Six teams went into the final game within two points of each other and the last relegation place. There was drama and tears“Life hits you hard sometimes; this is one of those times,” Papa Pezzolano said when at last it was over and it was confirmed that his team was the one heading to the second division, hope eventually extinguished in the 100th minute of the final day of the longest season. “The dressing room is destroyed,” the Real Valladolid coach admitted as his voice cracked and the tears came. Across the way, that could have been meant literally; in there, the beers were open and Getafe’s players, survival secured, were climbing on tables and leaping about, crashing into each...
Football is a fight for club’s legendary manager so who better to install the ‘balls, blood and mentality’ they need to survive?“I couldn’t sit at home with my arms crossed,” José Bordalás said, and so there he was standing in the pouring rain, soaked and angry again, glasses no good to him now. Sunday afternoon and the coach who took Getafe to primera in the first place had returned on a rescue mission to keep them there, swapping his sofa for the sideline. Where, officially just 27 hours into the job, he watched drenched as his team – well, it is now – lost 1-0 to Espanyol, their third consecutive defeat and a sixth game without winning dropping them deeper...
Like Palace four seasons ago, Getafe began with seven defeats before a motivational video and returning hero led a revivalGiovanni Trapattoni carried a battle of holy water with him, blessed by the sister who actually was his sister. In 2009 the Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino hiked to Montserrat to visit the black virgin, enlisting her help in avoiding relegation, salvation delivered soon after. And Raúl Madero, the Argentinian national team doctor, twice visited the wailing wall. The first time, before the 1986 World Cup, he asked for them to be champions; when he went back four years later, he thought that would be pushing it, so requested runners-up. True story, and when it comes to football you’ll try anything. Sometimes...
An unlikely dream of joining Europe’s elite were improved by a draw with Real but the fact they wanted more said muchThe first time anyone noticed Jaime Mata he was standing there half-naked and even then no one really cared for long. He was a galáctico, sure, but not that kind of galáctico. A university student studying business and international commerce, he was also a pretty average striker at his local club Pegaso Galáctico in Spain’s Tercera División, which despite its name is a long way below the third division: there’s a Second; a Second B, 80 teams spread across four regional divisions; and then Third, with 366 teams in 18 provincial groups. Pegaso were in trouble, so Mata and...
At the start of the season, Eibar, Getafe and Girona all had the same objective: survival. Now it can shift to EuropeThe alarm went off again at Ipurúa on Wednesday, siren echoing around the Ego valley as if there was an air raid coming, but it was nothing to fear. Although the noise assaults eardrums, loud, piercing and heard all across Eibar, it’s a source of comfort now, not concern. Cause for celebration, too. For years the siren wailed at 7.3am every morning to wake up workers employed in the Alfa metal factory, a cooperative where they made Smith and Wesson revolvers, Singer sewing machines and bicycles, until one day production was moved out of town. The factory was knocked...