-twisting scoundrel, Ramón Calderón.

To set the legal record straight at the earliest opportunity, Thursday’s edition of the paper covers the day spent in court by the former Real Madrid president and a number of others ‘accused’ as the Spanish law defines them.

The still very not-guilty group had been summoned by judge Santiago Torres, who is investigating whether a crime was committed during the vote-rigging incidents of Real Madrid’s AGM last December and, if so, who was responsible.

As it stands, no-one has been found guilty of any wrongdoing, if any wrongdoing took place. And that is the way that most of the straight-laced sporting press, even Sport in Barcelona, are reporting the incident.

The main exception is Marca who’s current editorial policy is “Calderón bad! Florentino good!”

“The cheats give evidence before a judge over Calderón’s ‘theft’” yells the paper’s inside page on Thursday.

Indeed, it was a very happy edition for Marca overall as it also got to report on the story of sporting director Pedja Mijatovic leaving the club after mutual agreement with Real Madrid’s board.

As the media were given access to the courtroom for Wednesday’s session, there is a great deal of reporting on the day’s events.

Who, me?

And while there is no dispute over the fact that people who weren’t allowed to vote in December’s special members-only meeting did so, who instructed them and facilitated their entry is the main bone of contention.

Considering the penalty for those found guilty of any fraud could be a jail sentence of between six months and three years, no-one was ready to ‘fess up on the day.

Calderón himself spent an hour and 20 minutes before the judge testifying that he had delegated the entire organisation of the AGM to the VP of the members area, Amador Suárez, and two director generals, Miguel Angel Arroyo and Luis Bárcena, and had no involvement himself.

He also claimed that he had “a minimal relationship” with Nanín, another ‘accused’ up before the court and someone he publicly thanked for helping him get elected in 2006 and handed a job looking after VIPs in 2007.

After Calderón’s testimony his lawyer brother, Jorge Calderón, read a statement claiming that “I don’t think that a criminal act took place as we are talking about a sporting company.”

Luis Bárcena, who resigned over the incident soon after the allegations came to light back in January, also gave evidence but claimed that he was unaware of the presence of non-members in December’s session, report Marca.

The most fun to be had was hearing the testimony of five of the ‘infiltrators’ who were not entitled to be at the event, never mind vote in the session on matters such as the club’s accounts.

But four of the five say that they were there on the request of a certain Mariano Rodríguez de Barutell, more commonly known as Nanín.

“I know Nanín, he called us and asked us to come and support the president,” said Jorge Leal Hidalgo. “I’m a close friend of Nanín and he called me up to come and support Calderón,” claimed Miguel López Gil.

“I didn’t help anyone to get in (to the assembly) nor sneak anyone in. I didn’t know they were there,” said Nanín in his testimony.

After the day’s exciting events, a Judge Dredd-channelling Marca have certainly made up their mind over who the guilty parties are - evidence or no evidence - with Thursday’s editorial calling for Madrid “to turn the page and look to the future to win back the club’s majesty as soon as possible.”

But there was to be some bad news for the sports daily that’s always keen to boast about their sales figures - the loss of one reader.

“I don’t buy nor read this newspaper. I have no intention of ever reading it again in my life,” said Ramon Calderón before judge Torres.

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Villa makes mistake of visiting Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

“Valdano negotiates with Villa!” yells Marca. “Villa takes a walk to Madrid!” screams AS. “Over my dead body!” splutters Raúl.

Those were Wednesday’s headlines that greeted the appearance of David Villa in the streets of the Spanish capital the day before - an appearance that had him pestered and probed by stalking hacks and photographers.

The Valencia striker was seen with his wife (face blurred by AS, but not Marca) strolling hand-in-hand through the sunny streets!

The Valencia striker was seen near the Santiago Bernabeu!

The Valencia striker was in town to “buy a suit for my brother-in-law’s wedding,” explained the man himself.

‘Doesn’t matter!’ was the answer from the Madridista press desperately hoping that at least one of their Ribery, Ronaldo, Kaká, Silva, Zlatan, Villa, Wenger, Mourinho, Ancelotti stories comes true over the summer.

"I knew I should have just ordered online..."

If the photographers are out sleazing on the streets once again on Wednesday, they will be snapping a pitiful posse heading into a court room to answer accusations that they were involved with “the destruction, suppression and hiding of public documents” in relation to Real Madrid’s controversial AGM held last December.

The group will be headed by Ramón Calderón and - embarrassingly for Marca, who merely mumble his name in connection with the alleged crime - current Real Madrid president, Vicente Boluda.

This has meant the paper has had to tone down their “worst president in the club’s history" tantrum a tad, considering that Boluda, as Calderón’s No.2, may have had some influence during his tenure.

Marca have some exciting transfer news for Atlético fans, fans that will be hoping their potential new player is of the calibre of recent arrivals such as Seitaridis, Heitinga, Cleber Santana, Assunçao, Reyes, Pernia, Maniche and Luis García.

According to the paper, the club are sniffing around Udinese midfielder Gaetano D’Agostino, a footballer who “has had many appearances for the Italian U21 side.”

Very promising indeed, thought La Liga Loca until it saw that D’Agostino was 26, making him a sensational starlet some six years ago and Serie A’s equivalent of David Dunn.

Still, the Italian’s Wikipedia page reports that his favourite animals are horses, so he will at least be partly prepared to spend the next few seasons alongside a bunch of donkeys.

Over in Catalunya, the local Barca-barmy dailies are all in a tizz over next week’s Champions League 3-0 mauling by Manchester United, despite the fact that it is still seven days away.

Sport’s headline fails to grasp the concept of superlatives by claiming that the Roma battle will be “the best against the best.”

While Mundo Deportivo have a devilish tale suggesting Gerard Pique will be the “anti-Cristiano” continuing the assumption in the Spanish press that Manchester United have a team consisting of just one player.

"Leave him with me, boss..."

At this point, the blog must end on a melancholy note with the news that Sevilla’s Javi Navarro has hung up his hairband and announced his retirement after a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a giant knee knack.

The central defender played a key role for Sevilla during their five trophy, two season spell and recalled at a press conference on Tuesday that his “best moment was seeing children and grandparents crying when we picked up our first trophy.”

In a fine career, Navarro has certainly left his mark on the city of Seville, the game in Spain and Juan Arango’s skull.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Why it's time for Guardiola to go

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

When the world’s finest football magazine repeatedly begged La Liga Loca to come on board some 78 years ago - well, offered it a packet of biscuits - those running the show knew they were getting their brilliant hands on an institution that spoke the truth, stuck it to The Man, kept getting its Llorentes confused and would fail to predict night following day.

But it also knew it was banking on a blog that was a straight-talker, a blog that was ahead of the game, a blog that would lead and not follow.

So that’s why it is now officially calling for the handsome head of Pep Guardiola. It’s time for Barcelona’s big guy to go.

"¿Que?"

Barring a wobbly start for Pep’s Dream Boys at the start of the season in la Liga, the Catalan coach has barely put a foot wrong.

After just one year’s experience in Spain’s lower leagues, Guardiola leapt onto a wild horse called culé and has ridden it into the sunset of success.

Women want to be him, men want to be with him and the Madridista press doesn’t hate his guts despite his side making their Castle Greyskull cronies look very silly indeed.

Even grown-up broadsheets go goose-pimply in his presence. “He’s the eternal seducer,” sighs El País. “The triumph of passion,” pants El Mundo. “Miles better than the Pope,” suggests Vatican-crazy ABC.

Pep’s men won la Liga with three matches left. Pep’s men are on course to score the most number of league goals in a season. Pep’s men have just bagged the domestic double for only the second time in half-a-century for the club.

Barcelona don’t even need to win the Champions League next week for golden idols to be carved to glorify Pep’s name, as if he’s the Catalan capital’s very own Kim Jong II.

Things simply can’t get any better for the Barça boss. And that’s why he should jump ship as soon as the final whistle blows on the end of current campaign.

In fact, he should do it as early as next week to avoid a disappointing draw against Deportivo in the last match of the year.

"Careful, Pep, it's a trap!"

Imagine the alternative future if Pep remains at his post for another season.

Barcelona’s laurel-sitting superstars start the new campaign at a canter leaving Roy Keane’s Real Madrid with a 10-point lead by October (Arsene Wenger having quit two days into his role).

The local press, who are currently claiming that the sun shines from Pep’s perfect posterior, begin to blame his lack of experience, say that he’s a first-season fluke, announce that he’s a busted flush.

An editorial in Monday’s Sport is a key to how the backlash could begin. “The key to the transformation of this team is exclusively down to the work of Guardiola,” writes Joan Vehils.

That’s all very nice now from the culé-loving columnist, but does the same principle apply if things don’t go so well in the future?

Run, Pep, run, while you still have the chance.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 36

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Good Day

Barcelona

Like a wet dream for Maniche, Barcelona didn’t even need to disembark from the bus on Sunday to seal the deal.

Instead, it was the party-poopers from last weekend, Villarreal, who gave Pep’s Dream Boys a break with a sterling show against Madrid.

Apart from watching Mad Sammy Eto’o having an absolute ‘mare against Mallorca, the most entertaining event of the evening's affair was seeing Barça’s goalkeeping legend, Oier Olazabal, receive rapturous applause during the guard of honour that greeted la Liga’s latest winners as they trotted out at the Ono Estadi.

Barca B lap up pre-match plaudits

Atlético Madrid

With Valencia’s front-line making Klaas-Jan Huntelaar look industrious on Sunday night, Atleti should have buried the men from Mestalla in a gallon of goals.

But instead, the rojiblancos chose to do things the hard way in front of a jumping-and-jiving Vicente Calderón crowd.

Chance after chance was missed by Kun & co, and it was only after an outrageous tumble from the Argentinean striker that Diego Forlán was able to poke away a penalty that moved Atleti into fourth spot - a spot they can’t possibly blow. Can’t they?

Espanyol

And speaking of dodgy decisions from referees and polemical penalties, here’s Paul from Barcelona on Espanyol’s 1-0 win over Athletic.

“An awful match between a below par (not in the golf sense) Espanyol and Stoke City minus the long throw but with Crouch up-front.

"Espanyol won thanks to a (dodgy!!! - LLL) penalty after the worst player I've seen this season, Gurpegui, fouled man of the match Coro and Luis Garcia scored.

"Nothing else happened. It was really bad.

"250 Bilbao supporters and one stray cat.

"Good to see self-proclaimed Barça fans behaving themselves. What a bunch of (fine upstanding supporters - LLL)!!!”

Paul, Barcelona.

Roberto Soldado

La Liga Loca is still a bit befuddled over whether the former Madrid man is actually any good or not.

The Getafe striker is a bit of a wasteful Wally when it comes to chances in front of goal, as seen in his team’s Bernabeu clash when it took some 57 attempts before he found the back of the net.

Luckily, one of Soldado’s decent days was on Saturday when he powered in a header to give Getafe a draw and a big old point away at Deportivo.

Manager, Michel, says Getafe deserved more from the tie. La Liga Loca says what would he know?

Numancia

‘Good-bye!’ cried La Liga Loca last weekend to Numancia. Well, it’s 'hello again!' after a 1-0 win over Recreativo in a match where they battered their opponents.

Villarreal

Villarreal’s strikers are still an absolute disaster, but luckily the club’s midfield tricksters went about their business on Saturday with both Robert Pires and Cani coming up with the goods in the 3-2 win over Real Madrid.

With Atleti due to balls things up royally before the end of the season and Valencia visiting El Madrigal next weekend, a Champions League spot is still a big possibility for Manuel Pellegrini’s men.

Sevilla

La Liga Loca spent the first part of Saturday night clucking like a chicken and flapping its arms as Sevilla took to the field against Osasuna with Jesus Navas and Diego Capel both on the bench.

It spend the second half doing it too, as it happens, but for very different reasons.

A four man central-midfield ensured a pragmatic point for the Andalusian side who still sit in their third-placed throne.

Arzu

Not only did the Betis midfielder get to score a thumper in his team’s 2-0 win over Almería but Arzu also got to pump a good old fist towards the critical home crowd.

This ensured much booage for the rest of the encounter and one or two eggs probably being thrown at his car. If it hasn’t already been set on fire, that is.

"Don't even think about it..."

Sporting

And so the comeback begins, thanks to a truly bizarre own goal from Malaga’s Hélder who somehow managed to whack a glancing header into the back of his own net.

Racing Santander

“This particular encounter is set to be a stinker, a slimer, a David Bisbal of a game of football. A guaranteed gumbo of a game” wrote La Liga Loca on Racing’s clash with Valladolid - a 3-2 thriller as it turned out that moved the home side onto 42 points.

Bad Day

Juande Ramos

On Friday afternoon, Juande Ramos was appealing to the press on why his booty should be parked on the Bernabeu bench come August.

“Two weeks ago, I was a strong candidate to manage Madrid next season,” argued the manager who was a strong candidate to manage Madrid next season two weeks ago, “and now I’m not, just because I lost one match.”

Unfortunately for Ramos, that’s just tough titties.

It wasn’t the loss of that single game against Barcelona that blew his chances of a contract renewal, but the disastrous manner of the defeat. That and the absolute stuffings handed out by Liverpool in the Champions League.

While it’s true Ramos had inherited someone else’s squad - no-one at Madrid seems willing to take full responsibility for it - the perception in Madrid is that he should have done better with the resources at his disposal.

Real Madrid’s third straight defeat means that Ramos has just two more weeks left in his current post. Plenty of time for that stationary cupboard raid.

Juande eyes up the boardroom coffee table

Osasuna

Maybe playing Barcelona and Real Madrid in their last two games of the season won’t be so bad after all. Even so, Osasuna need to win both after the weekend’s disappointing goalless draw against Sevilla.

Julien Faubert

The Madrid man has finally made the front pages. But for apparently being asleep on the bench and “touching his parts” as Marca tastefully puts it during the defeat in El Madrigal.

Kun Agüero

“Agüero is not being clever in the penalty area. He’s being a cheat,” says Roberto Palomar in Monday’s Marca. La Liga Loca, for one, salutes you sir.

David Villa

This may be just a footballing fluke, but whenever La Liga Loca has actually seen David Villa play live, he hasn’t been any good.

TVE

Not a great week for Spain’s national channel that is still trying to get to grips with the concept of live television.

During the week it cut away from the national anthem during the Copa del Rey final and replayed it at half-time having manipulated the sound and images.

On Saturday, in its infinite wisdom it opted to show Saturday’s title decider at Old Trafford a good three hours late. But at least the good, good people of Spain got to watch some bike testing from Le Mans.

Ordinarily, La Liga Loca would sigh and move on if it weren’t for the fact that TVE bought the Premier League rights with ITS TAX MONEY. Scumbags.

Soraya

Despite being as bright as a button, as cute as a puppy and in possession of a terrific tush, Spain’s Eurovision entry bottomed out, as it were, in Moscow, causing a whopping storm of protest on Saturday night while the citizens of Barcelona were smashing up their city centre for the fourth time in a fortnight.

Was it the fault of pesky Commies? Being last to perform? Singing in Spanish or simply the result of a terrible tune?

Soraya shines, then slumps

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Algarve-Fleeing Weekend Predictions - Round 36

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Osasuna (17th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

Last weekend, Osasuna boss José Antonio Camacho pretty much wrote off the relegation jelly-wrestle against Getafe before a ball had been kicked by leaving Persian pass-masters Javad Nekounam and Masoud Shojaei out of the starting XI in the 3-0 defeat.

The red-faced ranter will have to be a little less conservative over the next three rounds, with Osasuna needing five points out of clashes against Sevilla, Barcelona and Madrid.

First up on Saturday night, it’s the side from Andalusia that looks as snug as a bug in a rug in third.

But this Champions League-chasing achievement still hasn’t stopped speculation on the future of manager Manolo Jiménez, especially since former Espanyol man Ernesto Valverde left Olympiacos this week after a rather splendid season with the Greek club.

Interviewed in Friday’s Marca, Jiménez was all with the joshing about his future, chuckling that he could see himself “managing a team wearing white in the Champions League next season.”

Like an over-enthusiastic Ever Banega, La Liga Loca has a hot tip on someone else leaving the Sanchez Pizjuán over the summer.

The blog spotted an unusually upright Diego Capel loitering outside the entrance to the fancy pants area of the Vicente Calderón stadium after Sunday’s clash with Valencia.

And that set off a spider-sense tingle that feels that the winger will be tumbling to the ground in a brand new Atleti-shaped home next season.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Deportivo (6th) vs Getafe (15th)

After last Sunday’s clash with Osasuna, Getafe boss Michel admitted that the only thing he could do with just a few games left was to keep up the spirits of the players during the final run-in.

And that’s a good thing too for the Coliseum club. Had the man with a less-than-impressive managerial past been let loose with any tactical tinkering then Getafe would be going down faster than Paris Hilton in the Atlético Madrid dressing room.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Villarreal (7th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

After months of rumours and rumblings over his intentions, Florentino Pérez stepped up to the podium in the modest, Everyman location of Madrid’s Hotel Ritz to announce his intention to run for the Real Madrid presidency, once again.

And the message from the man who shares the same off-putting grin as Gordon Brown is that the club is going to be spending big over the summer by putting together a squad that mixes galaxy-sized stars of the world game with home-grown talent - a cunning, bold, revolutionary plan that cannot possibly go wrong.

Chief cheerleaders Marca couldn’t be happier with Pérez’ debut in Friday’s edition, but AS are a little less powerful in their praise in their own editorial.

Alfredo Relaño writes that Florentino’s speech got “10 marks for marketing and madridismo” but noted that “the fact that he has returned amidst such adulation worries me to some extent.”

Fellow candidates in June’s poll have also had their say, with Juan Onieva snooking that Pérez “hasn’t learned anything. He continues to be presented as the sun that lights up the institution, the great saviour, the Messiah.”

Eduardo García complains - quite rightly - that “it’s not fair that the media have already laid out the carpet for him.”

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sunday

Numancia (20th) vs Recreativo (19th)

With bottom-of-the-table Numancia needing three wins from three to have even the wispiest, sniffiest of chances of staying up, club captain César Palacios has called for “an incredible intensity” from the home fans in the 105-capacity las Pajaritos stadium on Sunday.

‘Up yours!’ appears to be the message from supporters on the Marca site in response.

One complained that “last Sunday against Valladolid, you had 1200 Sorians who travelled 500km to see you and at the end of the game you couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge us and now you ask for help? You don’t deserve this support.”

LLL Prediction - Draw

Racing (13th) vs Valladolid (12th)

La Liga Loca’s weekly prediction of a game that will be boring but turn out to be brilliant will not be repeated in round 36. On no.

This particular encounter is set to be a stinker, a slimer, a David Bisbal of a game of football. A guaranteed gumbo of a game.

Racing just need a cheeky point or two to stay up and will probably get it on Sunday against Valladolid - the same Valladolid that has had much success at scoring as La Liga Loca at an all female wedding party.

The Pucela side have not managed a goal in seven matches and not won in eight. “It’s hard to explain what is happening to us,” admitted manager José Luis Mendilibar.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sporting (18th) vs Málaga (8th)

With Sporting and Málaga still having plenty to play for, talk in Spain is set to turn to the sensitive subject of payments being made by clubs ‘A’ to clubs ‘B’ with nowt going on so they try that little bit harder against rival clubs ‘C’.

Actually, when La Liga Loca says it is a sensitive subject, the blog is unnecessarily tippy-toeing on egg shells thanks to comments from Osasuna president Patxi Isco this week.

“It’s hypocritical of me to say that these kinds of bonuses don’t exist when everyone knows they do,” scoffed the Pamplonan bigwig, who also admits that he would readily offer them to opposition clubs if it were to help out Osasuna.

The blog would like to note that it is purely coincidental that this discussion on underhand payments to other teams appears in the Málaga section of this weekend’s predictions.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (14th) vs Athletic (11th)

Despite being big old LOSERS having been totally tonked by Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final, Athletic were welcomed back to Bilbao as heroes by thousands of fans with little to do the next day, it would appear.

“Perhaps they are the best supporters in the world,” cooed Jésus Hernandez in local paper, El Correo.

The celebrations are set to continue into Friday with local politicians looking to cash in on Athletic’s final appearance by throwing official receptions where the players can tell tall tales of going all the way to Valencia to win bugger all.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (16th) vs Almería (9th)

La Liga Loca reckons that the Betis players simply cannot wait for this particular encounter.

Having faced death threats from the stands and received abuse at training, the Seville-based squad suffered eggs being thrown at their cars by supporters angry at last Saturday’s capitulation against a second-string Athletic side.

The club did not see the incident as a yoking matter and resorted to legging it out of the country and relocating their training base to the Algarve.

“The move had been planned for a while,” said the fooling no-one Juanito.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Mallorca (10th) vs Barcelona (1st)

Wow. Someone has got it in for Mallorca sporting director Nando Pons (stop giggling).

This week, Marca published club accounts detailing some hefty sums paid to the wallet-bulging Balearic boss for salaries, win bonuses, transfer deals and winning employee of the month four times.

Mallorca, which is some 35 million euro in debt and lost 13 million last year, coughed up three grand to Pons after draws with Osasuna, Athletic and Málaga - all part of the half a million euro earned by the Mallorcan millionaire between July 1 and December 31, say Marca.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Atlético Madrid (5th) vs Valencia (4th)

One of the sneakiest fouls of the season took place in the Vicente Calderón last week, when Atleti full-back Luis Perea whacked an elbow into the face of Espanyol defender Chica, leaving him dazed and confused, battered and bruised.

And also very, very angry.

“I can forgive, but not forget,” growled Chica. “But I will play for a long time and we will meet again,” promised the fallen full-back.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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Football fiestas and a Florentino frenzy

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Barring witchcraft or a Bear Stearns-style collapse, Barcelona will be picking up at least two trophies this season, meaning yet more arrests in the Catalan capital from bottle-chucking culés.

Wednesday night’s total reached around 45 say Sport - and increasingly hysterical levels of hype from a bonkers Barça-barmy press.

Pep’s Dream Boys’ fairly comfy 4-1 Copa del Rey win over Athletic sees both Sport and Mundo Deportivo blasting “Champions!” on their front pages on Thursday, and in a very giggly, giddy mood inside.

“Losing to Barcelona, the best team in the world is no dishonour,” writes Sport’s Josep Casanovas simultaneously ruffling the Basque battlers' hair and completely ignoring the existence of Manchester United.

“Madrid have not won the cup since 1993,” chuckles Fernando Polo in Mundo Deportivo, noting the second most important statistic of a night when Barcelona lifted the trophy for the 25th time.

Heck, even the mad-for-Madrid AS are a little excited by the event, with editor Alfredo Relaño commenting Barça have “played football like angels (LLL missed that part of the bible) and they’re going to win titles in doing so - definitely two, maybe three.”

Marca merely plump for an admission on the front cover that “they’re very good.”

One down, two to go for the Dream Boys

The paper’s main concern on Thursday is what it sees as an appalling act of censorship and media manipulation during the coverage of the game - something that some at the paper are fairly adept at themselves, as it happens.

During the broadcast by state broadcaster TVE, the channel cut away when the national anthem was about to be played and, by chance, when a cacophony of catcalls was about to be hurled in the direction of the attending King Juan Carlos from the two sets of supporters.

At half-time the channel apologised for their ‘error’ and replayed the moving moment with the jeers removed and an image added of a proud, royalist Athletic Bilbao fan with his hand on his heart.

“In a move of pure Francoism, TVE opted for censorship,” rants Thursday’s editorial, condemning the TV station’s decision.

The paper also reports other royal-protecting events such as Gerard Piqué having a Catalan flag taken off him when climbing up to the podium to collect his medal from a very disgruntled-looking king.

But such polemical goings-on were forgotten less than 12 hours later with the return of a certain Florentino Pérez to the world after “three years, two months, 13 days, 16 hours, 30 minutes” of silence according to a very happy Marca.

Madrid’s Hotel Ritz was the setting for a bursting-to-breaking-point press conference, broadcast live on a number of channels where the former Real president announced his aim to retake his rightful place on throne of Castle Greyskull - a declaration received by a loud round of applause from the cap-doffing, fawning journalists present.

“I kept a respectful silence for three years,” explained Pérez on his reclusive behaviour. “It was my best contribution to the stability of the club.”

His decision to quit in February of 2006 was “the wrong one” admitted the candidate, saying that he only had the best interests of the club at heart at the time.

In a 13-minute speech littered with bubbly buzzwords such as ‘revitalisation’, ‘renewal’ and ‘solidity’, Pérez detailed plans to build a sporting city for the youth system, hinted that a roof would be stuck on top of the Bernabeu (one can only wonder which company the construction magnate will be handing the contracts to) and teased that Jorge Valdano and Zinedine Zidane would form part of his managerial team should he win June’s presidential poll.

After the speech, the number one candidate took questions from journalists for a good hour (until La Liga Loca got bored, basically - he may still be talking right now) and swerved any attempts from hacks to squeeze information from him on who his transfer targets would be, admitting only that “Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players in the world.”

La Liga Loca already has an idea what the front pages of Friday’s press are going to say.

"Yes, me again..."

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Billions gather for Copa del Rey clash

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

A few days ago, AS wrote that 35,000 batty Basques would be making the trip down to Valencia for Wednesday’s Copa de Rey final.

Not the first time - and almost certainly not the last - the paper was quite wrong with its prediction.

La Liga Loca’s own reliable sources - the hopeless cases who claimed last season that David Albeda had played his last game for Valencia - are murmuring that up to 45 million supporters from the unpronounceable lands of the north have made the trip to Mestalla by donkey, bike, car, bus, train, plane and boat.

Unfortunately, only eight of those actually have tickets to see Spanish football’s big night. But it’s two more than the visiting Barcelona fans have got.

In its attempts to model the tournament on the English FA Cup final, the Spanish authorities have decided to keep a good 99.99 percent of the tickets back so that federation suits along with families and friends and anyone who fancies buying their cast-offs for 500 euro can enjoy a nice night out.

And because making a quick buck and Spanish football go hand-in-hand like La Liga Loca and Penelope Cruz, Mestalla should be jam-packed with thousands of less than royalist supporters all ready and willing to boo and barrack the national anthem and the King for good measure.

“These are two teams that represent a very important social mass in their countries,” notes the independance-declaring King of Catalunya, Joan Laporta.

So worried are the FA’s bigwigs at embarrassing catcalls aimed at the royal family that the stadium’s speaker system has been pimped up by a group of mullet-sporting ché chavs to such an extent that even readers in England will be able to hear the King’s theme tune being blasted out at chant-covering, bat-exploding volumes.

"Everybody say 'goodbye eardrums'"

Wednesday’s game will be the sixth cup final between the two teams, with the last being an explosive punch-up back in 1984.

With a bit of luck, there will be a repeat of the scintillating scenes that the BBC would be no doubt tut that no-one wants to see on a football pitch.

Athletic manager Joaquín Caparrós is certainly promising some blood-and-guts on the night by declaring that “we’re going to play hard. We haven’t come here to pay tribute to anyone.”

This is has caused panic in the ranks of the Catalan press who are calling for help - sorry, protection - from the referee Medina Cantalejo, a gentleman Pep Guardiola points out that “Caparrós knows well.”

“We’re not asking for favours from anyone, but just that the referee applies the rules fairly,” writes the favour-asking Josep Casanovas in Sport.

Mundo Deportivo, meanwhile, is maxing out its on-line survey software by asking its less Neanderthal-like readers to decide who is the better player between Xavi and Orbaiz or Messi and Yeste.

Once again, the final encounter has again been jammed away at 10pm on a Wednesday night in a too-small stadium well before the end of the season and not as a showpiece campaign finale as the editorial in AS calls for.

And once again, extra-time and penalties will see the clash finishing at around 1am.

But this shouldn’t take anything away from a match that should be a lot of fun and well worth a cheeky punt on the 7-1 odds being given for an Athletic victory.

It’s a final that some of the great names of Spanish football’s past have taken part in.

Clubs that once were giants but now see their best days long gone, perhaps never return. Clubs like Arenas Guecho, Sabadell, Elche, Racing Ferroll and Real Madrid.

"They did say 10pm didn't they?"

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 35

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Valencia

Saturday’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid was shows exactly why, every September, the pea-brained La Liga Loca calls for silence, stands on a chair and tipsily tips Valencia to win the title by 50 points.

Ignore the fact that the Real Madrid players weren’t exactly cranking up the oophm-o-meter on the night - especially Fabio Cannavaro during David Silva’s goal - and just get worked up over the wondrous ways of the front four of Mata, Villa, Silva and Joaquín.

Nor forgetting the excellent Pablo Hernández of course.

Once again, La Liga Loca is going to tip the men from Mestalla for glory next season. Providing someone comes along with a one-billion-euro-sized bag of cash, that is.

Otherwise, it’s Ever Banega and Edu running the show in the upcoming campaign in what is likely to be a more knee-trembling football affair. But in two very different ways.

Silva sees off Real

Luis Fabiano

More often or not, the Sevilla striker’s frequent tumbles in the box result in yellow cards rather than penalties.

But on Saturday, O Fabuloso turned back the clock to last season when he was a bit special, by winning a spot-kick and coming up trumps with Sevilla’s second in the 3-1 win over Mallorca.

Fabiano’s timely return to form to aid the must-be-knackered-by-now Freddie Kanouté may well be enough for Sevilla to hold on to their third placed spot and give potential new coach, Ernesto Valverde, Champions League football next season.

Athletic Bilbao

All 230,000 Athletic fans heading to Mestalla for their match-up against Barcelona on Wednesday night can do so in the warm and snugly knowledge that their safety for another season in la Liga has been assured.

Joaquín Caparrós’ men moved onto the 44-point mark after a 1-0 win over Betis. More remarkably it was a victory achieved using just one first team starter.

Bilbao: Safe for another season

Getafe

In all honesty, the team is still more than a little rubbish with manager Michel admitting that all he can do is try to maintain the spirits in the Coliseum camp for the final matches of the season.

Sunday’s 3-0 win against Osasuna was an awful affair with chances few and far between, the visitors barely trying and the card-happy ref Muñiz Fernandez sending two players off for no good reason. Again.

The most entertainment to be had was to contemplate what would happen if a Benny Hill style slapping was delivered to Vicente del Bosque’s head with the Spain manager sitting just two rows in front of La Liga Loca’s long-limbed reach.

The answer was very little and a heck of a lot less entertaining than had his predecessor, Luis Aragonés, been sitting in the same spot.

90 minutes of “Raúl for Spain!” songs would soon have had his bubbling brains exploding all over the stands.

Deportivo

Sixth. Jesus.

Diego Forlán

It was perfect night for La Liga Loca in Vicente Calderón.

The crowd turning against the Atleti president at 2-0 down. A massively drunk man being propped up in his seat by his less frazzled friends. Watching Carlos Kameni wander past and realising that he could rip your head off with one hand. And another brilliant display from Diego Forlán.

Once again the 27-goal striker saved Atleti’s awful back-four, which was as high as Michael Phelps for 90 minutes, but was on the right side of a lot of dodgy decisions from the flag-wavey linesman.

Atleti’s Champions League future now boils down to another big night in the Calderón next Sunday, this time against a Silva-suspended Valencia.

Business as usual for Diego

BAD DAY

Barcelona

Unfortunately, La Liga Loca must come clean and confess that it has barely seen a minute from this match due to being in transit from the Coliseum to the Vicente Calderón - and nearly ending up in Cordoba, as it happens.

So it is more than happy to believe Pep Guardiola’s claim that “the side didn’t have enough gas” to play all the way to the final whistle in the 3-3 clash with Villarreal.

Sadly for the Camp Nou crowd it looks like the league title will be won at around midnight next Saturday when Madrid are mauled in El Madrigal.

Andrés Iniesta

God is a Chelsea fan, it would appear, after the midfielder is in danger of missing the Champions League final with a muscle tear.

Real Madrid

“When your head says ‘no’, it’s hard for your legs to say ‘yes’" noted Josep Maria Casanovas in Sport.

La Liga Loca suspected that Real Madrid would be running on fumes in their match in Mestalla on Saturday night and predicted a draw.

But it had no idea that the footballing juices in the Bernabeu camp had been squeezed so severely. Juande Ramos has cancelled Monday’s day-off and dragged the players back into training as punishment for a performance against Valencia branded as ‘apathetic’ by El País.

"Well it's obviously not my fault..."

Recreativo, Numancia

Bye-bye

Betis

Good grief, that was truly bad from Betis. “This team deserves to go down,” wrote Tito Gonzalez, a fed-up fan, in AS after the 1-0 defeat by Athletic’s second string.

Racing Santander

The often-sparring halves of La Liga Loca have tried to work out which team it would most like to see go down along with Recreativo and Numancia this season. And for once, the blog came to an agreement.

Sporting must stay up simply because of their fantastic travelling fans. Osasuna are filthy and fighty and worthy of their Primera spot. Betis are just too entertaining off the pitch to lose to la Segunda. Getafe are down the road and Espanyol have a shiny new stadium and Ivan de la Peña.

So, it’s a big sorry to Racing Santander who are being willed by the blog to sink into the second division. But with just two points needed to stay up, it ain’t going to happen.

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The Flame-proof Weekend Predictions - Round 35

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Sevilla (3rd) vs Mallorca (9th)

With Raúl reportedly pondering the opportunity to disappear in crucial clashes for Man City next season with a four-year, 40-million-Euro offer on the table, it’s good to see that there is at least one footballer in la Liga who still stands by the lofty concept of loyalty.

That fine, upstanding hero of the people is Sevilla’s Adriano, who has dismissed the idea of a move to Inter Milan over the summer.

“I’m only thinking about Sevilla,” insisted the Brazilian full-back. “I’m happy here and have extended my contract to 2014. I hope to be playing in the Champions League with the club next season.”

Well, big brass knobs to Adriano for his clear statement of intent to stay put at the Sanchez Pizjuán. “I told my agent that I won’t talk to any club until the league is over,” said the sentence-finishing Adriano. And he was doing so well.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Athletic (11th) vs Betis (15th)

Athletic president Fernando Garcia Macua - the man with possibly the heftiest side-parting in the planet - was in action at some kind of suit-attending sporting gabfest on Thursday.

And AS were there too, to report on a Q&A session involving a group of schoolchildren and the bigwig from Bilbao.

“What result would you like in the final?” asked one kiddie on next week’s Copa del Rey clash with Barcelona - a question so stunningly insightful that AS immediately cleared out Tomás Roncero’s desk to make way for their new scoopmeister.

Very much on the mind

Athletic are tipped to be fielding a team of reserves in Saturday’s clash, but that will still be good enough to beat a Betis side who are just happy to be on their travels.

“When we play in front of our own fans, we’re afraid to lose,” confessed midfield maestro Emana.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

For Marca, it was almost too good to be true. Almost.

Ramón Calderón being accused by two judges of evildoings at the club’s infamous General Assembly in December and the super-dodgy postal vote part of the presidential election from 2006.

“Ramón Calderón could be thrown into jail,” yelled Thursday’s edition as it pored over the accusations concerning last year’s AGM. “And Bárcena and Nanín could be his cellmates,” continued the paper on his alleged conspirators.

Unsurprisingly, Marca is being a little liberal with the truth on this particular point. Current Real Madrid president Vicente Boluda has also been implicated in the plot to rig the vote of December’s gathering, according to Madrid judge Santiago Torres.

And this causes a bit of a dilemma for the paper, which has been happily praising the paunchy president for his sterling leadership since Calderón’s departure in January.

The question now is whether Marca can happily continue to attack “the worst president in the club’s history” whilst backing Boluda, a man who must also go before the courts on May 20 to explain himself?

The answer is yes they can and yes they will.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sunday

Getafe (17th) vs Osasuna (16th)

Despite Michel’s failure to win on his managerial debut for Getafe last weekend, the local papers are still hyping up the hopeless coach and his training sessions where “neither the ball nor laughter is absent,” according to AS.

The club has been calling for fans to back the team through their “four finals” in the fight against relegation. But it’s a tough sell, considering the locals barely bother to follow the club even when they are doing well.

"Hello? Is there anybody out there?"

“It isn’t only good fun to come to the stadium when Bayern are here,” promised full-back David Cortés as he called for a good turnout on Sunday.

Quite right, says La Liga Loca. The visit of some knee-knacking, card-collecting, long-ball merchants from Pamplona can be a big barrel of fun, too.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Recreativo (19th) vs Deportivo (7th)

Seventh!

Valladolid (12th) vs Numancia (20th)

One of the sides that La Liga Loca has crossed all its particulars for in the hope that they will be replacing Numancia next season is Rayo Vallecano - simply because the Madrid-based blog is immensely lazy and feels that all teams in la Liga should be based within a 25-minute walk from its front door.

Unfortunately, two recent defeats have been a bit of a setback for the Vallecans, who are currently lying fifth in the Segunda.

They have also been on the receiving end of yet more fines from the Spanish FA, which appears to have it in for the left-leaning rascals from the wrong side of town.

In the past week alone the club has been hit with a 10,000 Euro penalty for “failing to prevent the display of non-flameproof banners in the north stand.”

And that’s on top of the a 4,250 Euro fine for “failing to prevent the introduction of a 50cl beer can onto the pitch.”

In April, Rayo were nailed royally with a sanction of 11,000 Euro for allowing their Ultras to store banners and a megaphone in the stadium. Something that never, ever, ever happens at the Bernabeu and the Vicente Calderón, of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Málaga (8th) vs Racing (13th)

Racing Santander coach Juan Ramón López Muñiz has come up with a novel way of motivating his players to grab three points on Sunday and safety for another season.

“We are working with the idea that there’s a league with just four matches left,” he revealed, “and that the Competition Committee have given us a five-point lead.”

Indeed, it’s an idea so brilliant that La Liga Loca hears that Real Madrid will be proposing it as the official format for la Primera next season.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (10th) vs Sporting (18th)

Rather than run around in the lovely spring sunshine, the Sporting players have opted for closing the curtains, dusting off the projector, donning the silver-foil sunhats and picking out every mistake made by the referee in last Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Athletic.

After playing and rewinding the tape more times that Maniche watching a Mr Kipling advert, Sporting’s Iván Cuellar declared that referee Teixeira Vitienes should be suspended for his poor performance.

“It’s the same that would happen to footballers,” complained the gaffe-prone goalkeeper on the match which saw his side lose their lead in the last minute to their Basque opponents.

Next up on the Sporting cinema will be a study into why CIA-trained seagulls were to blame for the club’s previous six defeats.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Barcelona (1st) vs Villarreal (6th)

Perhaps the biggest losers in Barcelona’s current run are the poor old street-cleaners of the Catalan capital, who are having to renovate the city centre every few days now.

On Saturday, both they and the riot police were out in force to sort out the mess after the victory against Real Madrid. And they were back again on Wednesday after Iniesta’s super strike against Chelsea.

"Sparkling!"

Brooms will be on standby for another busy week with the chance of a league title triumph on Sunday and a Copa del Rey victory a few days later.

La Liga Loca has been told that, should there be a mauling of Manchester United in three weeks' time, plans are afoot for airdrops of bleach over Barcelona.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Atlético Madrid (5th) vs Espanyol (14th)

It’s been Olympic week in Spain’s big smoke with the city on its best behaviour as it presented its bid for the 2016 games to a delegation from the IOC.

And that’s why Forlán, Kun Agüero and Maxi - proud Spaniards to a man - were at the location of their proposed new ground and Olympic Stadium site at 8.30 on Wednesday morning to meet and greet the visiting inspectors.

The international party completed a footballing double by dropping by the Bernabeu later in the day to be greeted by... no-one.

AS reports that Real Madrid captains Raúl, Guti and Salgado had been instructed to come to the gathering at the ground at 17.30.

The trouble was that they were not told this until 12.30, leaving them unwilling to undertake the 10-minute drive from their homes, what with important Playstation business at hand.

LLL Prediction - Away win

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La Liga Talentspotter

What's Catalan for "Have it"?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Poor Paco cut an unfashionable figure tucked away in the corner of his bar in Barcelona.

Puffing away on his ciggies, supping on his cañas, Paco spent 97 minutes of Wednesday night being booed and barracked, hissed at and harassed by the dingy dive’s other proud patrons.

Paco hadn’t insulted the quality of the local bar’s ham, nor had he recommended the occasional wipe-down of the dunnies.

Instead, Paco was the last remaining Chelsea fan in Catalunya, as mentioned in previous La Liga Loca posts. Until Andrés Iniesta’s super-strike, that is.

At that moment, the devastated dropout watched tantrum-filled tiny-tots Ballack and Drogba coming THIS close to beating up the referee with a torrent of whines and whinges. “Nah, I’m done with them,” declared Paco, returning to the non-foreign fold.

"Cheers ref"

“¡Toma!” – “Have it!” – cried his new bar buddies.

“¡Toma! ¡Toma! ¡Toma!” yells the front cover of Sport, on Thursday.

“¡Toma!” echoed the Barça-loving companions of the blog in its local dive - Barça-loving companions from Toledo who only ever watch their team in the Champions League, showing that the Surrey-Manchester United effect is just as common in Spain.

With all the excitement of Iniesta’s moment of genius, it was easy to overlook the somewhat controversial refereeing display when watching the game in Camp Culé.

All that seemed to matter in the end was that a horrible, bus-parking, anti-football, ref-chasing monstrosity of a side had been thwarted in Europe, once again.

And that’s the opinion of the Catalan press, of course, and not La Liga Loca which doesn’t fancying facing the death-threat treatment about to handed out to poor old whistleblower Tom Henning Ovrebo.

"Who in the what now?"

“Football beat anti-football,” trumpets Sport’s Josep Maria Casanovas on a familiar riff.

His colleague Joan Vehils takes delight in yet more scenes of street-dancing, bin-throwing and fire-starting in the Catalan capital to greet the late, late winner – the second time such festivities have been witnessed in just five days.

“This side is so great that we’ve still not won anything but we’ve been a few times to Canaletes now... we can only express ourselves with jumping, shouting, hugging and crying,” giggles the delirious Vehils.

Mundo Deportivo are also running on a ‘justice has been done’ tip, with Santi Nolla grumbling over a Chelsea side that “is obsessed with getting the result, defensive football and muscle against skill, attacking football and the spectacle.”

The penalty claims for Chelsea are largely brushed over in the Barça press, although Sport do touch on the subject with an online poll suggesting that the visitors were given a helping hand by the Norwegian man in the middle.

"PLAY ON!!!"

Marca are less obtuse and note that “Super Iniesta and the referee puts Barça in the final.” However, their lead writer argues that Chelsea got their just desserts in the end.

“It was poor stuff from a team that has cost 500m Euro over the past four years,” scoffs Santiago Segurola.

However, the paper’s main concern on Thursday is the news that former Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón was accused of corruption by two different judges on two different cases on the same day.

AS put the Champions League finalists where they belong, on the front page, but leave it to possible pretend Perico and boring Barça-baiter Tomás Guasch to have a pop at the manner of the Catalan club’s passing.

“The gentlemen who watch over The Rules of The Game decided that there wouldn’t be penalties. But they didn’t tell Chelsea that because they asked for four. Three as big as cathedrals.”

And that’s about the same size as the controversy that will be rumbling through both England and Spain over the next few days as the football world chews over what was a stunningly fun night at Stamford Bridge.

NEWS: Iniesta blockbuster breaks Blues hearts
NEWS: Semi-final hoodoo hits Hiddink again
PHOTOS: Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona
NEWS: Last-gasp goal validates purist approach
NEWS: Pep hero status further enshrined at Barca
NEWS: Drogba likely to suffer ire of UEFA
NEWS: Hiddink: Worst refereeing I've seen

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La Liga Talentspotter

Moaning masses and Maniche moves on

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:30:00 GMT

La Liga Loca is unsure whether it’s a catastrophic caña-caused comedown from Seville’s annual Feria - which Sergio Ramos definitely, definitely did not attend two days before el Clásico - or reaching a tipping point of grumpiness.

But something has definitely yanked the cranks of Betis fans of late.

Yelling abuse at the squad during training, death threats during matches and bawling out their best players are the latest tactics to have been adopted by barmy Beticos during the side’s latest relegation rumble.

The most recent incident of rancour took place on Tuesday when Emana faced a torrent of taunts from a posse of Spain’s version of White Van Man - mid-40s, moustachioed, belly of pot and face of red.

But it’s not just the club’s three defeats in a row that has got the Betis masses all angry - losses that leaves the side just three points and three places from relegation, but also the realisation that Darth de Lopera, the club’s cuddly owner, isn’t going anywhere. Again.

At the back end of March, there were stories - commented on by the club itself - that the very loaded Emir Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuami of Ajman was in talks to buy out the Andalusian Lord of the Flies.

“It would be amazing if a sheikh bought Betis!” squealed Betis’ website-quoting club president Pepe León.

“Lopera has decided to sell and now it’s in the hands of the Emir,” said the sheikh’s supposed spokesman, Israel Gutierrez de Alba, who posed merrily in the club shop wearing a Betis shirt with ‘Humaid’ on the back.

"Well, Sheikh it up baby now..."

The trouble is that the story turned out to be absolute poppycock and one concocted by the club to turn attention away from their latest on-the-pitch problems, say some suspicious sources.

That’s the opinion of Sport anyway, having contacted a close business partner of the suspected Betis buyer who poo-pooed the whole story. “I called the Emir to congratulate him on the purchase, but he knew nothing about it,” said Rashidi Omrani.

Another club facing a stand-off with supporters are Atlético Madrid, who are crossing every appendage imaginable that the team’s victories against Sporting and Betis will lead to a less hostile atmosphere on Sunday in their Vicente Calderón clash against Espanyol.

“It will be a time to win back the fans,” cooed club president Enrique Cerezo.

Atleti have taken another step to soothing fans' furrowed brows by terminating Maniche’s contract and telling him to pack his oversized suitcases.

The Portuguese midfielder was already serving out a suspension for failing to turn up for the Sporting encounter but is now as free as a very big bird.

“He told the fans to go to Gran Via [instead of the Calderón], failed a roadside breath test and grew fat due to too much nightlife, his natural habitat,” noted AS’s Atleti man Iñako Díaz-Guerra.

The downside to Maniche’s sacking will be the lack of income from his various fines, report El País. “He practically paid our wages,” is the quote the paper gives from one club insider.

"Doh! Dough!"

Both Marca and AS have become even more unreadable than usual this week, with the blog routinely zooming through the first 20 or so pages of absolute pig swill.

Both papers have gone completely doolally in linking every player in the world with Madrid – once the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent Florentino Pérez ascends (bearing in mind the very hot place where he will be travelling from) to the Bernabeu throne in June.

But in a break with recent tradition, it appears that Real Madrid may actually be worth watching next season, not just for the comedy factor but to work out how Wenger / Mourinho / Ancelotti manages a forward line of Kaká, Ronaldo, Silva, Villa, Zlatan, Huntelaar and of course, Raúl.

Lassana Diarra is going to be a very busy man.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 34

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Barcelona

When there are regurgitated guts and glass covering the streets the Catalan capital, you can be sure that it has been a good night for the culé-crazy part of the city.

The 6-2 *rse-handing, humdinger of a thrashing inflicted on Madrid by Barcelona kicked off the mother of all parties in the city, a party which inevitably turned a little bit fruity, as often tends to happen in this particular place.

It was an unexpectedly insane night in the Bernabeu with Barcelona coming to town to show Madrid who really wears the trousers in this year’s title chase.

The league leaders were rocked on two occasions with goals from Higuaín and Ramos, but bounced back almost instantly to make sure that any Real revival was as short-lived as Juande Ramos’ reign.

“A goal-fest! Humiliation! Champions! 2-6!” yelled Sport’s headline on Sunday. Monday’s edition had toned down the excitement a tad with Josep Maria Casanovas declaring that the victory in the Spanish capital was merely “the best moment in Barcelona’s history.”

Barca fans paint the town red (and blue)

Florentino Pérez

Aside from Barcelona, the biggest winner from Saturday’s mauling of Madrid was Florentino Pérez, who is set to announce his candidature for the presidential elections, next week, according to the local press.

And as he makes his way to the podium, there are likely to be representatives from both Marca and AS throwing rose petals before his feet and offering up their daughters as sacrifices.

“Florentino Pérez will come back to rescue Madrid,” gushes Monday’s Marca who has put the insufferably smug-faced figure of their Saviour on the front cover, along with AS. The Pérez propaganda machine is only just warming up.

Sevilla

Back to winning ways after four dumping defeats in a row. The away victory over a completely lost-the-biscuit Villarreal came courtesy of strikes from Kanouté and Fabiano, just the third time the forward pair have both appeared on the scoresheet in la Liga this season.

But the fact that Sevilla are still 18 points behind Real Madrid shows that Manolo Jimenéz’ men are still not much cop, despite their relatively lofty position.

Espanyol

Hells bells. It really does look like La Liga Loca will need to look elsewhere for its second division coverage next season, after Paul from Barcelona witnessed a 3-0 win over Valencia for the plucky Pericos.

“Football’s a strange game. Just over a month ago Espanyol looked doomed, but the way things are going a top-10 finish could be on the cards. Five wins and one draw out of the last six matches. 12 goals for, one against.

"A sunny early evening saw Valencia with a good following (1,300) which begs the question, why this year and not all the others? 34,000 inside the stadium to see a fairly even first-half which ended goaless but with the better chances being created by Espanyol.

"The second half saw Valencia start the stronger but their fans were silent. Is there some Valencian custom about not singing in the second half? But gradually Espanyol got on top and it was no surprise when a rocket shot from Roman gave 'I can't believe he still gets a game' César no chance.

"With Villa shackled by Jarque (not... you know) it was Espanyol who were controlling the game. Then a 30-metre free-kick from Pareja put the result beyond any doubt. And there’s more, Rufete gave the defence the run-around and was fouled in the area. Nené easily scored the penalty.

"So 3-0 against one of the top four who, despite some good movement, didn't really threaten. Villa and Silva particularly poor especially in the second half.

Stray cats 0. Barça fans arrested 5”

Paul, Barcelona

Periquitos dare to dream of avoiding drop

Gregorio Manzano

A 2-1 home win over Getafe puts Mallorca on a more-than-handy 45 points, a total giving the Balearic side another year of top-flight footie.

“Safety is now real and not virtual like last week,” said relieved Mallorca manager Gregorio Manzano, who must be looking to the club’s final four matches against Sevilla, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Villarreal with considerably less stress than before.

Considering the amount of trouble Mallorca was in at the start of the season - both on and off the pitch - with the bailiffs hammering at the gates, Manzano has performed a mini-miracle to lead Mallorca into ninth with just one defeat in their last 13 matches.

Hugo Sánchez

Another coach due a dose of cap-doffing from the blog is Hugo Sánchez, who came to Almería with a reputation as being a poor manager making a living off his reputation as a player.

But 43 points for his side, thanks to a 2-0 win over Racing Santander, means that his previously ridiculous desires to be the bigwig at the Bernabeu one day may not be so far-fetched after all.

Numancia, Recreativo

Two wins against Málaga and Osasuna respectively gives both clubs a *** of light in their dark relegation tunnels of doom.

Diego Forlán

As usual, Atlético’s win over Betis in the De Lopera was a hard-fought one with the normal defensive scrambles and panics at the end.

But an 88th minute strike from Forlán, the rojiblanco striker’s second of the night, means that Atleti can probably return to the Vicente Calderón next week without the need for body armour.

“I’m sure that next Sunday our fans will welcome us with open arms,” predicted manager Abel Resino, pushing his luck somewhat.

Forlan fires home two more

Athletic

A last-minute scrambled effort against Sporting gives Athletic a point, with perhaps just one more needed to give them total security ahead of their Copa del Rey thrashing by Barcelona next week.

Deportivo

43 goals scored. 42 goals conceded. Seventh. (Sigh)

BAD DAY

Juande Ramos

Oh dear. It looks like Real Madrid will be moving onto their (starts counting on fingers) 37th manager in two years this summer. The 4-0 defeat by Liverpool and the small matter of a 2-6 hammering by Barcelona will almost certainly see to that.

Despite a poll in Marca suggesting that 82 percent of readers want Ramos to continue on the bench, the paper is touting Arsene Wenger as Madrid’s next manager, next summer.

Of course, there’s no consideration in the paper as to why someone who is managing a club that actually plays in the Champions League will want to switch to a team governed by an all-powerful president who has the dangerous combination of knowing jack-all about football but thinking he does.

Real Madrid

La Liga Loca probed Christoph Metzelder after the game on whether the defeat to Barça would lead to an end of season collapse for Madrid.

Although the German defender talked up their chances in the final four matches, his well-meaning attempt at a cheery tone did not convince.

Michel

The Getafe manager started his tenure on his latest bench as he means to go on this season - with a defeat.

However, his case certainly wasn’t helped on Sunday with the previously excellent goalkeeper Stojkovic booting the ball straight at Aduriz, who gave Mallorca the second goal in their 2-1 win.

Sporting

Oh dear. Not a good time to pick up the first draw of the season.

Deep into second half injury-time, Sporting were 1-0 up and about to grab three crucial points that would have lifted them out of the relegation mire. But that was before a big old scramble gave Athletic an equaliser.

“Nuts,” growled Manolo Preciado after the match.

"Dry roasted if you've got any..."

Racing

A bad day for Racing with a 2-0 home defeat to Almería, but a good day for one famous fan who returned to the stands to rapturous applause - Seve Ballesteros.

Osasuna

Another team who conceded in the final seconds - a rather embarrassing lapse against Recreativo - leaving Osasuna in all sorts of trouble.

Two points from the drop-zone and facing Getafe, Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid in their final four encounters. Gulp!

Betis

Despite the somewhat ominous banner from the fans declaring “Win or die. Last warning,” the Betis players fell to their third straight defeat.

It’s unlikely that the club will tumble through the trap door but their supporters remain very unhappy bunnies indeed.

Valladolid

608 minutes without scoring a goal. Hard to believe with Víctor, Ogbeche and Goitum in the side’s forward line.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Kitten-Tickling Weekend Predictions - Round 34

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Barcelona (1st)

It needed to be a whopping story to knock The Pig Plague, political corruption, cash-grabbing mayors and skyrocketing unemployment figures off the front pages of Spain’s papers this week.

But that’s exactly what happened with the alarm-dinging arrival of Europe’s biggest of battles, craziest of clashes and hottest of topics.

The big question being asked by Everyman all over Spain was who has the best bum - the home-grown Princess Letizia or Carla Bruni, the foreign floozy from France-land?

A photograph of the posterior-poking pair was taken as they walked up a flight of steps during a visit from Nikolas Sarkozy and it prompted debate in every oracle from El País to ABC, Spain’s Vatican news daily, over which bottom was the bonniest.

Of course, there is a big game of footie going on as well. And it’s Marca who brought the exclusive news of where the Barcelona and Real Madrid suits will be spending their members’ money on gold-plated ham and the finest wines during the pre-match feast.

The gorge-fest will take place at “one of the capital’s gastronomic sanctuaries” one kilometre from the Bernabeu, giving the less-engorged of the group a fighting chance of rolling their fat bellies towards the ground in time for the big game.

The directors’ wives - heaven forbid they should be allowed anywhere near the Work of Men - will be at another restaurant tickling kittens and cake-baking.

LLL Prediction - Home win

The choice is yours...

Numancia (20th) vs Málaga (7th)

Time is running out for Numancia. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Anything less than a win against Málaga and there will be no more ‘finals’. No more matches to give 120 percent, sweat blood for the fight and go out onto the pitch with knifes between their teeth. Unless a few teams above the Sorian side lose of course, in which case the struggle will continue for another round.

But Numancia manager Pacheta says it will be tough-going against Málaga, as all the rivals in the second half of the season have “tied themselves down with plugs.” Either that or it is an idiomatic expression that neither lies in La Liga Loca’s tiny memory nor in its useless dictionary.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Villarreal (5th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

And so we pass quietly onto the final days of Sevilla manager Manolo Jiménez who, if Marca are to be believed, will be moving to the Vicente Calderón over the summer to be booed by a brand new bunch of supporters.

Four defeats in a row for Sevilla, their worst top flight record, means that Jiménez truly is toast at the Sanchez Pizjuán. But he is set to remain in his place until the end of the campaign at least, claims club Godfather José Maria del Nido.

“Whatever happens in Villarreal, he’ll finish the season,” confirmed the Sevilla president in a half-hearted attempt at a vote of confidence.

Meanwhile, Jiménez himself has spent the week steering between understanding the stadium’s ire - “I, like the fans, would also be very angry with four defeats,” - and indignation over the booing and barracking - “We are third, but if feels more like we are third from bottom.”

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sunday

Mallorca (9th) vs Getafe (17th)

Since the appointment of Michel as coach of Getafe on Monday, two-faced hacks who in private will scoff that the former Madrid man is a managerial waste of space have been praising his hide to the heavens and gone all rapturey over the immediate change he has made at the Coliseum club.

In a report reminiscent of a 1930s BBC Newsreel describing the King of England meeting common people in Plymouth, Friday’s AS gushes over how Michel will ensure survival for the club by making the players walk from the stadium car park to the training ground as opposed to taking their Porches. Yep, that’ll do the trick.

Meanwhile, Javi Casquero, the man who nearly had his head taken clean off by a certain Portuguese defender, has revealed that his aggressor has yet to contact him to apologise for his actions, despite what the Real Madrid man has claimed.

“Pepe hasn’t called me and I’m not expecting him to either,” sniffed the penalty-taking punch bag.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Osasuna (15th) vs Recreativo (19th)

Every week, La Liga Loca likes to predict a match that will be an eye-gougingly awful encounter. A game that could turn wine into wee. And every week the expected shocker turns out to be a 7-6 end-to-end classic.

This week, it is plumping for this particular tie between Osasuna and Recreativo, a relegation rumble where cards will outnumber goals by a ratio of 33-1.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Deportivo (8th) vs Valladolid (10th)

A feisty game of football between two clubs from the north of Spain - a wonderful part of the world where men are men, red hair is acceptable and where wailing, weeping, Flamenco-loving, soft Southern nonciness simply isn’t tolerated.

Except in Miguel Angel Lotina’s case, that is.

The coach at La Coruña is one of the wettest blankets in the west. A man who cried when Espanyol saved themselves on the last kick of the season. A man who blubbed continuously during his short spell at Real Sociedad. And a man who pleaded guilty this week to being the biggest of Basque cry babies.

“The last time I cried?” mused Lotina, “it was a couple of days ago watching how the contestants on ‘OT’ (the Spanish version of Pop Idol that was won last year by the goddess-like La Liga Loca future-wife Virginia) got all emotional and when I saw their families. I’m a big wuss.”

The only tears being shed by the Depor boss on Sunday will be of despair during what, let’s face it, will be an awful encounter.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Lotina wells up

Racing (13th) vs Almería (11th)

Nope. Not even going to attempt a preview on this one.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sporting (18th) vs Athletic (12th)

Sporting could not have chosen easier opposition for Sunday’s showdown in their attempts to halt their shocking run of 76 defeats and a return to la Segunda.

Having finally pulled their footballing fingers out over the past couple of rounds, Athletic have hauled themselves to within a point or two of survival and have returned to their navel-gazing of the Copa del Rey final.

To give a clue as to the Basque club’s tactics during this much-anticipated cup clash, Marca reports that the Athletic camp have spent much of the week practising penalties.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (16th) vs Valencia (4th)

The ‘look at me!’ screaming and arm-waving Clasico will surely dominate much of the sporting headlines in the latest round of matches. But this enticing encounter between the Pericos and EasyValencia is worthy of a spot on the second-place podium.

One of the 17 people who currently seem to be in charge in Mestalla has been speaking about the club’s ongoing financial foul-up this week, and the chances of holding onto their shining stars over the summer. Or rather, their lack of them.

“It will be tough keeping them, but not impossible,” admitted the club’s VP Sporting Director Fernando Gómez.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Betis (14th) vs Atletico (6th)

One of La Liga Loca’s biggest regrets this season is not making it down to the Vicente Calderón last Sunday to watch the rojiblancos. And that’s genuinely quite ironic as normally the blog’s biggest regret of the campaign is the complete opposite.

Normally, La Liga Loca is there in the stands through wind, rain and rain. But sadly it missed out on the recent clash against Sporting, a clash were the 25,000 fans who turned up spent the 90 minutes sarcastically cheering back passes and chanting “Pernía, Ballon d’Or” at the deservedly-maligned left back.

“I don’t like it when they have a go at anyone,” admonished Maxi during the week.

It seems that the players have been just as undisciplined as the supporters of late with both blog heroes, Maniche and Ever Banega, making the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The portly Portuguese midfielder has been fined 50,000 euro and suspended for 10 days, along with Seitaridis, for failing to turn up for last Sunday’s Sporting encounter. “They don’t offer anything to the team,” grumped manager Abel Resino, who says their presences will not be missed.

Ever Banega, the self-loving sensation, decided to end a week where he spoke at length about wanting a permanent move to the Vicente Calderón by turning up for last Saturday’s opposition study session a little worse for ware.

“He was very late and practically asleep,” said Resino.

La Liga Loca suspects the Argentine adventurer was doing some internet research of his own, the night before.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Respect but revulsion meets Chelsea display

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Mork and Mindy man, Robin Williams, would have been more useful than Pep Guardiola in the Dream Boys’ dressing room on Tuesday night.

What the perplexed players of the Camp Nou needed was a rousing, desk-standing, pecker-inspiring speech about following their dreams, making hay and seizing carp.

And maybe a forceful argument insisting that ‘What Dreams May Come’ is an avant-garde, thoughtful study of guilt and death. And not a load of sentimentalist tosh.

Instead, Messi’s mob may well have received a relentless rant over the lack of referee protection and how it wasn’t fair that they had to play against the most vulgar of sides whose tactics were “Cech-Drogba, Drogba-Cech” as Pep complained after the game.

"To me..."

In the first half of the Champions League encounter, it felt as if Barcelona were close to peeing their pants. Their normal fluid, flowing game was strained, passes were being misplaced and confidence was rock-bottom.

It was only in the final 30 minutes when the likes of Dani Alves and Andrés Iniesta pulled themselves together and went with the lip-stiffening did the side play anything like they have been all season.

Indeed, if it hadn’t been for that pesky Bojan missing an absolute sitter in injury-time, Barça would have had some reward for their work. Instead it was the club’s first goalless draw of the season.

Over 90 minutes, the Barcelona players crashed into more walls than a Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

It was another classic Chelsea display of power and pragmatism and exactly why the club continues to win fans the world over.

Billions spent to produce the kind of performance that a replay-seeking second division side would put up against a top flight club in the FA Cup, as one person noted on a comments board that La Liga Loca read.

However, Chelsea failed to grab an away goal with their one chance on goal and this leaves the Catalan press with hopes of a more successful game in Stamford Bridge next week.

“We will go through!” says Sport’s headline. Inside, all their editorial pieces are respectful of Chelsea’s performance, but fairly scathing.

“Anti-football won,” sighed Josep Casanovas. “It’s sad but Chelsea came not to play football but to not lose.”

“We’ll win in London,” agreed his more feisty colleague Lluís Mascaró, “with the permission of the ref,” he quipped.

It’s an opinion shared by the normally sober El País who complain that “the referee had more respect for the foreign intrusion than the local delicacy.”

"To you..."

Over in Marca-land, there has been as much coverage of the game as a mid-table clash featuring Mallorca. Which is about a page.

After all, if Florentino Pérez isn’t interested in the affair, then nor is Marca. Heaven knows what will happen if Spain’s King of Industry suddenly takes a shine to ‘Lost’.

Eight page pullouts on the programme, probably.

AS half-pretended that the European clash was important to the paper - but only in its relation to Saturday’s Madrid match - with editor Alfredo Relaño writing that “Barcelona did the attacking, but lacked the flourish.”

“The bad dream would have been completed had Jose Mourinho been in Hiddink’s place,” chuckled Fabian Ortiz.

While there seems to be a sense of outrage in the English comment-o-sphere that Chelsea were a gutless, disgrace to the beautiful game, there is more understanding in Spain in response to the English side’s parking-the-bus business.

However, while Chelsea may have won the advantage in the semi-final clash in Spain, they lost what few friends they had left in la Liga.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Will Munoz and Michel relegate Getafe?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT

La Liga Loca doesn’t really get on with its neighbours. Or rather, its neighbours don’t really get on with La Liga Loca.

And that’s fair enough considering the blog’s slight sociopathic tendencies and unmistakable musk of mothballs.

But the one happy-shopper who always responded to the blog’s cheerful ‘Cooee!’ of a Madrid morning with a cheery wave was Getafe boss Victor Muñoz, who was resident in a hotel just around the corner from La Liga Loca’s humble abode.

Except the big-chinned chief of the Coliseum won’t be all with the Alan Partridge for much longer. That’s because he has been sacked. And it’s a good thing too, considering La Liga Loca’s warm hand on Muñoz’ entrance had turned into daily shouts of abuse.

Munoz packs his bags

When not reassembling his trouser press or wondering whether to rent that Vin Diesel DVD, Muñoz has spent the last 10 months or so ruining Getafe and turning them from UEFA Cup Goliaths into a relegation-fighting rabble.

If fact, it’s no surprise that Victor did not choose to live someone more permanent, considering it’s the catastrophic coach’s fourth firing in three years having previously been strapped to the ejector seats of Zaragoza, Panathinaikos and Recreativo.

Muñoz now has the dubious honour of being the first manager to be fired by Angel Torres since the club’s angelic ascent into the top flight in 2004 - the others, Quique Sánchez Flores, Bernd Schuster and Michael Laudrup all walked out on the club.

But they were all sacked from their next positions. Which serves them right, quite frankly.

The former Barcelona player was booted out by the Getafe president after the club’s disastrous home defeat to Villarreal on Sunday afternoon.

“I had to make changes to save the team,” explained Torres. “Victor had asked me to give him until the Mallorca game but I noticed that the dressing room was very despondent.”

And this is where La Liga Loca must agree with the Getafe big shot.

Torres has stood by Muñoz throughout the campaign and in the face of poor results, fan protests and complaints from senior players who neither liked nor understood their manager’s tactics.

“The majority had a professional attitude,” noted Muñoz on Monday, revealing that there had been some rumblings in his Coliseum camp.

There are still five games to go and - to borrow a tired old cliché - the club’s destiny is in its own hands.

A new manager has been appointed to lead Getafe to safety through until the end of the season, but this is where the side may be jumping out of the frying pan and into a volcano.

When the name of the caretaker at the Coliseum was announced, a Spanish journalist acquaintance of La Liga Loca immediately started singing “A Segunda!”

That’s because the new man at the helm is Michel. And Michel, for those who don’t know, is rubbish.

Michel during his Madridista days

Michel is the former Real Madrid player who failed to take Rayo Vallecano up from the Segunda B division but became more well known for his natty pink sweaters that he used to sport on the touchline.

Michel is the coach who then took over Madrid’s second team and promptly got them relegated, before eventually moving upstairs where he could cause less damage.

Soon after, he left that position and has been happily insulting his former club from a distance, ever since.

Leading a team with the likes of Gavilán, Polanski, Uche, Soldado and Granero to relegation takes some skill. But the blog fears that’s exactly what Muñoz - and Michel - are about to achieve.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 33

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Real Madrid

Blimey. Madrid could actually win this, a concept La Liga Loca poo-pooed just this weekend with its prediction of a defeat for Juande Ramos’ men.

And this could send Barcelona fans into therapy for decades, not to mention the mental implosion that will take place at Sport, whose offices may simply fold into a shiny singularity like the house in ‘Poltergeist’.

For half an hour, it looked as if Sevilla would be getting their bloodthirsty revenge on their Spurs-swapping boss, the man the crowd waved fake Juande Dollar bills at before the game.

At 1-0 up and playing with the kind of cojones that had been lacking in the matches against Getafe, Valencia and Barcelona, the Andalusian side had Madrid mired in the mud.

But, once again, Real hung on for dear life and grabbed yet another goal just before half-time, the first strike in Raúl’s hat-trick (in a game where he only had three blinkin’ touches).

The show now moves to the Bernabeu next Saturday. A win for Madrid and it’s a 50/50 tight tussle for the title. Real have nasty-looking away matches in Mestalla and el Madrigal, but Barcelona have some business to attend to in a couple of other competitions.

This could be fun.

Three touches, three goals

Barcelona

La Liga Loca is in full on sitting-on-the-fence, cowardly, pleasing all of the people, all of the time, mode on Monday by placing Barcelona in the ‘Good Day’ section too.

As Mundo Deportivo shouted on Sunday’s front page, Pep’s Dream Boys picked up ‘a huge point’ in Mestalla. Sport called the 2-2 a ‘draw that felt like a victory’.

Valencia matched Barcelona’s pace and passing precision for 90 minutes and perhaps deserved the win, especially after the referee ignored Carles Puyol crashing into David Villa, who may perhaps have gone down a little too theatrically.

But the game was exactly the kind of nose-bloodying, sweaty affair that Barcelona needed ahead of the visit of Chelsea on Tuesday night. A proper team, giving them a proper match, unlike sorry Sevilla.

Valencia

It’s amazing what getting paid can do for the motivation of a side.

When the Valencia players’ Porsche repayments were in peril, the men from Mestalla more-or-less downed their footballing tools, despite narked denials that this was the case.

But since the announcement that the club had got their hands on some loot to deal with the deficit, the squad has been firing on all cylinders with five wins from six, a run that has closed the gap on third-placed Sevilla to just one point.

Saturday’s display against Barcelona showed why a whole bunch of us stick our necks out every year and tip Valencia for the title, only to regret it about a fortnight later.

Alvaro Negredo

Not just a goal-scoring Goliath but an assist-maker extraordinaire too. The striker’s double dose of mazy runs led to Almería’s two goals in their victory against Numancia that almost certainly sees them safe for another season.

Espanyol

Another green shoot of hope has been handed to Paul from Barcelona and his beloved Pericos. But will it snap, only to see his dreams dashed on the rapids of... er... reality...?

“A ‘I bet it's going to pee it down during the match’ type of day drew a 30,000 crowd and a fair few from Betis, about 1,500. There's a big Betis Peña in Barcelona and they were out in force.

"So it was mullets a go-go at the start which saw Espanyol take the lead after only four minutes through Luis 'I'll show that Stannard bloke who's rubbish' García.

"With the mercurial De la Peña having a blinder, it was all Espanyol who could and should have scored more. Betis had a penalty appeal turned down when serial whiner Oliveira took a nosedive.

"A different Betis came out for the second half - not literally culés, that would be ridiculous - but a more attacking formation.

"With Espanyol's defence having their best game as a unit in a long time, Betis never really looked like scoring and it was no surprise when Roman put Espanyol two up with a few minutes left.

"Overall, a great performance by Espanyol who never looked like losing against a very average team who seemed toothless - again not literally - in attack despite a feted front line.

"Or were Espanyol's defence so good on the day it made them look bad?

"Stray cats - 0. Working video screens - 0. As Espanyol are leaving Montjuic the council is not bothering to repair anything.”

Paul, Barcelona

Espanyol keep survival hopes alive

Mallorca

The 2-4 win for Mallorca may not have raised too many eyebrows around the world, but it was a whopping win for Mallorca.

With Sevilla, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Villarreal making up four out of five of their last games of the season, the Balearic battlers had to pick up three points against Recre to move them onto 42 before a title-chasing tornado heads in their direction.

Athletic Bilbao

A midweek victory and one more on Sunday against Racing Santander puts the Basque club another step towards the security needed before their Copa del Rey clash with Barcelona.

But that’s not what’s making news in the Spanish press on Monday. Oh no. Instead it’s the dreadful refereeing performance by Gonzalo Vásquez who brought out a record-breaking 18 cards (including five reds) in a match that El País said “didn’t have a nasty knock, nor a kick at a knee, nor an insult, nor a late tackle.”

It needed something special to break the man in the middle’s own personal milestone set in last weekend’s Valencia vs Sevilla clash, when he showed 15 yellows and two reds, but hats off to Gonzalo as he managed it in Bilbao.

Atlético Madrid

AS noted soberly that a win was badly needed by Atleti to prevent some kind of Bastille-storming scenario, but that’s exactly what they managed with a comfortable 3-1 win over Sporting.

But this did not stop the fans from fuming after the capitulation against Racing, just three days previously.

The rojiblanco players were booed during the warm-up, booed when their names were read out and booed during the game, as well as olé-cheering when the defenders managed to successfully pass to each other.

But sharing the Calderón ire was club president Enrique Cerezo, who tutted after the match that “when I go to a ground, I go see a game of football, not listen to the shouts of a section of the public.”

La Liga Loca says go to a different ground next time then, you clown.

BAD DAY

Victor Valdés

The Barcelona keeper was flapping so much on Saturday night he nearly took off. And you can bet yer bunnies that Chelsea were taking notes.

"Keeper's ball... er, hang on, no you deal with it Carlos"

Sporting

It’s now six defeats in a row for Sporting, the last of which being the 3-1 defeat in the Vicente Calderón. “We’re on a super bad run,” noted the growling manager Manolo Preciado.

Numancia, Recreativo

It looks like at least two of the relegation spots have been fixed after a double dose of defeat for the down-in-the-dumps duo.

Numancia came a cropper against Almería to leave them on 28 points, while Recreativo suffered a disastrous home defeat to Mallorca which now requires the Huelvan side to pick up four wins from five to stay up.

“We know what it takes to win in this division,” said Recreativo boss Lucas Alcaraz, announcing that his team had not given up all hope just yet.

Sevilla

The club had done their very bestest to ensure a victory for the side off the pitch, but could do little to guarantee a win on it.

Local bars had been encouraged to charge just a euro for tapas and beer before the match, to help warm the supporters up.

In La Liga Loca’s experiences at the beery, cheery Sánchez Pizjuán, such encouragement is rarely needed.

Unfortunately for the singing supporters, Sevilla ran out of puff after just half-an-hour and have now lost four league matches in a row, the club’s worst ever record in the top flight.

Sevilla slump again

Osasuna

Just one point from the last three games means that Osasuna still need two more victories to stay up in their last five games. Three of those will be against Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Fairly Angry Weekend Predictions - Round 33

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Málaga (6th) vs Deportivo (8th)

Now La Liga Loca must start Friday’s ramblings by apologising to Málaga and Deportivo - well, Málaga, anyway - for hijacking their section which should be a joyous dedication to two plucky teams chasing Europa League dreams, etc.

But it must draw attention to Marca’s story on Friday concerning the profile of its typical reader who turns out to be male, between 25 and 44-years-old and from a middle / upper-middle class background.

However, it does not give a profile of the paper’s editor, Eduardo Inda. But La Liga Loca’s own survey can help there - loathsome, cowardly, cheap, nasty and seemingly happy to do anyone’s bidding if the price is right.

On Thursday, a one page editorial from the man himself attacked Ramón Calderón - who was portrayed in a cartoon with red eyes and hands dripping in oil - for choosing TV channel Al Jazeera to air the latest edition of his ‘vendetta’ against Inda’s precious club.

The paper’s editor wrote that it was a disgrace that the ex-president chose a forum that “systematically transmits the nauseating videos of (Osama Bin Laden) the most wanted terrorist of all time,” and attacked those who suggested the station was ‘integrationist’ for offering an alternative viewpoint to the likes of CNN.

Mr Inda. You sir, are an idiot. A really big one.

This particular terrorist mouthpiece also airs the international version of Real Madrid’s television station and was recently given exclusive interviews with Raúl and Iker Casillas.

Is there really nothing you won’t say or do to get Florentino Pérez elected? No depths you won’t sink to? La Liga Loca cannot wait to find out.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (14th) vs Numancia (20th)

Now that they are stuck at the bottom of the table and destined for a swift return to la Segunda, Numancia are tired of being the referee's butt-monkeys and are speaking out against what they perceive to be a season-long campaign against them, a campaign that contributed to the team’s 20 defeats.

“Whenever referees take our games, they laugh in our faces,” complained midfielder Txomin Nagore.

And that’s a fine fantasy if you ignore the fact that Numancia got to play the 10 men of Athletic Bilbao for much of Tuesday night’s encounter, but still ended up losing.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Barcelona (1st)

Andrés Iniesta’s second minute opener against a truly sorry Sevilla may have kicked whatever stuffing was left in Real Madrid’s title-chasing cushions.

Or so says professional substitute Christoph Metzelder, the one Whites player who was delighted to watch Pepe going postal.

“I sat down in front of my TV to watch the game and two minutes later I wanted to turn it off,” said the German defender looking back at the Getafe clash. Sorry, the Barcelona vs Sevilla match.

Joan ‘Joan’ Laporta, for one, is someone who is living every kick of the title chase at the moment.

Well, that’s the reason he gives for last weekend’s giant huff when he stormed from the Getafe presidential balcony at the end of the game as only Laporta can when he has a big old bee in his bonnet about something.

“This kind of football makes it hard to keep a lid on the excitement,” explained the Barcelona president. What odds on his trousers coming off, once again, between now and the end of the season?

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sunday

Getafe (16th) vs Villarreal (5th)

Despite doing their level best to sulk their way through Thursday night’s encounter against Recreativo, Villarreal scraped a 2-1 win thanks to what AS are describing as a ‘zombie goal’ from Cani.

Apparently, that’s the term that kids today are using for a ‘goal’ that may or may not have crossed the line.

Thankfully, this is unlikely to launch a time-consuming argument over the use of video technology in the game in Spain, considering those running the sport have yet to get round to fixing the time of next weekend’s Real Madrid vs Barcelona clash - a match that La Liga Loca hears is of some interest to people around the world.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (19th) vs Mallorca (10th)

La Liga Loca must admit that it gave up half-way through Mallorca’s televised encounter with Valladolid. There’s only so much fun a blog can take watching what was an awful, goalless draw between two mid-table sides.

But La Liga Loca was punished by its impatience by missing out on two strikes from Mallorca striker Alhassane Keita.

The Guinean, who came to the club last summer promising 20 goals, has now racked up three which should leave the Balearic side as very much the one to watch over the last six rounds of action.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valladolid (9th) vs Osasuna (15th)

It seems that Osasuna may be in a spot of bother after their Wednesday night mash-up with Málaga.

The three red cards for the home side as well as the dismissal of manager José Antonio Camacho sparked the notoriously volatile crowd into life with a barrage of objects being thrown onto the pitch.

The referee’s report advises that Málaga’s Albert Luque was struck by an object and that the linesman was hit by a coin as he left the field at the end of the game.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Athletic (13th) vs Racing (11th)

After giving their fans - and the blog - a relegation scare for a while after a period of poor performances, Racing took advantage of the visit of the softest touches in la Liga, Atlético Madrid, to issue a 5-1 spanking to their opponents and move the club to within one or two points of safety.

And it’s all thanks to little Pedro Munitis, who wafted in two free-kicks that caused chaos in the Atleti box and plopped in Racing’s fourth - a truly exquisite chip.

“It was a magical night,” sighed the former Real Madrid front man, wiping away a tiny tear.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (18th) vs Betis (12th)

Surely, Espanyol cannot lift themselves out of their mess, like a powerlifting patient in an English care home?

They may have grabbed three goals on Thursday night to ease past Sporting in Gíjon. But it is set to be a very different matter on Sunday with the visit of Betis, a tough team with everything still to play for and.... and... the blog’s not fooling anyone is it?

LLL Prediction - Big home win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

While Pepe goes off to think long and hard about what he has done and perhaps considers rugby as a future career - after all, it’s a sport where stud-raking and trying to boot people’s heads into the stands is fair game - Madrid must take the trip down south to take on Sevilla, a side who may or may not fancy trying to win this game.

After the scenes of violence at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night - especially the sadly overlooked dustup between Cata Díaz and Marcelo, the most unfortunate mismatch since Maniche sat on a picnic stool - there could well be more fireworks on Sunday night according to Christoph Metzelder in an interview with AS.

“Sevilla are going to be going out with a knife in their bags, no doubt,” predicted the defender.

La Liga Loca is unsure if it is the accessories on a field of play or the lethal weapon that the Spanish authorities are going to be most troubled by.

Could go either way. A bit like the game.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Atlético Madrid (7th) vs Sporting (17th)

Now La Liga Loca doesn’t like snorting ‘told you so’ in response to Atlético’s 5-1 thrashing by Racing Santander on Thursday night, but it is going to anyway.

Told you so.

In the most predictable, explosive climax seen since Ever Banega got his right hand back after three months in plaster, the Atlético Madrid players promised ‘seven finals left, Champions League, all in it together, giving our all, etc’ and came up ever so slightly short in el Sardinero.

“They approached the game as if it was a friendly,” wrote Marca, giving the team an underhand compliment.

“We know that everything looks dark now but perhaps it won’t be on Sunday,” said rojiblanco boss Abel Resino, who is already looking forward to Sunday night’s home tie in front of some happy home fans.

LLL Prediction - Home win

You can catch Tim Stannard - the only man paler than Andres Iniesta - on pundit duty on RMTV’s Extra Time, broadcast 22.05 Friday night on Sky Digital channel 446 and repeated over the weekend.

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Barça fire rude response to Real Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:30:00 GMT

Like a date with La Liga Loca, Barcelona’s encounter with Sevilla was only fun for two minutes. But at least the fans didn’t walk off promising to call the next day.

Two minutes was how long it took for Pep’s Dream Boys to post their single-finger response to Real Madrid’s fist-waving fury from the previous night.

Two minutes was how long it took for Barça’s hero of the hour, Andrés Iniesta, to smack a shot past the hapless Javi Varas in the Sevilla goal.

Two minutes was how long it took for everyone in Spain to switch over to watch Desperate Housewives. Or, for those treasonous types, Manchester United’s Premier League clash with Portsmouth.

On Wednesday night, Sevilla showed just how truly average and uninspiring they have become under Manolo Jiménez, the man who took over the club’s reins from Juande Ramos.

Getafe had an excuse or two for barely having a touch in their Coliseum clash on Saturday night: they’re not very good and are being managed by Victor Muñoz.

But Sevilla have no such fallback position for the four goals conceded, or the two shots in response that was their wonderful night’s work.

Jiménez admitted that “we were infinitely inferior to them” and bleated that “you have to be perfect to beat them.”

You have to at least try to beat them, huffs La Liga Loca to a manager who waved the white flag from the off by leaving Freddie Kanouté on the bench.

Manolo eschews the option of brown trousers

Sport’s headline notes that “Who laughs last laughs longer,” while the considerably less literate Mundo Deportivo - the paper that communicates in grunts and clicks - yells ‘Superstar!’ at Iniesta.

“Barcelona are unstoppable,” opines Sport’s Josep Maria Casanovas. “La Liga will not be lost, despite certain referees.”

And Josep is probably correct in his assumption, considering there are just six games to go and Madrid have to face Sevilla in the Sánchez Pizjuán without Pepe, Sneijder, Robben and Higuaín (pending an appeal).

Elsewhere on Wednesday night, Osasuna found themselves suffering at the hands of a life-risking referee in Pamplona in their clash against Málaga.

The relegation-battling Basques were punished with the softest of penalties in the opening minutes before losing three more players and their manager in a game where the man in the middle seemed to quite enjoy himself – unlike the furious white-hankie/plastic bag-waving fraternity who watched their team crash to a 2-3 home defeat.

Osasuna fans: "May we have a word?"

Elsewhere, David Villa struck twice to beat Betis 2-1 at home in a match where Unai Emery claimed “the second half was ours” but where opposition coach José Maria Nogúes felt that “the second half was more open.”

And Deportivo beat Almería.

Thursday night sees what uncharitable types would describe as the runt of la Liga’s midweek fixtures. In the 10pm kick-off against Valladolid, Mallorca are hoping to see their crowd reach double figures.

“The other day, Arsenal's Alex Song told me that we are the only league you watch in bed when you go to sleep,” joked Mallorca striker Pierre Webo on the preposterous start time.

Meanwhile, two bald men fight over a comb in Gíjon as Sporting take on Espanyol. Atlético are set for another dazzling away day defeat, this time against Racing Santander, while Villarreal will continue to show indifference to la Liga with a narrow, scrapping win over Recreativo.

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One-man Madrid keep up pressure on Barca

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

It was like putting up with nine hours of Jacqui Smith, only to be rewarded by seeing her being blasted into space, Emperor Ming style.

The first half of the clash against Getafe at the Bernabeu was awful. Dire. Possibly the worst since the last league game at Real Madrid’s home.

The second saw the Bernabeu rocking and swaying like Maniche in a tree house and brought back memories of the famous 4-3 win against Espanyol two seasons ago - a match where a certain Gonzalo Higuaín first performed his championship-saving heroics and Fabio Capello came dangerously close to expressing an emotion aside from strop and grump.

Gonzo rescues Real... for a change

Real Madrid went into the break in Tuesday’s game drawing 1-1, after a thoroughly undeserved late first-half strike from the Argentine striker levelled the score in a match that a rubbish Roberto Soldado should have finished off, many times over.

But then Getafe continued to be a thorn in Madrid’s side with a breakaway effort that Albín buried with some aplomb. Whatever that means. With the Bernabeu feeling that their title toast had been well and truly burned, Guti equalised with a thumping free-kick.

Minutes later, Pepe brought down Javier Casquero in the Madrid box and proceeded to go Goodfellas on his Getafe backside by kicking lumps out of the midfielder.

The referee’s report notes that he proceeded to yell insults at the match officials as he was dragged off the pitch, only to reappear to celebrate Higuaín’s dramatic winner.

“I know that I made a mistake and must be punished,” admitted the blubbing Portuguese defender after the game. “He should be banned for 10 games,” stormed Angel Torres, the unforgiving Getafe president.

Casquero, perhaps still suffering from concussion, decided to chip Casillas for the subsequent penalty. It didn’t work. And with seconds on the clock, Higuaín charged into the opposition box to blast the ball past the excellent Stojkovic in the Getafe goal. Cue bedlam.

And cue an uncharacteristically industrious La Liga Loca heading to the Bernabeu backrooms armed with stun gun to snare the Dutch duet of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and the returning Royston Drenthe.

“I couldn’t believe it!” gushed a very hyper (for the Dutchman) Huntelaar. “It was a match where you think ‘ah sh*t, we’re going to lose’.”

Pepe: Sent off

Drenthe celebrated his return to the Bernabeu after a three-month absence by picking up a booking within seconds. But it was all part of a cunning plan, revealed the Dutch midfielder.

“I spoke to my father before the game. We said that if I enter the match, then I have to go in hard. Even if you get a yellow card, they know that Royston is back,” growled Drenthe.

Admitting that sleep was going to be tough that night, the Madrid man took time out to heap more praise on Higuaín. “He can be incredible in the most difficult of moments.”

Even Sport, over in Barcelona, found the match intriguing with Josep Maria Casanovas writing that “it was a final of shocks with laughs and tears.”

However, the paper is not getting too carried away with the affair and focuses its attention on Wednesday’s visit of Sevilla when “we are all playing” which may not be impressive as it sounds considering the usual attendance for midweek Barca games at 10pm.

While most of the Sevilla squad are preparing for a journey to the Camp Nou, the goalkeeper for the encounter, Javi Varas, is apparently expecting a trip into the valley of death. Or rather his mother is.

“She has been to La Macarena to light candles for me,” revealed the fearing-no-evil Sevilla man who is standing in for the suspended Andres Palop.

In Tuesday’s other game, Athletic did themselves a huge favour with a 2-1 away win to a now very doomed Numancia. But it was no thanks to defender Aitor Ocio whose fortnight has gone very Pete Tong.

Having been sent off against Osasuna two rounds ago, the Athletic stopper returned to the line-up only to score an own goal within nine minutes and be given his marching orders not long after with two swift yellows.

Wednesday sees Osasuna ‘entertaining’ Málaga in the Dick Cheney sense, Deportivo ‘entertaining’ Almería in the Spanish sitcom sense, while Betis are looking for a third win on the spin at home to Valencia.

The Mestalla men have been full of remorse all week, with both David Villa and Joaquín apologising for their unfortunate behaviour during Sunday’s 3-1 win against Sevilla.

Villa: Strops off

The two players were substituted in the victory and both players let their angry feelings known to Unai Emery. However, the pugnacious pair subsequently remembered that the hard-lining Valencia manager carried his childhood hobby of burning ants with a magnifying glass into adulthood and sought his forgiveness.

“I thought the doctor has ordered the substitution,” said Villa as motivation for losing his rag.

“I was breast-fed till the age of seven!” confessed Joaquín. About three years ago.

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Lazy Liga wakes up for midweek mayhem

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Those go-getting fast-trackers running the Spanish league gave a good four days notice to the plebs and players of when they would be in footballing action this week, so everyone had better be ready.

Incidentally, La Liga Loca would love to know how mild-mannered Sir Alex Ferguson would react to having to wait until Thursday morning to find out whether he would be playing a match the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

The blog imagines that a taxi to the league’s HQ and a chainsaw would form part of the measured response.

"I'll be back... with reinforcements"

For just the second time this season, la Liga is in midweek action with yet more dodgy refereeing decisions, rubbish red cards, god-awful 1-0 wins for Real Madrid and family friendly 10pm kick-off times on a Thursday night.

Tuesday sees two of the 10 games kicking off with Real Madrid at home to Getafe in yet another enthralling encounter that should see 80,000 people quickly regretting not having stayed at home to watch Liverpool take on Arsenal.

One player who completely forgot that there was a midweek encounter was Julien Faubert, who chose to stay in bed on Sunday and missed the morning’s training session. La Liga Loca is still unsure of how anyone noticed his absence.

The Frenchman is set to be fined with Juande Ramos commenting that his waste-of-money winger “thought it was a free day as normal.”

The speculation in the Madridista press is on whether Raúl’s booty will be parked on the bench for the game. But only because he is such a key player in the final run-in and needs his rest. And not because he has been really rubbish of late. Oh no.

AS come nearest to heresy in the Spanish capital with editor Alfredo Relaño noting that the Madrid captain has yet to score against Getafe and that he may not have the chance to do so again after tonight.

“A new era is coming with new players and it’s difficult to guarantee that he will keep his status (as sporting director)” writes the number one AS, who is probably angling for an interview with the Madrid number seven, rather than expressing an actual, valid opinion.

Marca are in two minds about Raúl’s role in the Getafe game. The official review has him starting the encounter but the accompanying caption has him sitting firmly on the bench. Nothing quite like covering all the bases.

"Well don't leave me here on tenterhooks..."

The paper’s craziest columnist, Roberto Gómez, is still suffering his punishment for having raided the office cookie jar one time too many.

It’s a punishment that sees his witterings cut down in size and poked away in a dusty corner of the paper. In response, Gómez has spent the past fortnight calling for the renewal of Juande Ramos’ contract and that the spirit in the Madrid camp has never been better.

“The little faces of Salgado, Guti, Codina, Faubert, Javi Garcia and Parejo were a poem,” sniffled Gómez on the moment when Ramos announced his squad for the away match to Recre last weekend. “They all wanted to go.”

The midweek round of matches gives another excuse for both lazy players and press alike to ramble on about there being eight/seven/six finals left until the end of the season.

Except in the footballers’ case when the ‘final’ is lost. Then it is the next game that is the real final. Unless that is lost, and so on.

Speaking of losing, Athletic Bilbao play “their final in Soria” according to Marca by travelling to play little old Numancia on Tuesday night.

The bottom of the table side are also facing a final where “the league is at stake,” according to manager Pacheta.

However, after just one win in 10, Athletic cannot get any worse and should more or less condemn Numancia to la Segunda with a cheeky away win.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 31

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Ever Banega

For an hour or so, it looked like being the 13th consecutive season that poor old Atleti would fail to win on their special ‘Day of the Fans’.

It looked like going the same way of the ‘Day of the Children’ the fortnight before, an event that saw thousands of new Real Madrid supporters being formed after a 4-2 home defeat to Osasuna.

But then the on-loan-from-Valencia, 20 million euro man Ever Banega came quickly off the bench, had a frenzied five minutes, rose to the occasion and exploded into action with a strike on the hour mark to give the rojiblancos a 1-0 lead.

The Ever reliable Banega

Opponents Numancia had a perfectly good equalising goal disallowed before Atlético wrapped up the tie with two more efforts and a famous victory.

“The Calderón had begun to think the worst, another fiesta and another fiasco,” commented AS, but it was alright on the night and a win to keep Atleti on track for another crushingly disappointing end of season run-in.

Barcelona

As one panicking, perspiring Barcelona fan noted on the blog over the weekend, it was a nervy second half against Getafe on Saturday night. But it really shouldn’t have been.

Having restricted the home side at the Coliseum to about two chances on goal during the entire encounter, Barça had penalties, goals, declarations of independence all turned down by the referee who, let’s not forget, has been instructed to hand the Catalan club the league title, according to Marca.

La Liga Loca had felt a draw in its waters in this tie, not because of the inferiority of Barcelona, but because of the notion that sod’s law would eventually catch up with Pep’s Dream Boys and some footballing punk like Getafe would get lucky one day.

Out of all Barcelona’s wins this season, the 1-0 drubbing of Getafe may well have given Pep Guardiola the most pleasure.

The downside is that a day-long strike by the workers of TV station, Telemadrid, meant that La Liga Loca was deprived of seeing what the most outrageously anti-Barcelona presenters of their Sunday night football show would have to say about the refereeing decisions.

El Pais were on hand to point out the good side to the blackout noting that the blank screen was “the best programming the channel has produced in years” and that viewers were spared “the systematic insults to our intelligence” that Telemadrid normally trots out.

Real Madrid

As ever, La Liga Loca has nothing original to say on Real Madrid’s result this week. Nothing different to what even the most barmy of Bernabeu fans are feeling.

Yes, 15 wins from 16 is incredible and yes, equalling the record of seven away victories on the trot is also a fantastic feat. But hells bells, does it have to be so dull to watch?

“The definition of minimalism,” complains Juanma Trueba in AS. “They’ve found a way of winning games and it doesn’t deviate a minute from the script,” notes Marca’s Santiago Segurola.

However, it is the paper’s editorial from Sunday that the blog has to agree with - something that makes it feel very uncomfortable indeed - and its opinion that “it’s a shame they’re not playing well... because they’re making history.”

Business as usual for Real

Alvaro Negredo

While Madrid are set to blow a good 60 million or so on either Kaka or Cristiano Ronaldo this summer - players who are by no means guaranteed to reach the 25 goal mark in la Liga - the club already has access to player who can achieve that feat, but for considerably less money.

In fact, for 4.5 million euro Real Madrid can invoke a buy-back clause on Almería’s Alvaro Negredo, a player who scored 13 league goals for what was a newly promoted club last year and is currently on 19 for the southern side.

Indeed, 15 of those goals came from open play - the same tally as David Villa - and six were headers. That’s six more than Higuaín, Raúl, Huntelaar and Robben have managed all season.

However, such a deal would probably make far too much financial sense for those at Castle Greyskull to contemplate. Negredo grabbed two more strikes on Sunday in a 2-1 win over Osasuna that lifts Almería seven points clear of the drop-zone.

Espanyol

As Christmas is just around the corner, let’s be charitable and keep up the pretence that Espanyol will pick up the 13 points needed over the final seven games to stay up. Here’s Paul from Barcelona.

"Well, not a bad day's work but the omens were not good.

"Three-year-old match-day mascot David Edwards didn't want to go on the pitch with the team, probably scared by the Jolly Green Giant until someone pointed out that he wasn't the smallest person out there. So, after towering over Munitis and Pereira the match was able to get underway.

"Racing, from here on known as 'The Flying Elbows' had their five minutes of dominance and then it was one-way traffic. Espanyol took charge of the game and should have gone in ahead at half-time.

"Second half, Espanyol charged head-first into Racing and were met with yet more elbows. They went ahead after a Nene free-kick was headed in by Ivan Alonso.

"Espanyol could have scored more and only really looked like throwing it away in the last five minutes. More due to nerves than anything Racing tried. So, overall, a totally deserved three points against a 'not as poor as Depor but not far off it' Racing.

"Espanyol to stay up if they play like that again whereas Racing are doomed if they keep playing like that.

"Stray cats - 0. Inappropriately placed crash barriers - 37.”

Paul, Barcelona.

Pablo Hernández

To help silence the screams in La Liga Loca’s head at night and bring forth sleep, it likes to imagine Valencia’s line-up next season, once everything of any value has been flogged.

The forward line currently consists of Zigic and Mata up front, with Vicente on the left and plucky Pablo Hernández on the right. Joaquín’s replacement is still a relative newbie to la Liga but returned to the club he began at after a season with Getafe.

However, every time Pablo has played for the Mestalla men he has earned his corn - especially considering the corn has been fairly scarce of late.

The right midfielder joined the fight against Sevilla in the second half and was on hand to finish a breakaway move in injury-time as cool as a cucumber. Pablo could be playing a key role in next season’s EasyValencia - the world’s first low-cost club.

Hernández wraps up victory for Valencia

Betis

If his arthritis wasn’t so severe, the 217-year-old Paco Chaparro would have been kicking himself furiously on Sunday night. Along with most of his squad.

Betis have now picked up two wins from two in the matches since poor Paco was handed his papers. The second was down to two strikes from Emana, who has now grabbed four in two to ensure firstly that Betis are in the top flight next season and more importantly that he won’t be there with them.

Deportivo

Despite their best efforts, a lucky late strike from Pablo Alvarez gives Deportivo their first win in five.

BAD DAY

Raúl

AS plonked the Real Madrid captain in their own Bad Day section for his performance against Recreativo and gave him a spanking with no marks. Marca awarded him two out of three.

Racing Santander

As Paul from Barcelona pointed out, Racing were less than impressive on Sunday - but that’s been the case for a while now with the club managing just two wins from 11. But seeing as they were against Numancia and Sporting, they don’t really count.

Before the defeat to Espanyol, Racing were on 36 points but a tempting 9/1 to go down, due to them quietly going about their business of being bad.

Those odds may be a little bit shorter today.

Sporting

La Liga Loca may have to change tack in its relegation predictions. A couple of weeks ago, it felt that Recre would be a dead-cert to go down. But the Huelvan side has shown some blood and guts in the recent matches against Sevilla, Barça and Real Madrid. Admittedly they lost them all.

But it’s a lot more than Sporting are currently serving up considering their recent record currently reads LLLLWWLLLL. The latest of these ‘L’s was Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Betis in another flop of a performance and another failure to secure a draw.

“We’re going to stay up, I’m convinced,” claimed Manolo Preciado after the game. La Liga Loca is not so sure. But it hopes it is wrong and that la Primera’s finest fans will be back again next season.

Athletic Bilbao

La Liga Loca has a fine Athletic supporting friend that likes to routinely blame their constant defeats on unfair red cards, turned-down penalties and mind control machines controlled from Castle Greyskull.

But he may be lost for words on Monday after what was down-to-earth blind luck against Deportivo in a 1-0 home defeat. Athletic really shouldn’t be four points off the drop-zone, but they are.

Any Copa del Rey victory in May could be very sour indeed if their current awful run continues.

Giuseppe Rossi

A missed penalty for the Villarreal man means that he has not scored in la Liga since the middle of February - a crisis mirrored by his side who have not mustered a league strike for three rounds now.

England-based colleagues suspected that Villarreal were flimsy up front in the Big League from what they saw in the ties against Arsenal. The blog argued otherwise, but perhaps it was wrong to do so?

Rossi: "Drat"

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The Living for Betis Weekend Predictions - Round 31

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Getafe (14th) vs Barcelona (1st)

A light-headed La Liga Loca has to confess that it has been rubbing its hands on its cockles all week. But has always washed them after.

After a month of unrelenting tedium at the top of the table, things are about to get sexy and sensational in Spain. And that’s because the glorious wrecking ball of Getafe is now swinging merrily into action.

Despite having been fairly pants for much of the year, the Coliseum club has a more than decent record against Spain’s big two, having beaten Madrid and drawn against Barça already this season and caused no end of headaches for the sides in the past.

AS promises that the Coliseum will be a ‘cauldron’ - it won’t - and the Getafe players are claiming that the match ain’t gonna be no barn dance for the visitors.

Meanwhile, the Camp Nou club has denied stories that the much-anticipated match will be beamed live to fans in the Catalan capital using Andrés Iniesta’s forehead as a screen.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Atlético Madrid (6th) vs Numancia (19th)

Even when they are not losing at home to Osasuna, the rojiblancos remain a highly entertaining club.

This week, the papers have been poking through the side’s summertime transfer targets, although a lot still depends on what level of European competition they will be playing in next season.

AS claim that the Calderón club will be making a 20 million euro grab for David Silva - and offering several sessions of hypnosis - to persuade the Valencia man to ignore the advances of Juventus, Real Madrid and Liverpool and play down the same flank as Pernía.

Raising the chuckle stakes even further, Marca reveal that Atleti’s sporting director Jesús Pitarch had dinner with former Zaragoza tearaway Andrés d’Alessandro, now at Porte Alegre, realising that the club did not have enough dressing room chaos going on already.

Maniche, for one, is almost certainly going to have his cakes and eat them somewhere new next season and boasted to the press that: “I have the chance to go back to putting on the shirt of a big club.”

An XXL shirt, of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Athletic (15th) vs Deportivo (8th)

In an effort to channel another 5-4 epic encounter, La Liga Loca is tipping this tie to be an absolute stinker.

Ever since reaching 43 points, Deportivo have apparently given up the ghost and gone on strike. And that’s not overly surprising since most of the side are out of contract this summer.

Meanwhile, Athletic have been saving their cherry like an overeager evangelist for May’s Copa del Rey final.

The arrival of the semi-final stage of the competition left Athletic as limp as lettuce with the club having managed just one win in nine games - a rubbish run that leaves them just four points above the drop zone.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Málaga (7th) vs Mallorca (12th)

Málaga’s rather handy 0-2 win over Villarreal last weekend has set things up nicely for a bull run at next year’s Europa League (La Liga Loca feels so silly writing that name).

But even the Champions chase is not such a crazy dream should Villarreal give up, Valencia fail to pay their players again and Atleti carry on being Atleti.

Either way, Málaga president Fernando Sanz is already getting giddy over away trips to the Ukraine next season. “It would be magnificent to play in Europe,” confirmed the owner’s son as he searched for the word ‘suitcase’ and ‘incentive’ in his Russian-Spanish dictionary.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (18th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

After months of tense excitement, the date of Florentino Perez’ glorious coronation has been set.

And it’s June 17 - meaning that one lucky so-and-so who is Spanish, been a ‘socio’ for 10 years, has nine people willing to serve as directors, 57 million euro and the support of both Madridista papers in the bag can become the new King of Castle Greyskull!

Unlike previous presidential polls, a third party firm will be running the show with no involvement from anyone in the club, boast Marca, who therefore imply that Madrid’s employees are so corrupt or incompetent that they cannot be trusted to run the election themselves.

Incidentally, for those watching the game on La Sexta in Spain, feel proud that the station’s undying dedication to the footballing cause means that their 10pm Super Saturday, Big Live Match is commentated on from a small booth in the station’s headquarters in the south of Madrid, rather than the stadium itself.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sunday

Valladolid (9th) vs Villarreal (5th)

As the blog reported on Thursday, Villarreal’s comprehensive exit from the Champions competition led to the annual investigation into why the English are lauding over la Liga.

In Friday’s edition of Marca, the papers director Eduardo Inda cites money and physical superiority as the two main causes. And certainly not the hopeless organisation of the game in Spain - organisation which meant that the upcoming midweek round of matches were scheduled just four days before some are due to kick off.

Instead, the paper has praised the leadership of the running for re-election as president of the league, José Luis Astiazarán, and chosen to ignore the organisation’s refusal to tackle match-fixing, their overseeing of clubs going into bankruptcy, players not being played and a destructive media fist fight.

“The balance of the leader of the LFP could not be more positive,” gurgled Tuesday’s editorial, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the back-scratching fact that Astiazarán is siding with the paper’s holding company in the Great TV War.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (16th) vs Osasuna (11th)

Over the past week, Alvaro Negredo has dropped one or two hints that he fancies a move away from Almería and to England’s green and pleasant pastures.

“Clearly every footballer wants to play there,” noted the striker pointing desperately to himself and ignoring David Villa. “Personally, the team I most like is Chelsea.”

The club who has Negredo’s Stamford Bridge dreams in their hands is not Almería, but Real Madrid who have a 4.5 million euro buy-back clause on their ex-striker should he ever leave his current club.

However, their intentions may be to use him as a counter weight in a deal to bring either Villa or Silva from Mestalla, leaving poor old Alvaro stuck in the back waters of la Liga.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (20th) vs Racing (10th)

“I’ll swap not playing another minute and Espanyol staying up,” declared Perico forward Luis García. Espanyol fans would argue that the two situations are directly linked.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

Everything is rosy in Valencia’s garden once again!

The players have finally been paid the 15 million euro owed to them since February. Correction - the players have been paid 20 percent of the money owed to them since February, with the remainder to come any day now, promises the club.

Carlos Marchena, for one, is towing the party line by declaring that he is not rushing to the cashpoint to look for his loot. “I don’t need to go to my bank account, their word is enough,” said the defender showing himself to be either dumb or gullible. Or a magic combination of the two.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (13th) vs Sporting (17th)

While the proposed buy-out of Betis by Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid al-Nuaimi appears to have gone very quiet indeed - La Liga Loca heard a story that the supposed interested party knew nothing of the deal - there has been much talk of the comings and goings of players next season, should Betis survive another relegation fight.

Defender Juanito is a free agent over the summer and looks set for a move to Atlético, and admitted this week that “there has not been an offer of renewal since December.”

Meanwhile, Emana was caught confessing to the French press that he fancied flying off to a bigger club than Betis over the summer. It was a declaration that brought about a swift and completely plausible denial from the man himself.

“I work for Betis, live for Betis and I’m part of Betis,” shouted the midfield marvel.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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Spanish press ponder Champions chase

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:00:00 GMT

With three English teams having qualified for the semi-finals of the Champions League for the third season in a row, the Spanish press have taken a teeny time-out on Thursday to sniff out the chances of the one remaining local side for local people still slugging it out in the tournament.

When La Liga Loca says ‘time out’, the blog means donating a couple of column inches to the topic. After all, there is other important business to attend to both in Madrid and Catalunya.

Sport are busy plugging Xavi’s ‘autobiography’ My life is Barça - an in-depth, no holds barred, tittle-tattle telling tome that will shock the world of la Liga.

Not really. As the book is sponsored by the paper and one of their ‘writers’ helped with the scribbling, chapters such as ‘Joan Laporta - what’s with the girl’s name?’ are unlikely to appear.

Xavi: No.1 bestseller. Or not

Josep Maria Casanovas writes that the treble is very much on, but is starting to get the wobbles over the six weeks or so to come. “When you look at the calender for the next month, it’s enough to give you a fright. Every three days they are playing for everything.”

Mundo Deportivo have begun trying to get the London-living Deco to return their calls, having spent the past six months or so blaming him and Ronaldinho for all of the Catalan club’s troubles last year.

Meanwhile, in the inside pages, Francesc Aguilar is looking for Pep Guardiola to bring back the ‘spirit of Chelsea’ from 2005 when the team ‘unfairly’ lost 4-2 in the last 16 second leg clash at Stamford Bridge.

“It was in those very same dressing rooms when the players vowed to win the following year’s competition.” And so it came to pass in Paris, Dear Reader.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño admits that the English teams may know a little bit about playing the world’s game after all, and gives them a doggy biscuit for doing so.

However, he does not see them ruling in Rome come May. “The English play nice, attractive, energetic, solid, practical football. But none of the three teams are as good as Barça."

JT heads home controversial winner in 2005

The paper also continues its ‘glass is half full’, ‘glass is half full’ approach to Cristiano Ronaldo.

When Sir Alex was accusing the pouting ponce of being a workshy, lazy, mercenary, sulking so-and-so the other week, the paper saw this as a very positive thing for a player whose precious, ham-loving heart is pining for the Bernabeu and the chance to play alongside Miguel Torres.

AS views Ronaldo’s super strike against Porto as a taste of things to come next season for Real Madrid, of course.

Marca also ponder the continued dominance of the English league but are less willing to put their cojones on the line and tip Barcelona for the title. “A third European Cup is not going to be easy. The English teams stand in their way,” boomed Thursday’s editorial.

There is praise for little old Villarreal and their Champions league exit against another English side, but few grumbles over the eventual result which saw a 4-1 aggregate win for Arsenal.

“They leave with their heads held high,” write Marca, “but they never really had any options.”

“Pound for pound... the English side was better than the Submarine,” admit AS.

In a fortnight’s time, we will discover if it will be the same story for the current league leaders against Chelsea.

Van Persie sinks Yellow Submarine

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La Liga Talentspotter

Big Bernado Schuster is back in business

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Having disappeared from the Bernabeu faster than the bullfight-barmy Sergio Ramos, blog über-hero Bernado Schuster has made a very welcome return to the Spanish spotlight after a four month absence.

With the moustache having transformed itself into a full-on Careless Whisper beard and looking a little like an out-of shape Jack Bauer, the former Madrid man has been in the pages of Marca this week talking about his past, present and, of course, Florentino Pérez.

As is the norm with Marca, these days the main aim of the out-of-the-closet confession-fest was to hurl yet more insults at Rámon Calderón, with the paper claiming that Schuster was cursed by “the opportunity of his life coming under the leadership of the worst president in 107 years” at Real Madrid.

"He's stood right behind me, isn't he..."

Calderón has responded to the slur by branding Eduardo Inda, the paper’s director, as “a man with a complex and a bad journalist without any prestige amongst his colleagues.” La Liga Loca knows the feeling.

Marca’s revisionist take on Schuster’s stylings is that he is a top, top manager after all and has afforded the former Bernabeu boss all the rope required to defend his 17-month tenure at Madrid.

Schuster’s gut-rumbling gripe about his spell in Castle Greyskull concerns his inability to dictate - or even have the slightest say - in the side’s transfer policy.

“There was money for Cristiano... but none for Cesc and Alves,” complained Schuster who also grumbled that, “Calderón didn’t bring me any of the signings I asked for,” leaving the coach’s cupboard barer than Maniche’s with the munchies.

Bernado is equally dismissive of the Sporting Director model much favoured in Spain. Or perhaps more accurately, he is equally dismissive of Pedja Mijatovic playing this particular role.

“He was against me from the beginning because I was not his favourite,” complained Schuster on the man who was always a strong supporter of Fabio Capello and someone who he feels was equally to blame for the transfer failure of the summer.

“Why didn’t Villa come? I don’t know, you’d have to ask the greaseball that one.” (For the record, La Liga Loca has gone creative in his translation of Schuster’s excellent use of ‘el gomina’ or ‘the hair-gelled one’)

It is this insistence of treating managers like expendable serfs that will prevent Madrid from bringing in the big cheeses of the global game, claims Schuster.

“In the whole of Wenger’s life at Arsenal, he has been more than just a coach. It’s the same with Ferguson and Benitez. These guys are more than just trainers. I imagine they would say, ‘I’m in charge of the team’.”

Inevitably, Schuster has been dragged into Marca’s Florentino Pérez for President campaign and says that he had a very enjoyable meeting with the Anointed One once but soon discovered that he knew absolutely nothing about football - an unfortunate condition for someone who eventually wanted to pick the team.

“You are not going to learn anything more about football after 30 games sitting in your presidential box,” noted Schuster.

Perez: "You'll become the best left-back in the world playing for us"

As well as giving Marca yet another opportunity to kick Calderón in his cockles, the Schuster exclusive was a chance for Bernd to put himself back on the managerial market.

There are stories circulating that the German coach fancies the soon-to-be vacated seat at the Vicente Calderón in an Atlético move that already has the blog’s bones a’tingling.

“I had a chance in Spain, but I needed more time,” revealed Schuster. “But I’m going to wait and see how things are at the end of the season.”

Welcome back, Bernado.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 30

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Vladimir Stojkovic

Having gone through more goalkeepers than a Seaman-obsessed old slapper, Getafe finally found the right man for the job on Sunday evening.

Vlad the Impaler was between the posts in the Sánchez Pizjuán and helped the visitors to their first clean sheet in 22 league games with some fine saves and even finer arm-waving and boggle-eyed staring.

Having previously worked their way through Ustari (too injured), Pato (too peculiar) and Jacobo (too meeeehhhh) they finally settled on the Serbian currently on-loan from Sporting Lisbon.

Combined with a tough-tackle and splendid run from Jaime Gavilán on the left, Getafe won just their second game in 10 to send coach Victor Muñoz more than a little doolally on the opposition bench.

David Villa

There is nothing as poignant as the player who pointedly refuses to celebrate a goal against a former team. That slumped posture of depression, so reminiscent of some poor soul being ordered to watch Real Madrid’s last three games all over again.

This was the brace position adopted by David Villa on Sunday on converting a penalty against his old stomping ground and big love, Sporting.

It was against the club that made him a big banner to welcome him home and even tried bribing him with a celebratory plaque before the game. But it was to no avail, as Villa’s first half strike was to prove.

Villa: All out of goal celebration ideas

Cleber Santana

The Mallorca midfielder has appeared one or two times in the blog’s past - usually with the word ‘why?’ and ‘!!!’ next to his name.

This is a player who is so awful that Atlético even put a clause in his contract forcing the on-loan player to play against them, rather than be left out. (This may not technically be true).

But for now, those jokes are (temporarily) suspended after Cleber’s Hugo Sánchez-esque overhead kick which put Mallorca ahead in their 2-0 win over Almería.

Osasuna

The 2-1 victory over Athletic, the side’s third win in a row, lifts Osasuna to the heady heights of 11th.

It also makes them - or so La Liga Loca heard - the third best team in Spain in the second round of matches with just one defeat in 11. Manager, José Antonio Camacho is perhaps one Madridista that the fans won’t lob lighters at it in El Sadar.

Kun Agüero

Or ‘Kum Agüero’ as one caption writer for TVE1 put, opening a whole different career path to Sunday’s goalscorer, should he give up football one day.

It was almost a very familiar but entertaining story for Atlético in Riazor. Decent work by the strikers let down by the side’s failure to play the final three minutes of the match with a late goal conceded.

“But this time, there was to be no circus (just)” wrote Iñako Díaz Guerra in AS. “We did well for the rest of the game,” noted Abel Resino coming to his team’s defence.

Emana

After a very sprightly first third to the season, Betis’ marvellous midfielder seemed to be stuck in the same plug hole of despair as the rest of his team-mates.

But the Cameroonian footballer finally clambered out to ‘sink’ 10-man Racing Santander with two goals to give new manager José María Nogúes a winning start to his no doubt short Betis career.

Málaga

Took advantage of a Villarreal side who looked like they were playing on jam rather than grass to restart their European push with a 2-0 win to keep them level with sixth-placed Atleti on goal difference.

Malaga stay on course for a Europa League spot

Barcelona, Real Madrid

The same reaction in the Spanish press to two more victories for both teams in a weekend that was sadly similar to the last round of matches.

Marca claim referees are helping Barça and complain they are winning the league ‘by decree’. Sport and co say that Madrid are spawny jamsters doing the bare minimum to hang onto Pep's Dream Boys’ brilliant coat tails.

Meanwhile, the Bernabeu correspondent for El País appears to be on the point of blowing their brains out with the headline that Madrid ‘win as much as they bore’.

BAD DAY

Cáceres, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Bojan, Hleb...

Over the next few weeks, Barcelona’s first-teamers are going to be busier than a one-legged tap dancer, but the less-than-super subs do not appear to be aware of this.

Like Maniche, they are unable to pull their weight and are contributing very little to the culé cause.

Although the 2-0 win over Recre can be seen as a battling performance in the middle of a big Champions League week, it’s nothing to what the Catalan club will face when the likes of Sevilla, Valencia, Chelsea and Villarreal come a callin’ over the next month.

If the Barcelona backroom boys can barely overcome a side that are in the bottom three, it doesn’t bode well for the immediate future of the league leaders.

Sergio Ramos

Replaces Guti in the Real Madrid naughty corner after leaving the ground at half-time (he was suspended, the game wasn’t that bad) to go and watch some bullfighting.

"I love a bit of bullfighting me"

Sporting

Have now equalled the record for number of matches played without achieving a draw - 30. And this sees Sporting slipping towards the relegation zone.

10 of the promoted club’s 19 defeats have been by the odd goal, a touch more pragmatism in some of those matches could have seen Sporting already safe for another season instead of one place above the trap door.

Sevilla

Have scored less goals than Real Betis this season. Which is not very good really.

Espanyol

Like an over-botoxed Barbie Girl, Paul from Barcelona has had a stiff upper lip for a good fortnight now... let’s see how it is holding this week.

“A five-and-half-hour drive through the jungle, desert actually, only to see us stitched up yet again. Three clear penalties (one for Numancia) not given and a perfectly good goal disallowed. The horror! THE HORROR!. Welcome to Espanyol's world.

"Over 1,800 made the trip and about 700 of them couldn't get in as it was sold out. Numancia decided that a point would be good enough so they didn't go for the win, whereas Espanyol did but came up against Supergoalie and Supermoron.

"By far the better team, Espanyol created loads of chances and should have had a penalty when Tamudo had a shot and what looked like a clear handball stopped it going in.

"A couple of minutes later a nod down from Moises was volleyed home by Sergio Sanchez. Disallowed because..........????????

"The ref was garbage. Both sets of fans agreed on this. In the final minutes Espanyol could have scored five or six times but Juan Pablo, Numancia's keeper, had the game of his life.

"So, results went against us and we are now seven off safety. How much do I hate Sevilla? Probably more than Barça at this moment in time. Not quite over yet. Three of the next four at home and our away match is against Sporting.

"Nice friendly people in Soria but no reason to visit them.”

Paul, Barcelona

Deportivo

A team that has gone into depression ever since securing safety for another season, say AS on a side that has picked up just one point from 12.

Getafe stall Sevilla

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La Liga Talentspotter

The 2000mph Weekend Predictions - Round 30

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:30:00 GMT

Saturday

Barcelona (1st) vs Recreativo (18th)

As well as wrestling with his own demons and the odd UEFA official, prickly Pep Guardiola now has to take on the familiar task of dampening down the fierce flames of expectation in the local Catalan press.

Sport and Mundo Deportivo already have Barça in the semi-finals - and so does Jurgen Klinsmann, something the German coach may regret very soon - but the talk from the on-message Barcelona massive is that the tie is far from over.

Xavi is still suffering from nasty nightmares over his Copa del Rey catastrophe against Getafe when a 5-2 lead was reversed by a 4-0 loss in the Coliseum.

Thierry Henry, meanwhile, delved into the history books for a reminder of how good times could go very bad. “Don’t you remember what happened to Milan against Deportivo?” tutted the French striker. “After Milan won 4-1 at home, everyone said it was over then Depor won 4-0 and could have scored six or seven.”

Meanwhile the existential question over whether Barcelona were brilliant or Bayern were completely bobbins on Wednesday night has been answered by the King of Catalunya himself.

“The first half against Bayern was the best in Barcelona’s history,” crowed Joan Laporta.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Villarreal (4th) vs Málaga (7th)

After a series of fairly lacklustre showings from Málaga, a former player who is all too familiar with the concept of poor performances, Fernando Sanz, had a bit of a dummy-spit at his squad this week after the 0-1 defeat to Real Madrid.

The Málaga president complained to the press that “some of the players were thinking more about their own personal performances” during the game against his former club.

Those same footballers have been given another chance this weekend to show if they are the real deal in the European football chase or happy to ease themselves into the comfy chair of midtableland.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sunday

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Valladolid (9th)

The cold, non-corporial hand of He Who Cannot Be Named continues to squish and squash the last, tiny speck of editorial independence left in the offices of Marca.

Those with even the shortest of memories will recall that the paper was recently trumpeting Arjen Robben as being the bestest, biggest player in the world. Ever. Better than Leo Messi even.

But in Friday’s edition, the bug-eating, Dark Master-serving bosses have been forced to bend to Florentino Pérez’ will once again by preparing the way for Robben’s departure over the summer, to release funds for the permanent purchase of Julien Faubert.

“Robben will not remain at Madrid,” predicts the paper’s headline. “If he leaves it will be the fault of his fragile muscles,” notes the edition’s editorial which has U-turned and branded the Dutch winger an overpriced waste of space.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Mallorca (15th) vs Almería (11th)

La Liga Loca was going to write a gag-filled epic on another hilarious week in the Almería camp, but it has just noticed that it has stopped raining in Madrid. And is a bank holiday.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Osasuna (14th) vs Athletic (12th)

As has been mentioned a few times in recent ramblings, Osasuna fans loath pretty much everyone - Real Madrid... Barcelona... Sevilla. But the side that really scratches their goats is fellow Basque operatives, Athletic Bilbao.

On Sunday, phasers in El Sadar (La Liga Loca is reverting to the stadium’s old name from now on) will be set to vaporise with the visit of a team just two points above them.

“They’re always pretty bad to us, we’re used to it,” shrugged Athletic striker Fernando Llorente, discussing the rancourous reception he and his team-mates are set to receive.

But they have a plan to overcome what will be boisterous opponents on Sunday. “We’re going to play at 2,000 miles-an-hour and see what happens,” revealed the returning Javi Martínez on Athletic’s cunning plan.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Numancia (19th) vs Espanyol (20th)

Everything to play for... er... six-pointer... a lot at stake... er...

LLL Prediction - Draw

Racing (10th) vs Betis (16th)

This week saw the splendid era of Paco Chaparro come to an oh-so predictable inevitable ending with a good old-fashioned sacking. The Andalusian Yoda packed his bags and left the Manuel de Lopera stadium without a word, leaving all the big-talking boasts to his successor, José Maria Nogúes.

The former youth team coach’s first task is to deal with the aerial threat of Racing’s Nikola Zigic, even though it seems to have escaped most people’s attention that the Serbian striker is as handy at heading as the subject of 80s Cher weep-vehicle ‘Mask’.

“I have central defenders that are tall enough to eat Zigic with chips,” boasted the cannibalistic Betico chief.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sporting (13th) vs Valencia (5th)

Not content with the Pérez for President campaign, Marca have also spent the week picking fights with Valencia bigwig Vicente Soriano.

Incidentally, for those who feel they are missing out on any AS action, that particular rag has passed a merry week making up stories about Kaka going to Madrid.

Wednesday’s Marca revealed that Soriano had offered the two Davids, Silva and Villa, to Real Madrid for a bargain 60 million euro over a lunch between himself and Vicente Boluda.

“Completely false and without truth,” spluttered the Mestalla man in response before the paper’s editorial firmly implied that Soriano was a fib-telling eejit who should be spending his time fixing the financial mess at the club rather than suggesting that the paper was full of horse manure.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Getafe (17th)

Understandably for someone who once claimed to be the second most important person in Seville after the Pope, José Maria del Nido is a busy beaver over the Easter period, and this sometimes makes him get a little overexcited.

“The team is on an unstoppable run! It’s magnificent!” squealed the Sevilla president on a rash of results that sees his side with six wins from the last seven.

It is likely that Del Nido’s joy will continue unabated for another week to come, considering they are facing the visit of Getafe on Sunday, a team “that had more fear of relegation last year,” according to captain David Belenguer.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Deportivo (8th) vs Atlético Madrid (6th)

Having barmily blamed the fans for last Sunday’s home defeat against Osasuna, rojiblanco club president Enrique Cerezo was forced to backtrack a tad and concede that boos from the stands may have born a little less relation to the team’s abject performance that he originally claimed.

Instead, Cerezo asked that the supporters refrain from jeering and whistling until the end of each match.

In the same interview in AS, Cerezo also referred to the away encounter at Deportivo as a game with a fair amount at stake. “We have to be in the Champions League by legal or illegal means,” announced the Atleti bigwig.

Considering he has already had a paddling from the Old Bill over his purchase of the club, avoiding prison due to a statue of limitations, La Liga Loca suspects Cerezo is comfortable with both approaches.

LLL Prediction - Home win

The good news is that you can catch Tim Stannard in action on RMTV's La Liga preview show 'The Match'. The bad news is that he is on for an hour. First broadcast 19.10 UK time on Skydigital channel 446 and repeated over the weekend.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Pep’s party met by joy and indifference in press

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Perhaps it’s because there’s a bank holiday in Spain and La Liga Loca can hear birds singing (and coughing) rather than beeping and blaring from cranky commuters.

Perhaps La Liga Loca is all giddied up over the thought of Semana Santa-celebrating, pointy-hat wearing men carrying ten-tonne altars around the streets of Madrid in the biggest display of virgins seen since the Pope’s last picnic.

But just this once, on this fine Thursday morning, a forgiving blog is willing to turn a blind eye to the stuff and nonsense spouted in Sport and Mundo Deportivo and let it pass. But just this once, mind.

As to be expected, both Catalan dailies are a’barn-dancing and a’bopping over Barcelona’s magnificent mauling of their German visitors in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Another week, another romp for the Dream Boys

“We’re in the semis!” squeals Sport’s headline. “An all powerful Bayern were humiliated by an unstoppable Barcelona,” writes Josep Maria Casanovas in the inside pages.

A jubilant Mundo Deportivo declares the Catalan club to be the best in the business after the 4-0 goal fest at the Camp Nou.

“When you type ‘the best team in Europe’ into Google, it should go directly to FC Barcelona,” writes the paper’s director Santi Nolla.

For once the Barça barmy press is right to fall into a terrific tizz over the events of the previous evening. The papers are simply experiencing what many neutrals perhaps felt within minutes of the kick-off of the Champions League clash - and that’s relief.

Fans in Spain had ranted and raved over the brilliance of Barcelona for months and enjoyed one devastating display after another.

But they knew that this was, in part, down to the all-too-frequent hopelessness of the team’s opposition in La Liga. The fear was that the club would be shown up as all hat and no cattle outside of the game in Spain.

Although Bayern were far from being at their best, Barcelona’s display strongly suggests that Pep’s Dream Boys can strut their free-styling, funky stuff against Johnny Foreigner too.

"If you score a fifth, you have to keep Uli Hoeness"

The Madrid press, for the most part, are quite happy to stick their fingers in their journalistic ears and completely ignore Wednesday night’s result.

AS have chosen to focus on comments by Zidane that he would not rule out a return to Castle Greyskull should Florentino Pérez return to the Real Madrid fold.

Their counterparts, Marca, continue what has been a truly shameful week by relegating Barcelona’s victory to a tiny top corner of the front page and lead their edition with Guti’s paranoid rants and raves from the previous afternoon.

The Catalan’s club’s dominance over their German opponents does not even warrant a mention in their editorial. One can only imagine that had the same result been managed by Madrid then it would have been calling for a public holiday to celebrate the occasion.

Most surprising of all, grown-up paper El Pais has shoved Barcelona’s win towards the bottom of the page on its online version and led with the immensely newsworthy story that its parent company has won a court victory in the Great TV War.

Once again, football fans in Spain have been ignored by a media intent on following its own puerile agenda rather than the interests of its readers.

La Liga Loca knew its good mood couldn’t last for long.

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Fans, not footballers, at fault say Atlético bosses

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

From La Liga Loca’s lofty perch in Atlético Madrid’s Vicente Calderón stadium, the blog is lucky enough to be able to gaze upon snow-capped mountains and the city’s royal palace. It can also enjoy the site of building works and a stinky, stagnant river.

And this is a rather handy and massively contrived metaphor / simile / comparison to the rojiblanco club.

The two sides to La Liga Loca came to rare agreement on Sunday that anarchic Atleti could be a brilliant, brilliant, best-in-Spain club, thanks to its handily-located near la Latina home and their die-hard fans love of Mike Oldfield megahit ‘Moonlight Shadow’ - “na na na na na na na na, na na na na, te quiero Atleti!”

Instead, it’s a bit rubbish thanks to the idiot twins of Enrique Cerezo and Miguel Angel Gil - a president and director general who barely speak and see the club as a battleground for their childish spats.

Now, Atlético Madrid fans have a deserved reputation for actively enjoying a good wallow in the moat of misery. But during Sunday’s 2-4 home defeat to Osasuna, the atmosphere in the crowd felt very different to the normal world-weary despair over the side’s hapless defence.

"Well it's not my fault"

When Walter Pandiani headed home after just eight minutes, the goal was met by complete indifference from the stands. Total silence.

Masoud’s super strike for Osasuna’s fourth saw standing ovations and cheers that veered between sarcasm and genuine appreciation of a fine effort.

After the game, La Liga Loca got Osasuna centre-back Sergio to admit that Sunday’s opponents for the Pamplonan club have a bit of a reputation for being superb up front but a soft touch at the back, especially vulnerable to long balls.

However, Atleti sporting director, Jesus Garcia Pitarch is blaming the home support for the weekend’s defeat, noting that at 1-0 the fans were “spreading nervousness to our players and this stopped them playing at their best.”

And it’s an opinion shared by Enrique Cerezo. “You can’t ask the team to win if the fans are against them from the third minute of the match,” complained the club president.

A poll in Marca has Atlético fans in despondent mood over the club’s chances with 92 percent of supporters saying their team will fail to finish in the top four.

However, as one eagle-eyed blog reader pointed out, the accompanying pie chart in the paper reports that 92 percent felt that Champions League qualification would be achieved.

From the depths of despair, La Liga Loca now moves to the heights of happiness with Barcelona’s Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, a game that it is set to be the club’s fourth sell-out event of the season.

People are coming... honest

And to make sure the packed culé crowd won’t regret missing out on any televisual treats at home, cheery songs are to be sung and images of great Barcelona triumphs will be played on the stadium screens to rouse the crowd from their normal state of complete stupor to something resembling consciousness.

Sport are doing their best by wheeling out a Catalan headline - something only done when the stakes are very high. “Tots som Barca!” yells the paper reporting that there is panic in the Bayern camp over tonight’s game.

All right-thinking readers of the blog would have been pleased that the spangly, dangly version of Villarreal was on display against Arsenal in Tuesday’s Champions League clash and not the half-arsed, can’t be bothered side of the club.

And to celebrate this joyous event, Spanish TV channel Antena 3 even managed a couple of minutes of commentary on the footballing affair in between begging its viewers to watch the double-bill offering of 2Fast 2Furious and useless Mel Gibson ‘Lorks! they killed my wife!’ Braveheart rehash, The Patriot.

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Betis put Paco out to pasture

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:30:00 GMT

Sadly (unless you are an Atlético fan), there’s only nine matches of Primera fun left till the season grinds to a horrendous halt.

But you can turn those frowns upside-down as there’s still plenty of time left for some sacrificial sackings by panic-stricken sides.

After the latest round of matches, two coaching heads were being held down on the chopping board of fate.

The first belonged to Victor Muñoz after a season spent RUINING Getafe and a hefty defeat against Valencia. The other was the Jagger-esque bonce of Paco Chaparro, the batty boss of Betis.

On Tuesday morning, the big-chinned chieftain of Getafe was handed a reprieve and released to prepare for another footballing failure. However his counterpart in the city of Seville was less fortunate.

As darkness fell over the Betis stadium on Monday evening - feeding time for Darth Manuel de Lopera - it was announced that Chaparro had been quietly returned to the city’s Home for Bewildered, from where he had been plucked the previous season when taking over the reins of the calamitous club.

Paco: Packed off

Sunday’s 3-3 home draw with Numancia, which included a last-minute equaliser for Betis’ opponents thanks to a Ricardo goalkeeping howler, left the club in its now traditional 16th spot, just one point and two places above the relegation zone.

Even more troubling for the Beticos is that they must face their next game away at Racing without the suspended Ricardo Oliveira and the injured professional idiot, Sergio García. The beardy-weirdy striker is out for a month having damaged himself on Sunday celebrating his club’s opening goal.

Taking over the Betis bench is the extremely cheap second team coach, José Maria Nogues, who made a promise on Spanish radio to “work hard and make sure they haven’t made a mistake” in his selection.

Nogues also revealed that he too could be sacked in a year’s time during another relegation struggle if things go tickety-boo over the next two months.

“Don Manuel told me that if we stay up he will renew my contract straight away,” beamed the former B-teamer.

Elsewhere in La Liga, Villarreal are preparing for a much-anticipated clash with Arsenal. Barcelona are preparing for a much-anticipated clash with Bayern Munich. And Real Madrid are preparing for a much-anticipated training session.

Spirits are very high indeed in the Kingdom of Catalunya with both Sport and Mundo Deportivo resorting to excited high-pitched squeals, journalism that only dogs and Barcelona fans can hear.

“Passion for the Champions!” yells Sport’s front page with Josep Casanovas, calling for the 47 or so fans who plan to go to the Camp Nou on Wednesday night to cheer their boys to victory.

Marca, on the other hand, want nothing to do with the overrated and somewhat tawdry Champions League. Instead, Tuesday’s edition sees them continuing their shameless and, dare La Liga Loca say it, whorish campaign to get Florentino Pérez elected as president of Real Madrid.

The paper published a photoshopped image of Kaka holding up a Madrid number five shirt (with a warning to some of its slower readers that it’s a mock-up). The accompanying story is just another part of the bizarre alternate dimension that Marca is currently residing in.

According to the latest edition, Pérez has already won the elections, selected Zidane as his sporting director, signed Kaka, roused Alfredo di Stefano from his nap and poked the club’s life president into presenting the Brazilian striker as his first summer signing.

“Pérez is producing heavenly music for the fans,” sighed Tuesday’s wistful editorial.

"Eh? I don't remember that..."

If that wasn’t enough to raise a titter on a Tuesday, Marca also publishes the latest update on the paper’s Alfredo di Stefano award - the annual prize given to Raúl as the season’s best footballer.

Each weekend, the paper’s readers vote for their player of the week. Points are then awarded to the top 10 of each round. At the end of the season these are then completely ignored when a jury of Marca writers and former Real Madrid managers give the trinket to Raúl.

After round 29, Marca’s voting populace decided that Gonzalo Higuaín was the best player of the weekend, followed by Raúl after his stunningly memorable performance against Malaga. Leo Messi’s rather plinky half an hour against Valladolid was voted the third best outing of the round.

However, despite this blow, the Barça forward still leads the pack in the season’s overall standings. Raúl is nestled behind him in second with Higuaín in third - a result that must leave the likes of Eto’o, Villa, Diego López and Forlán more than a little puzzled.

Meanwhile, another one of Marca’s polls has been quietly shuffled into the shadows after some 70 percent of readers voted that it was quite right for Juande Ramos to give Guti constant grief.

The online version of the paper put up a sniffy notice reporting that there had been signs of fraud on the poll, something that also occurred when a majority declared that Raúl should indeed have been left out of the recent Spain squad to face Turkey.

And something that also occurs when the paper happens to disagree with the results. Democracy rules in Marca-land.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 29

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Armchair fans

On Friday, a doom-mongering La Liga Loca feared a gaggle of match blackouts due to the increasingly petulant Great TV War. Instead, the complete opposite happened with almost every game being up for freebie grabs to Spain’s lucky viewers who were able to consume up to six matches from their starting-to-smell sofas.

The latest spat in the long-running saga began with the ‘G30’ clubs - there are only 22 of them, mind - refusing entry to AVS, their match broadcasters, in revenge for what they claim to be unpaid debts.

Instead, the likes of Valladolid stuck their fingers up at their sugar daddies by allowing free-rein broadcasting to rival TV company Mediapro.

“A fiesta for fans,” screamed Marca. “A war where football loses,” grumbled AS. Guess which papers are owned by which media groupings?

Barcelona and Real Madrid

Of course, the downside to Saturday’s football free-fest was that the encounters of these two table-topping teams were broadcast. A couple of fairly dull 1-0 affairs where the eventual outcomes were never in any real doubt.

Barcelona will offer up this week’s Champions League clash with Bayern as an excuse for their slackness, while Madrid will grumble about missing a number of starters through injury.

Juande Ramos

Despite taking one for the team and ploughing through the likes of Marca on a daily basis, La Liga Loca is still baffled by the batty world of the Spanish sports media. And why so few people seem to be recommending... er... Juande Ramos as the Real Madrid boss next season.

Since taking over from Bernd Schuster, the former Sevilla man has played 15, won 13 and lost just one – his first match, against Barcelona in the Camp Nou, only lost by an ant’s picnic basket.

The Champions League debacle against Liverpool is Ramos’ only real blemish, although the blog may perhaps be overly charitable in its opinion that there was probably little that the Madrid manager could have done to prevent it.

While the likes of Wenger, Ancelotti and Pellegrini are being bandied around as Ramos’s replacement, why aren’t people looking a little closer to home? (Continues to scratch head. Possibly because of lice.)

"What's a guy gotta do?"

Athletic Bilbao

Over the past two months, Athletic Bilbao’s players were either preparing for their Copa del Rey semi-final clash, drunk from winning it or being b*tch-slapped by La Liga’s big four.

For these many and varied reasons, the Basque club had not mustered a victory in seven attempts. But this rather rubbish run ended on Saturday night with a slightly spawny 2-1 win over Mallorca which owed a great deal to an early spot-kick awarded harshly for a ball-to-hand incident – something that even Athletic manager Joaquín Caparrós owned up to.

Freddie Kanouté

Now the equal highest foreign goalscorer for Sevilla with 90 strikes. The same as Davor Suker. The blog man-love for Steady Freddie continues.

Espanyol

For once, the blog doesn’t have to patronisingly put Espanyol in the Good Day section after a plucky draw or a defeat where they did their very, very best. Sunday’s 3-1 win over Deportivo gives the Pericos a glimmer of hope of survival that will surely be snuffed out by the water pistol of reality. Here’s a potty Paul from Barcelona who saw a monumental match in Montjuic...

“I'm still in shock. First home win since 1994 (well, it feels like it). Totally deserved against, it must be said, a very very poor Depor. The first bit of luck for ages came when De la Peña played a pass for Ivan Alonso and the keeper allowed it to bounce off his chest and Alonso put it in from a tight angle. 1-0.

Then, just before half time, De la Peña beat two defenders on the edge of the area before passing the ball into the corner of the net à la Steven Gerrard. A fantastic goal. But this being Espanyol, we allowed Depor to score about two minutes later.

Second half was very poor and Espanyol had two cleared off the line and could have had a penalty for handball. Rufete ran clear in injury time to score a third which gave a truer reflection of the play.

Espanyol have played much better and lost – but we won't be playing teams as bad as Depor every week.

Stray cat count 0, but one in the car park.”

Paul, Barcelona

Masoud Shojaei

On the few occasions that La Liga Loca has caught the Iranian winger in action, the blog had a feeling in its waters that it was he was a bit special. Either that, or the old prostate's playing up again.

It was Masoud the Magnificent on Sunday afternoon in the 4-2 win over Atlético Madrid in the child-filled Vicente Calderón. The cherry on the trifle of a fine performance was his solo effort in the second half which had half the Atleti defence on their backsides and mentally ringing their agents for a way out.

Valencia

“We owe a debt to our fans,” admitted Unai Emery before Valencia’s Sunday’s 4-1 win over Getafe and adding to the club’s ever-expanding list of creditors.

Alvaro Negredo

His salmon-leaping header in the 3-0 win over Villarreal was the Almería striker’s 17th league goal of the season.

Negredo: "Let's play Twister, let's play Risk"

BAD DAY

Atlético Madrid

Now, La Liga Loca can occasionally be prone to exaggeration and, well, making stuff up. So readers may have justified doubts when today’s update claims that Atlético Madrid were so bad that even those who apparently could not walk rose miraculously from their seats and left the stadium.

During the first half, La Liga Loca spotted an Atlético fan in a wheelchair repeatedly raise himself to his feet to berate his idiot players. The same fan abandoned his chair at half-time and never returned.

But there’s more. Atlético Madrid were so blooming awful that one supporter changed his footballing allegiances halfway through the second half. Off came his rojiblanco top to be replaced by a Juventus shirt.

“You don’t normally begin building a house with a roof,” sighed Marca, lamenting the home side’s fantastic front four and naff-all else. "As always with Atlético, you know how the film is going to end after 10 minutes,” wrote AS.

In Sunday’s case it was eight minutes – the time it took for Osasuna to have a goal disallowed, hit the post and score the opener.

Guti, Maniche

And so both midfielders' careers swish even further down the U-bend of despair.

Guti was left unused and unwanted on the bench after warming up for much of the game against Málaga. Aside from the final five minutes, that is, when he was recorded by TV cameras refusing to get up from his seat after being told by the club’s trainer to go and run around a bit.

Maniche was left out of the rojiblanco squad, once again. The portly Portuguese player has not played a single minute for Abel Resino since informing the Atlético coach that he got his tactics all wrong against Porto in the Champions League second leg goalless draw.

Maniche and Resino: "Tell him I hate him"

Santi Cazorla

Villarreal’s 3-0 collapse against Almería was fairly predictable - although not for La Liga Loca on Friday - but what did come as a huge shock was poor Santi Cazorla breaking his ankle.

The magic midfielder is now out for at least four months and his absence severely scuppers Villarreal’s chances against Arsenal in the upcoming Champions League clash.

Ricardo

Comedy gold in the Manuel Ruiz de Lopera and “the perfect example of what Betis has become in recent years,” write Marca.

With just seconds on the clock, it looked as if Betis had been let out of jail with a penalty from Ricardo Oliveira putting them into a 3-2 lead.

But that was before a long ball was hoofed into the Betis box and a red-carded Ricardo came flying off his line to take out Numancia forward, Aranda. The inevitable penalty gave Numancia the chance to finish the game 3-3.

“He took their forward out, but these things happen,” shrugged a so-close-to-being-sacked Paco Chaparro.

Getafe

Muñoz Out! Muñoz Out! Muñoz Out!

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Pig Slaughtering Predictions - Round 29

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Recreativo (16th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

La Liga Loca knows it. You know it. Heck, even master prediction-maker (still waiting for Pedja’s sacking, still waiting) Roberto Gómez knows it - Manolo Jiménez will be shot out of Sevilla’s footballing toaster this summer and banished to the kitchen bin of doom.

Although the Andalusian club is sitting pretty in third, the fact Juande Ramos’ replacement has bored the pants off the Sánchez Pizjuán faithful over the past year-and-a-half with his defensive stylings means that Jiménez’s goose is cooked.

However, the man himself is still talking a good - if slightly insane - game over his future. “I want to take Sevilla to the Champions League and win it,” claimed a potentially happy-pill-taking Jiménez over the international break.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Valladolid (9th) vs Barcelona (1st)

This week, Barcelona’s title dreams were as dashed and pulverised as an unfortunate height-related accident that once befell one of La Liga Loca’s hamsters.

Rather than being this season’s silverware that has been lost, it was the title from 1937 that was blown. Back in the days of the Spanish Civil war, a mini-league was held in the then Republican Zone between eight teams including Barcelona, Espanyol, Valencia and Levante.

Barcelona won the truncated tournament, but it has never officially been recognised especially since the absent Madrid clubs were being shelled into oblivion by Franco at the time.

However, Barça’s bid for their title to be recorded was rejected by the Spanish FA this week, who argue that it was not organised by themselves and therefore does not count.

Meanwhile, in not-really-that-shocking news, there is a strong possibility that the Valladolid clash will be blacked out to all and sundry due to a TV contract dispute.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Almería (13th) vs Villarreal (4th)

The main advertising aim of Lynx - the poor man’s Old Spice - is to convince its potential buyers that just a couple of squirts from the sickly smell-masker are required to make someone with a face like a yawning Gordon Brown irresistible to hot ladeez.

The Spanish version of the product, called Axe, has tested this marketing theory to breaking point by revealing one of the faces for the product in Spain.

Step up Villarreal super star Santi Cazorla, who resembles a chipmunk with a migraine.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Betis (17th) vs Numancia (19th)

Betis pretend president, Pepe Leon, decided to step out from behind Darth de Lopera’s skirt this week and face some questions put to him by fans on the t’internet site, ‘Betisweb’.

And what a warm-hearted set of posers were put to poor Pepe, with questions such as “how do you sleep at night being a puppet of De Lopera?” and “do you know the meaning of the word dignity?”

“I would be the first to report any irregularity because my honesty is at stake when I sign off the accounts,” blubbered Leon denying that the club’s annual accounts are dodgier than an Andalusian car dealer.

“You’re pathetic, we are tired of your constant c***” was the supportive response from one Betico on Marca’s website.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Athletic (15th) vs Mallorca (12th)

One of the biggest disgraces of this season was Mallorca’s refusal / inability to cough up the money owed to Athletic for striker Aritz Aduriz, who moved to the Balearic club over the summer.

Mallorca’s subsequent financial meltdown meant that poor old Athletic have barely seen a penny of the money owed to them.

But because of something stupid called the law, Athletic’s hard-men have not been able to bring their former forward back to the Basque country in a packing crate. And this is why there is to be no traditional pre-match meal between the two clubs’ bigwigs.

Aduriz himself seems to be unsympathetic to his old team’s plight, promising that he will “do everything possible so that Athletic lose and Mallorca win.”

LLL Prediction - Home win

Málaga (8th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

Yet another player has stepped into the circus ring and put himself up for auction in this summer’s Real Madrid presidential elections.

The director of a computing consultancy firm, Eduardo García, is fronting a consortium of 15 companies who will be stumping up the cash for the deposit to take part in the race that runs on the slogan that, “we are all presidents.”

The most remarkable feature of García is that he is just 29-years-old and is not a supporter of Florentino Pérez. And this means that he immediately falls into Marca’s bad books who describe him as being "insultingly young."

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sunday

Espanyol (20th) vs Deportivo (7th)

Now, the sun has been hard come to come by in a slightly shivering Spain this week, but what little there has been may have gone to Ivan de la Peña’s big shiny head.

“People can think I’m mad, but I’m certain that we are going to save ourselves,” gibbered the veteran Espanyol midfielder.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Atlético (5th) vs Osasuna (18th)

Some La Liga Loca readers may remember a story from a few weeks back regarding a crazed Osasuna fan promising to regale the players with pigs should they get something from their away match with Betis.

Well, Osasuna sneaked a goalless draw in the De Lopera stadium and Luis Miguel has kept his word and handed over the very much alive goods to the surprised looking players.

The poor little piggies weigh just seven kilos and are less than a month old. And a strange purple colour.

“We tried to paint them blue and red,” explained García, “but they got a bit nervous on the journey here and started to move around.”

All that’s left now is for Walter Pandiani to slaughter the cute little animal in front of his wailing, blood-spattered children who are likely to be scarred for life.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (6th) vs Getafe (14th)

For once, it’s good news from Mestalla for Valencia fans as the club has managed to scrabble enough cash together to pay the outstanding wages to the players from February and March.

Valencia bosses have secured a 50m euro loan at a 7 percent rate, say AS, which will cover the debts to the footballers, the new stadium’s developers and the tax man. The loan has been backed with future TV revenue and season ticket sales from the 2011/12 campaign.

All the club needs to do know is borrow another 40m euro to make it to the end of the season without resorting to sticking an oiled-up Joaquín in a window with a red light.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sporting (11th) vs Racing (10th)

Now, La Liga Loca has probed long and hard all week - well, asked about two people - to find out why there are five games being played on Saturday (only three of those include Champions League teams) and the Sporting vs Racing clash is the big free-to-air special on Canal Plus.

Still no takers with a response that does not have the word 'idiots' in the reply.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

LLL For Madrid President: The Campaign Continues

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Many, many moons ago, La Liga Loca declared itself as a candidate in the wacky race to be the next president of Real Madrid, to enormous global press interest.

After weeks of wheeling and dealing, contemplating and conferring in dark smoky rooms, the blog has realised with much sighage that it must resort to desperate measures in its aim of being crowned King of Castle Greyskull.

La Liga Loca needs help from its multimillion-numbered readership.

With the elections having been formally declared last Sunday and set to be held on June 7, or June 14, or in May, La Liga Loca has come to the depressing conclusion that it is not qualified to stand in the presidential poll due to a number of very, very unfair failures.

And this is where all you good, good people in the real world come into the equation.

La Liga Loca is looking for a stooge... sorry, candidate... to front the People’s Campaign.

The requirements from the campaign’s frontman are simple...

1) Must be Spanish and over 18.
2) Must have been a Real Madrid member for 10 years, or five years under ‘special cases’. Or be very good at Photoshop and hacking.
3) Have the ability to recognise actors that have appeared in National Treasure.

An elected leader, yesterday

In the event of a glorious victory for La Liga Loca, the stooge will be required to do nothing more than follow the instructions of the blog collective to the letter, plonk a gallon of hairgel on their head, annoy Sir Alex Ferguson and be prepared to answer busybodying questions about your expenses claims.

The downside of the role is the strong possibility that for the length of your mandate you will have a grudge-bearing Ramón Calderón letting down your tyres and tipping your bin over.

Roberto Gómez in Marca writes that the ex-president is still fuming at current head honcho Vicente Boluda and told him to ‘get lost’ at the recent Spain vs Turkey clash at the Bernabeu.

That cantankerous outburst came after failing to invite his successor to the Spanish FA’s centenary celebrations, something that Calderón was in charge of organising.

The role is expected to last four years, although recent history shows that the stooging position will only take two years of your life due to the Julius Caesar backstabbing nature of the Bernabeu club.

"Et tu, Boluda?"

However, in these short months, there is ample opportunity for collecting amusing dinner party anecdotes. And shiny trinkets.

Ramón Calderón can often be heard recalling with a chuckle how he was mistaken for a Central American drug lord at a New York airport, handed over a Real Madrid credit card and shirt to an Italian Nicolas Cage impersonator, called up his mate Cesc Fabregas and accidentally insulted much of his squad to a room full of journalism students.

All interested parties or those who want to nominate people who they feel would be perfect for the role, should add their comments to the blog or e-mail their thoughts directly to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk.

Over the next few weeks, La Liga Loca and its Dear Readers will be putting their limited braincells together to tackle the thorny issue of raising the 52.5m Euro deposit necessary to become an official candidate as well as carving up all the plum jobs in the event of a glorious victory.

La Liga Loca - the change Real Madrid deserves.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Monchi madness and Forlan’s fame

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

One of La Liga Loca’s proudest moments was when, armed only with Dick Cheney’s ‘Torture for Dummies’ and a hairdryer, it managed to get a former Marca writer to admit that the paper did indeed make almost all of its stories up.

The squealing scribe ‘fessed up that every summer a whiteboard would be wheeled into the paper’s editorial room, names of players would be written on it and front-page stories would then be written linking the unfortunate footballers to the various clubs in Madrid.

More sympathetic, sunny-thinking folk would note that the paper still has to sell copies in the slow season and would argue that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of idle speculation in what is an entertainment industry.

Others of the tinfoil beanie hat persuasion would rant that the whole process is planned and hatched in the dark, drizzly dungeons of Castle Greyskull.

Indeed, the conspiracy-nutjobs will be having a fine time of it at the moment as the Florentino Pérez presidential run has caused every paper in Spain to leap on the bandwagon and get down and dirty with stories aimed at destabilising rivals.

Sevilla have been hit by one such rumour, with stories floating around that president non-elect Pérez has his eyes on Monchi as his sporting director, come June. Meanwhile, AS meanwhile report that Jorge Valdano would be returning to the role he left in 2004.

José Maria del Nido, Sevilla president, denied in the local press that Pérez - an honourable man, close personal friend, etc - would ever do such a thing. “I’ve convinced he won’t come for Monchi,” declared the club’s godfather.

Meanwhile, Monchi himself shrugged off the rumours and moved into third-person crazyman form to claim that “while José Maria del Nido wants me at Sevilla, Monchi will be at Sevilla.”

Monchi also predicted that his club were not far off winning the league title. “We are very near to finding the perfect solution,” claimed the sporting director remarking that there would be very little transfer activity from Sevilla this summer.

Villarreal are another victim of more mucky messiness than Jacqui Smith’s expenses claim, with Barcelona based Sport linking their rival’s manager, Manuel Pellegrini, with the post of Real Madrid manager.

AS, meanwhile, are covering all bases with one writer claiming that Carlo Ancelotti is Pérez’ first choice, while another backs Sport’s claims by saying that Pellegrini would be Jorge Valdano’s choice, should Valdano be selected by Pérez, should Pérez win and should Pérez decide to run for presidency, of course.

Mundo Deportivo are busying themselves with a response to the entertaining argument from Víctor Valdés’ agent, Gines Carvajal, that his client should earn just as much as Iker Casillas.

As is the paper’s normal routine, it leads with a story detailing Barcelona’s unhappiness with Carvajal’s complaints - without giving any quotes or substantiation to their claims, naturally.

And to make an extra point, MD is also running a poll asking Barça fans to select their favourite alternative to Valdés once the keeper leaves the club in the summer. The current top of the goalkeeping pops is Villarreal’s flavour of the month, Diego López.

Meanwhile, over in the Atlético’s wonderful world, Diego Forlán has shown that he has some hidden off-the-pitch talents.

Although the striker is currently on international duty with Uruguay, it has been revealed in the Swedish press that the former Manchester United man has also dabbled in the world of popular music. And Shakira. But not in that way.

Sometimes songwriter for the Colombian hip-shaker, Olaf Priol, claims that Forlán plays a notable musical role in one of her biggest selling records, ‘Whenever, Wherever’.

“Shakira and Diego were both in Miami and met through a mutual friend,” recalled the one-time Roxette member.

“They were in the recording studio, Diego was messing around with some pan pipes which he knows how to play. He ended up appearing on the record,” chuckled Oriol on the Atlético man’s claim to musical fame.

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Busking epidemic hits Valencia

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:30:00 GMT

Despite the shocking news from commie daily Valencia Morning Star concerning the 895 percent increase in windscreen-cleaning squeegee merchants in the downtown area - all looking suspiciously like members of Valencia’s first team squad - the city’s football club has turned down the offer of cold, hard cash from a friendly neighbour.

In a move that will lead to yet more greengrocer-pilfering by Oliver-esque attackers, Valencia’s board met on Monday to reject a bid of 62 million euro to buy part of the up-for-sale land that the current Mestalla stadium is plonked on.

The punter looking to make a swift killing was Enrique Ortiz, who ticks all the dodgy boxes of being a property developer, president of a football club and based in Alicante.

Ortiz is the owner of second division club Hércules and was looking to buy a patch of the Mestalla land and build a big old tower on it.

However, the offer was turned down by the men from Mestalla because there were “more trustworthy and suitable alternatives” and all the cash would have gone straight to the bank to help clear the 240m euro debt without a single cent left to pay the players.

Coming soon: tower block

El Pais note that had the club accepted an offer for the whole of the Mestalla land at the same rate, Valencia would only have received 197m euro, far from the 300m originally expected.

It was “a sticking plaster on a gore wound from a bull,” noted AS, who have gone through the club’s accounts to find something even more terrifying than a busking David Albelda.

The paper writes that the club’s immediate debt is a good 500m euro. 70m euro is needed before the end of June to clear outstanding payments to players, staff, paella firms, construction companies, taxmen, etc.

The cost of their new Death Star stadium where work was suspended in February is thought to be 390m, although 100m euro has been poured into the project already.

This leaves the club some 210m short of being a groovy 1 billion euro in debt, say AS – a fine performance even by Spanish football’s standards.

Meanwhile, Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino has taken up the challenge of saving his club’s skin in fine, traditional response - by taking a long walk.

Over the years, club coaches who have found themselves in a spot of bother have often promised to undertake great pilgrimages if God takes a fancy to their side and spares it from the hellmouth of second division football.

The latest Perico leader took advantage of a free morning last week to stumble 12 kilometres up the very steep hill to the Montserrat monastery in Barcelona - with wife and backroom team in tow - to pray for salvation for Espanyol. And world peace, perhaps.

"I'm going for a walk. I may be some time"

With the cold weather having returned to Spain, and yet another bank holiday still a good 10 days away, Víctor Valdés’ agent has chosen to lift everyone's spirits and raise a chuckle by claiming that his client is worth just as much as Iker Casillas.

The Barcelona goalkeeper is wheedling to get an extension to his current deal which expires at the end of 2010, and his main man, Gines Carvajal, is arguing that the fumbling footballer is one of the best in the business.

“He has demonstrated over the years that he’s at the same level as Casillas and Buffon,” claimed Carvajal, with a perfectly straight face. “There are three, four, or five top level clubs interested in his services.”

La Liga Loca had no idea Juventus were in the market for a children’s entertainer.

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Madrid celebrates a grown-up gathering

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:00:00 GMT

“It was a great example of Madridismo!”

Has all that toiling and tinkering, sweating and swearing in La Liga Loca’s basement finally paid off?

“Madrid can write another glorious chapter!”

Has its spanking new time machine transported the blog 150 years into the future to bring you the headlines heralding the club qualifying for the Champions League quarter-finals?

Actually, no.

These whoops and hollers are just an acorn-sized sample of the preening praise being hurled in Real Madrid’s direction after the club that puts the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’ managed to organise an institutional event that did not involve widespread corruption or the intervention of the Old Bill.

On Sunday, the Madridista massive rolled out a rerun of their General Assembly - the event that was originally held back in December but blighted somewhat by the presence of hooligans and vote-riggers.

However, Assembly v2 went off in a distinctly adult atmosphere of civility thanks to all sorts of ingenious ideas, such as an electronic voting system and the screening of ‘socios’.

And this has led to an enormous sigh of relief from the club’s support, as there were frenzied fears in the days leading up to the gathering of ‘compromisarios’ that yet another unseemly scramble would take place.

The biggest concern for Madrid was that stand-in suit Vicente Boluda would not be ratified by the club’s super-members - something that would have led to the assembly’s immediate suspension, warned Boluda.

There were genuine fears that the increasingly bitter and twisted Ramón Calderón would deck the halls with boos and folly and cause carnage.

The ex-president is officially back in business and is threatening to wreak revenge on those who forced him out of his presidential position at Madrid by standing in the next poll which is expected to take place in early June.

“I will tell you the truth. I will not win the elections, I just want to make things difficult,” declared Calderón to AS demanding a television debate with Florentino Pérez.

So at 8am on Sunday morning, the nine hour affair got underway with a distinct lack of Ultras, riot police or Atlético Madrid supporters - all features of the club’s last attempt at a Big Tent gathering.

Instead, the club had outsourced the organisation of the assembly to a third party, meaning things went uncharacteristically smoothly.

Angry middle-aged men waving red or white cards were replaced by fancy-pants electronic voting and the attendees implemented the cunning plan of allowing each other to speak without being interrupted or insulted.

The first order of business was the ratification of Vicente Boluda as president, followed by the confirmation of the club’s accounts. But perhaps the biggest change made to the Madrid's barmy way of doing business was to the statutes governing the postal vote during the presidential election.

The previous rules allowed block voting, where a candidate could hand out the poll slips to employees of any of his companies and was in charge of sending them back to the club - a process that allowed great scope for votes to be ‘lost’ or altered, as happened during the last election in 2006.

Despite opposition from the pro-Florentino Pérez platform, Etica Madridista, a two-thirds majority gave their support for the implementation of a standard confidential postal vote system, as used in official elections.

“Madrid goes into the 21 century”, beamed Marca on Monday’s front page in response to the change.

Much of the paper’s praise has been flung in Vicente Boluda’s direction, with the editorial lauding the oil-slicked stand-in for “having to take on rivals of the calibre of Barcelona and Liverpool, face the uncertainties of the winter transfer window and lead the club through the 'Champions Chapuza' (the Huntelaar/Diarra mess-up).”

For the record, Barcelona are still leading La Liga, Liverpool thrashed Madrid, Julien Faubert was signed and Boluda managed the scandal by punishing no-one.

The overblown reaction to the smooth-running of an event where police horses were not required - for once - shows how just far down the path of off-the-pitch pottiness Real Madrid has wandered.

But with a whole collection of crackpot candidates set to duke it out for the keys to the club over the next two months, the self-congratulatory back-patting may turn out to be more than a little premature.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga Loca’s Uninspiring XI

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Today’s ramble through the wonderful world of La Liga is dedicated to the wasters and what-the-heck-happened? of this year’s Primera.

The blog brings you an XI comprised of those players who simply aren’t cutting the mustard or not trying, those who can do better and those who should just give up now.

But rather than choose the Numancia back four and a Frankenstein’s monster made up of Sporting goalkeepers’ body parts, La Liga Loca has decided to bring down some big guns.

Please feel free to add some more names to this season’s Walk of Shame.

Goalkeeper - Carlos Kameni (Espanyol)

Last summer, the likes of Spurs were sniffing around this crazy Cameroonian. Not any more. Unless their chief scout’s Sky subscription remained unpaid for the past nine months.

The Espanyol keeper’s form has mirrored that of his side. Occasionally adequate but mainly erratic. And a little peculiar. Perhaps the lowlight for Kameni’s season was a post training bust-up with a fan who suggested that he not bother signing a new contract with the club.

Right-back - Georgios Seitaridis (Atlético Madrid)

A season spent being ‘injured’ at unfortunate times - usually when being booed by the home fans in the Calderón - and trailing behind opposition strikers puts the Greek international in the awful XI right-back position.

Poor Georgios is truly hated at Atleti, where he is unlikely to be playing next season.

Centre-back - Johnny Heitinga (Atlético Madrid)

It’s a trifle cruel to pick on the Dutch defender, especially when he resembles Xerez’ president after two rounds with a Russian bouncer thanks to a clash of heads against Mallorca.

But, then again, life is supposed to be harsh. The Eredivisie’s player of the season last year came to the Calderón for 10 million euro and has repaid the faith shown in him by Atlético by giving away about 50 penalties.

The only skill the Dutchman has perfected in his time in the Spanish capital is the hands-on-hips bemused look, originally mastered by Iker Casillas.

Centre-back - Martín Cáceres (Barcelona)

Maybe the Barcelona centre-back is genuinely built for top flight football? Maybe it is too early to say? Pep Guardiola and many Barcelona fans don’t seem to think so. Especially when the 16 million euro fee is taken into account - a figure that Villarreal are still chuckling about.

Cáceres has had a season so uninspiring that even Betis were sniffing around him like a starving mongrel over the winter window.

Left-back - Gabriel Heinze (Real Madrid)

Heinze is a player that “loves the smell of napalm in the morning,” says Marca. He should live in La Liga Loca’s barrio if that’s the case. The Real Madrid full-back plays the game as if it’s one-minute long.

The fact that the Argentine defender has only received seven yellows this season is come kind of crazy blip in the card-happy world of La Primera.

Right-midfield - Alexander Hleb (Barcelona)

La Liga Loca may have missed a meeting, but it never really shared the hype and hubris over the Belarusian midfielder. Probably because it never really watched him play. The former Arsenal man came to Barcelona for 15 million euro and has made just five league starts.

“I’m not worried, I believe in myself,” huffed Hleb last week. That’s lucky, because no-one else does.

Centre-midfield - Guti (Real Madrid)

Finally, finally, finally Guti’s booty may be kicked out the door this summer - but only if Juande Ramos is in charge. This season, the Madrid midfielder has carelessly mislaid his powers of the perfect pass, making him as much use as... well, Guti.

In the 13 league games Madrid have played without Guti in the line-up due to ‘injury’ - the side have managed 12 wins and one draw.

Centre-midfield - Ever Banega (Atlético Madrid)

Having arrived in Valencia during the last winter window for an undisclosed (but thought to be around 20 million euro fee), the only thing the Argentine youngster has managed in his 13 months in Spain is a whole stream of childish chortles from La Liga Loca over his self-touching activities.

He has spent the current season on loan at Atlético Madrid where he has managed just four league starts in a midfield that even La Liga Loca’s gran could play in. And she popped her clogs some time ago.

Left-midfield - Royston Drenthe (Real Madrid)

Now this hurts like hell to write, but Madrid fans think so little of poor old Royston that they even travel to training sessions to boo him, scumbags that they are.

A number of excuses have been given for his stumbling performances and inability to pass. Wrong stud size, says Raúl. Still learning, says Pedja Mijatovic. Going to Portsmouth, thinks La Liga Loca.

Striker - Luis García (Espanyol)

The footballing equivalent of Mariah Carey - a colossal poncing, prima donna that needs the perfect conditions if he is too perform. García may even carry a tiny lapdog around with him, for all the blog knows.

27 league starts. Three goals. Espanyol relegation.

Striker - Alhassane Keita (Mallorca)

Number of league goals promised by the Guinean striker when joining Mallorca from Al-Ittihad... 20. Number of league goals actually scored... one.

Substitute:

Centre-back - Carlos Marchena (Valencia)

With Valencia’s footballing and financial backs against the wall (once again), the Spanish international has contributed own goals, gaffes and two red cards to the cause.

On a bad day, Marchena is a sluggish, slow-witted, thug of a player. On a good day, merely a slow-witted thug.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Betis to embark on new future of failure?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Real Betis is normally known for shaky goings-on both on and off the pitch. And for playing in yukky Norwich green.

The club is currently fighting their umpteenth battle against relegation, being fined on what seems to be a fortnightly basis for poor crowd control as well as being investigated by men with calculators for off-the-field financial naughtiness.

But in the matter of a few short weeks, a whole new group of investors could be standing together with the players for a glorious new era of relegation fights - or a promotion scrap - as Betis become embroiled in sheikhy affairs of a very different kind.

A visit by clipboard clasping minions from Emir Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuami from the UAE have spent the past few days looking for skeletons in Betis’ closets - quite literally - with a view to splurging 90 million euro on Darth Manuel de Lopera’s 52 percent majority shareholding.

And an announcement made on Monday by, spokesman, Israel Gutiérrez de Alba suggests that his boss’ consortium likes the cut of Betis’ trouser, so far.

“I want the fans to know that they are very interested in buying the club,” declared De Alba, but warned supporters not to expect any movement on the affair anytime soon. “This cannot be done in a couple of days.”

The stumbling blocks to the deal are Darth de Lopera’s tendency to promise fans that he will go forth and multiply by selling up only to change his mind. This has happened on three recent occasions.

The Husky-obsessed titan is also under the impression that he is loved and adored by the Betico faithful.

It’s love that can only have grown more tender when the state prosecutors office produced a report last year, accusing De Lopera of having “abused his position for his own or a third party benefit and prejudiced the interests of the club” by directing income meant for Betis to his holding company, Encadesa, which also has Russian interests.

It appears that the Beelzebub of Betis would also have to travel / teleport to London in early April to conclude any buy-out deal - the venue chosen by the potential new owners.

But sadly, the Lord of the Flies is still recovering from a bout of pneumonia brought on by the temperature change suffered after spending the past few months wintering in his timeshare in the hot fires of hell.

Moving on now to the murky world of Marca, and La Liga Loca has come to the conclusion that Raúl must have some photos of one of the paper’s bigwigs getting up to naughty business with a donkey. And the blog reckons it knows which one it is.

It’s the only rational explanation for their truly ludicrous *rse-kissing campaign of the Madrid captain over the past year.

First off, they gave the name-pointing numbskull their player of the year award for last season.

Then it was was the awarding of the paper’s grubby ‘Marca Legend’ trophy, last month.

Most recently of all, it’s their insane campaign to have Raúl returned to the Spanish national side because La Furia Roja has performed so poorly without his prickly presence for the past two years or so.

“The best players must be in the national team and, today, Raúl is better than Güiza,” ranted the paper’s editorial on Saturday after Vicente del Bosque’s latest exclusion of the legendary tormentor of Liverpool.

Ignoring the fact their argument happens to put Alvaro Negredo ahead of Raúl in the international pecking order, Marca’s internet site ran a poll asking if it was the right decision to leave Raúl out of the squad to face Turkey.

When La Liga Loca checked the result on Saturday morning, 67 percent supported Del Bosque - a result that forced Marca to put a message next to the poll saying that the score was only provisional due to possible fraud - the paper’s only explanation for readers failing to agree with their very silly stance.

Tuesday’s edition includes an interview with Del Bosque where five questions were put to the Spain manager in regards to Raúl’s disgraceful omission.

“We cannot consider every player who scores two goals on a Sunday,” huffed the former Madrid manager in response.

In order to soothe La Liga Loca’s rising heckles, the blog turned to, Barça-barmy comic, Mundo Deportivo for some light relief and a spot of colouring-in.

And it was not to be disappointed as the paper was running another “Top Secret Confidential!” story.

In recent months, these have ranged from scoops detailing that the grass is green, the sun is hot and that Pep Guardiola had dumped Coldplay and gone hardcore with Snow Patrol for his dressing room tunes.

On Tuesday, they stunned the football world with the story that Barcelona have prepared a scouting report on Bayern Munich. Imagine that!

One football club studying their opposition ahead of a Champions League game. Pulitzer Prize-winning stuff.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 28

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Freddie Kanouté

It’s time to juice up the Jacuzzi, dim the lights and put on sexaaaay music. Early ‘Steps’ always gets La Liga Loca going on a Monday morning.

Monday’s blog ramble simply has to open with another drooling love-fest over Freddie Kanouté, who scored his first La Liga hat-trick on Saturday night in a 4-1 thumping over Valladolid.

Once again, the Malian magician played the game in Matrix-style bullet time. Every time Kanouté was on the ball, he seemed to have decades to chose his options or, as in the Sánchez Pizjuán, hammer home three goals.

Like Maniche sitting on his picnic basket, the Sevilla striker is on a big old roll at the moment having scored 10 in seven league games. And that, stat fans, is one more than he managed in his three years at Lyon.

"I'll be there in a minute, crank up the bubbles"

Barcelona

“Ah, nuts” was La Liga Loca’s reaction when it rushed back from being bored to death at the Bernabeu to find Barcelona 4-0 up at half-time.

The omniscient blog knew that although the Catalan club would probably rack up a couple more efforts, the football fun was over for the evening. Instead, 30 minutes of poncing about, overplaying and generally letting Málaga off the hook would be the dominant themes for the rest of the game.

Although La Liga Loca agrees with Marca’s assessment on Monday that “there’s no team in the world that can play football like Barcelona,” it was handing out imaginary yellows to the likes of Henry and Eto’o for some of their fancy pants play in their opponent's box when they should have been getting down to the business of winning 13-0.

Valencia

Although Valencia were without Joaquín, David Silva and David Villa in the clash against Racing Santander, their opponents were missing their usual front two of Nikola Zigic and Pedro Munitis through contractual reasons and having been lost down the plughole.

However, it was the visitors who grabbed their first win in seven games thanks to a second half Juan Mata strike. But it so very nearly went ***-up for 10-man Valencia when an injury time penalty was awarded to Racing, only for Oscar Serrano to miss horribly.

The duff defender who gave away the spot kick, Rául Albiol, then got into a final whistle scuffle with an angry David Albelda, before the pair were separated by fun-spoiling teammates.

“If my wife gives the OK, then we would make Albeda the godfather of our daughter,” chirped the Valencia centre-back after the game, claiming that the clash between the pair was merely a handbags affair.

Victor Muñoz

Although Bernd Schuster was at the Coliseum on Sunday to watch Getafe’s 2-1 win over Recreativo, the moustachioed maestro won’t be returning to the stadium on a permanent basis, just yet.

Getafe owed their oh-so-crucial victory to two strikes from Roberto Soldado after falling behind to Recre. And the constantly cantankerous crowd were not best pleased when the former Madrid striker was subbed, due to him carrying a niggle or two.

“Even my children gave me some stick for changing him,” chuckled Muñoz after the game.

Real Madrid

Due to a blinding sun and an improvised eye-shielding hat, La Liga Loca missed must of the first half action at the Bernabeu. And it’s a good thing too as it was utter rubbish, aside from a thunderous right-footed strike from the distinctly leftie Marcelo - a player now looking quite happy in a midfield berth.

The second half improved slightly with two more goals from Klaas-Jan Huntelaar - a player who is absolutely hopeless outside the box, but more than a little useful in it.

Marcelo makes hay while the sun shines

Osasuna

Osasuna waited 92 minutes for their traditional “lob in a free-kick for Nekounam/Pandiani to head it home” special, but it was well worth it as the 1-0 win against Espanyol keeps the Pamplonan club in touch with the rest of the relegation struggling pack.

“We scored so late on that they simply had no chance of issuing a response,” noted manager José Antonio Camacho.

Mallorca

The Balearic side placed a very big bet on Sunday night in paying Atlético Madrid 120,000 euro to allow midfielder José Jurado - currently on loan from Sunday night’s opponents - to play in the crucial clash.

Now if only Mallorca would pay Athletic Bilbao some of the transfer fee owed for Aritz Aduriz, the striker who grabbed their first goal in the Ono Estadi.

Numancia

And a fair-play shrug to Numancia who bounced back from being battered 5-0 by Racing last week with a 2-1 win over Sporting.

BAD DAY

Atlético Madrid

After uncharacteristically competent performances against Barcelona, Real Madrid and Villarreal, the real Atléti was back in business on Sunday night.

Faced with less glamourous Mallorca-shaped opponents, Atlético’s display in the Ono Estadi in the 2-0 defeat drew these descriptions from Monday’s sporting press - pathetic, lacking intensity, calamitous, without effort, without quality.

On the bright side, it’s an improvement from previous insults hurled at the club this season.

Atletico: Back to their old average tricks

Alvaro Negredo

With 16 league goals to his name, the Almería striker - as in proper, signed up, not on loan Almería striker - may have been some use to his side in the Bernabeu on Sunday afternoon.

But unfortunately, the cowardly, yellow-bellied and downright cheating Real Madrid stuck a clause in his contract with his current club preventing him from playing in the Bernabeu. (Cue chicken clucking and much arm flapping from La Liga Loca).

Málaga

The good news for Málaga is that their current 43 point tally means that they are almost certain of another season of top flight football.

The bad news is that this is set to bring two more games against Barcelona, a side that stuck 10 past them this time round.

Racing

Although they may be sitting pretty in 10th, Racing are still only four points off relegation after the embarrassment of losing at home to Valencia.

Espanyol

Oh dear. Espanyol coach, Pochettino, has used the words: “fight,” “mathematically” and “impossible” - the traditional white flag of surrender.

And there to witness the beginning of the end of days for the Pericos in Pamplona was a seat-breaking Paul from Barcelona.

“Well that's that. Second division football next season. The footballing gods are against us. There's unlucky, then very unlucky, then desperately unlucky and then Espanyol.

Easily better than Osasuna but a very poor match, though both sets of supporters (500 away fans) put the so-called "Big Two" to shame. A great atmosphere.

Basically, a moment of madness - well bad marking - led to a 92nd minute winner. The ball travelled miles before some bloke, unmarked, headed in at the far post.

Five hour drive back to look forward to. No way are we going to win seven from 10, so let's start planning for next year. We need a miracle as all the other results went against us.

Osasuna need to bolt their seats down better. I ripped mine out easily. Frustration you see. (Didn't throw it and replaced it). Will post the money for two bolts tomorrow.”

Paul, Barcelona

Nekounam breaks Espanyol hearts

Sporting

Another admirable result from Sporting. True, the 2-1 defeat to Numancia was the club’s 17th of the season, but they still stood by their principles of refusing to draw games.

Betis

A draw away at Deportivo sees the Seville side just one point above the relegation zone. The tension in the Betico camp is clear to see with, manic manager, Paco Chaparro being sent from the dug out for “walking half a metre from the technical area" according to the man himself.

Guti

Dropped from Juande Ramos’ squad to face Almería for ‘technical reasons’ - code for being useless, sulking, whining, faking injuries and not bothering to train properly, said the Spanish press over the weekend.

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The Russian-wrestling weekend predictions

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Villarreal (4th) vs Athletic (13th)

One of the best wheelers and dealers in the transfer market last summer was Villarreal - simply through their admirable achievement of beating off (not in the Ever Banega sense) big guns who were coveting their shiniest stars.

Despite the likes of Madrid attempting to crowbar Cazorla away from El Madrigal, the squad remained largely intact.

But it may be a very different situation come June, when not even a legion of scarecrows will be able to frighten off the predators circling the stadium. Or so says, Villarreal president, Fernando Roig.

“There could be a lot of changes,” admits Roig, confessing that the current CRISIS could take its toll on his club.

“I don’t know if we will be capable of managing (not to sell) again,” said, Villarreal suit, José Manuel Llaneza on the multimillion euro bids expected for Pascal Cygan this summer.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Valladolid (9th)

The subject of Diego Capel is a divisive one in Spanish footie. Some say he is a half-decent but diving cheat boy who cannot cross. Others feel the Sevilla winger is the genuine bees knees.

One thing that is for certain this year is that opposition players have adapted their game to Capel’s theatrical stylings.

Defenders have learned that the cartwheeling wideman is going down anyway at the slightest of challenges, bringing an instant booking, so now may as well cut their losses and take him out with some gusto to ensure their punishment was well worth it.

However, Capel may well be booted into row Z at a completely different team next season, having admitted that contract negotiations have stalled and confessed to feeling a tad troubled at having lost his place in the starting line-up in recent matches.

“Nobody likes this situation. I feel fine and I want to play,” cried Capel on Thursday.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sunday

Getafe (17th) vs Recreativo (14th)

“MUÑOZ OUT! MUÑOZ OUT!” La Liga Loca is revolting, Dear Reader, but in a very different way than normal. “MUÑOZ OUT! MUÑOZ OUT!”

It has suddenly dawned on the blog that if the current chump in charge at the Coliseum stays another minute as manager, then Getafe are doomed to descend to La Segunda, possibly never to be seen again.

That’s because there is only one true hero who can bring the glory days back to the Coliseum. The man with the moustache... the Incredible Sulk... the Blonde Bombshell.... Herr Bernd Schuster himself.

And it may well happen according to, Getafe president, Angel Torres, who sent a pleading message to Bernado this week claiming that “he can come back to coach here any time.”

LLL Prediction - Draw

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Almería (12th)

La Liga Loca has always held a big man love for Wesley E’Sneijder - as he is known in Spain - and with good reason.

He moves like Mighty Mouse, told the blog that he was the best player in La Liga last season and has a brother called Rodney. He is The Man.

But this time around, he has been fairly pants in his performances. Some thought his early season injury was still causing him some trouble. Others pinned the blame on off the pitch personal problems for the Dutch midfielder.

However on Thursday, Sneijder made a confession as to the root causes of his rubbishness with a bit of a chuckle. “I feel good now that I’m not going out partying as much,” said the beaming midfielder.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Osasuna (18th) vs Espanyol (20th)

Sometimes, fence-sitting footballers can be just a little too polite in musing over their upcoming opponents.

Take Osasuna winger Juanfran, for example, on Sunday’s clash with bottom of the table Espanyol.

“If we go out and let them play, then Espanyol will cause us problems,” said the Pamplonan on a terrible opposition team that have managed just one win in 18.

To counter this fiercesome record Juanfran warns that “we must impose our style and get on top as soon as possible” - Osasuna code for “kick the crap out of De la Peña.”

LLL Prediction - Goalless draw (cue yet another 5-4 epic)

Deportivo (7th) vs Betis (15th)

Yet again, stories of potential new buyers of Betis have oozed into this weeks press. But we have been here before.

Previous suitors looking to relieve Darth de Lopera of his 52 percent shareholding have either been scared off after a look at the club’s books or been run out of town like cattle rustlers for not being up to De Lopera’s very high standards.

The latest investor looking to raise and then dash Betico fans’ hopes is Sheikh Al-Nuaimi, whose minions have been in Seville to sniff round the club and talk turkey with the Lord of the Flies.

And according to an excited press on Friday, splurge 300m euro on transfers this summer.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Numancia (19th) vs Sporting (11th)

It is not often that La Liga Loca must come to the defence of a club president in Spain, but it must do so today with news from La Segunda, the division that Numancia will shortly be rejoining.

A black-eye-sporting Joaquín Bilbao resigned from his post as president of, league leaders. Xerez on Thursday after a very silly storm of controversy surrounding a night-out gone very wrong for the Andalusian lawyer.

After all, who hasn’t gone out on a Tuesday night looking for after hours action only to find out that your favourite bordello is closed.

And who hasn’t then had a rumble with some Russians outside the establishment resulting in a black eye.

And who hasn’t then fled with the chauffeur only to come back and see the driver fire five shots into the front door of the establishment.

And who hasn’t then been arrested by the police a day later, only for the driver to confess to everything resulting in a release from the slammer without charge.

“I have a clean conscience,” says Bilbao, stepping down after just three months in his post.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Racing (10th) vs Valencia (8th)

Now that Valencia is being run by someone who appears to have read Economics for Dummies and knows what bankruptcy looks like when it stares you in the face, it is been made very clear that everything must go at the penniless club.

In response to Javier Gómez’s announcement that footballing assets will be flogged this summer, the Spanish sports dailies have drawn up lists of players that will definitely have buyers, those that are on the market but will be tough to sell and those that the club has no hope in shifting.

One footballer in the latter list was Rubén Baraja, and the midfielder admitted that he found the whole affair rather tasteless. “It seems like a lack of respect to me,” sniffed the veteran footballer.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Barcelona (1st) vs Málaga (6th)

(Sigh) Sometimes people never learn.

A few weeks ago, Barcelona fans on the blog castigated their club and the Catalan press for going ga-ga over Madridista rumour-mongering concerning Florentino Pérez wanting to bring the likes of Messi to the Bernabeu.

This week they have been at it again, but with Andrés Iniesta added to the mix and, predictably, it has provoked a typically hysterical reaction in the Catalan capital.

“Iniesta and Messi will stay in Barcelona until either the club decides to let them go or until they retire,” babbled the bait-taking Lluís Mascaró in Friday’s Sport.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Mallorca (16th) vs Atletico (5th)

It appears that those buffoons running Atlético Madrid are not as dumb as they either look or have proved themselves to be over the past decade or so.

When, rojiblanco midfielder, José Jurado moved on loan to the Ono Estadi last summer, the club stuck the familiar clause in his contract stating that he may not play in the two fixtures against Atleti.

Considering the former Madrid man has been Mallorca’s star player this season, it’s a good job too.

But the real stroke of genius from Enrique Cerezo and co is choosing not to place the same clause in the contract of, mediocre midfielder, Cleber Santana - also on loan at the Balearic club - leaving him free to face Atleti on Sunday, something that can only help the Champions League chasing visitors.

“I don’t understand the rules,” moaned Jurado. “I can’t play in the game but Cleber can!”

LLL Prediction - Home win

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We’ll see you in court, Calderón! Won’t we?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Now that Real Madrid has skilfully managed to swerve all that pesky Champions League nonsense for another year, the club is able to turn its full attention to its favourite waste of time - bickering.

The Robben vs Huntelaar rift on the pitch has been mirrored by a mountain of degrees off it, with an increasing number of in-fighting factions struggling to gain control of the club during the current power vacuum.

At time of writing, there appears to be three main groups scrapping for the right to wine and dine Nicolas Cage impersonators.

In the red corner it’s the Marca / Florentino Pérez / Vicente Boluda ‘Establishment’ party.

Facing them in the blue corner we have the slightly more rebellious AS / Florentino Pérez / Plataforma Blanca group.

Last, and probably least, in the comedy corner it’s a certain Ramón Calderón and his increasingly wacky ways.

Excellent news for those - including La Liga Loca - who feared that the ex-prez would disappear into the sunset after being booted out of Castle Greyskull in January. Calderón has returned. But not where he should have.

Boluda and Calderon face up and square off

Raving Ramón was due in court on Monday to face a judge investigating the club’s General Assembly in December, which featured ballot-waving voters who had no right to be there.

The summons had been ordered by one of the supporters' angry opposition groups, Regeneration de Real Madrid. This should not be confused with Etica Madridista nor Plataforma Blanca, who, in keeping up with long-standing club traditions, are also at war with each other.

However, neither Calderón nor Nanin nor Luis Barcena (the two other gentlemen who left Castle Greyskull for their part in the affair) turned up. That just left Vicente Boluda, on his tod, to admit that the day’s events were ‘shameful’ before waddling off.

Calderón did manage to find the time for Spanish radio a few hours later to comment that he did not receive any call to turn up in court and that he was in Zurich anyway on very important FIFA business.

However, like a bonus-demanding Brontosaurus-brained banker, Calderón still shows that he doesn’t quite get it and continues to boil and bubble over his departure from the club.

“I left because it was killing me,” grumbled Ramón on Cadena Ser, blaming a Vicente Boluda / Marca conspiracy for his departure. “There was a pact to force me out.”

If that wasn’t entertaining enough, Calderón also denied that there were Ultras in the assembly hall and - for old times' sake - that Cristiano Ronaldo would be coming to the Bernabeu in the summer.

"I will capture him with my poison cloud!"

The Papist plot to return Florentino Pérez to the throne is also taken up in Wednesday’s AS, which publishes a speech by Eugenio Martínez Bravo, an election pre-candidate (along with La Liga Loca) and the leader of the opposition group, Plataforma Blanca.

Bravo claims that Boluda is manipulating Madrid to allow Florentino Pérez an easy return to the presidential pile and working in cahoots with Marca and fellow opposition group Etica Madridista in a big old stitch-up.

And he’s probably right in his suspicions, says an ear-to-the-ground La Liga Loca.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño is also sitting uncomfortably with this state of affairs. Either that or he's either plonked himself on Tomás Roncero’s favourite rattle.

“The return of Pérez would be good for Madrid, but not a praised-to-the-hilt Florentino descending from the heavens surrounded by archangels.”

The big test of whether all-out war has broken out in the world of the Whites will take place on the March 29 with Madrid’s General Assembly v2.0.

At the event, Boluda will be looking to get himself confirmed as the rightful president of the club, set the dates of the presidential poll - another painful point - and discuss changes to the infamous postal vote system which caused all the kerfuffle last time round.

The bad news for the Madridistas in the house is that La Liga Loca feels in its waters that an almighty, undignified scrap for supremacy is just getting underway.

The good news for everyone else is that it should be a big bag of fun to watch.

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