Huesca are the 63rd team to make it up to primera and they marked their first game there with an historic successOn the opening day of the season, the happiest boy in the Basque country was in the stand on Indalezio Ojanguren street, when his cool older cousin came across to get him. It was full-time and everyone had left the pitch at Ipurúa, the picturesque little home of Eibar, but Huesca winger Álex Gallar headed the other way towards the family that had flown in from Mallorca, lifted him over the barrier and together they walked across the grass holding hands, waving at the 500 fans at one end. Then they disappeared down the tunnel and turned right in...
This time it really was the end for The Kid, taking his final bow with Atlético on an emotional evening at the WandaDefeat hit hard and so did the coach, apportioning blame and pointing the finger; they had let everyone down, he said. It was 2001, Spain had been knocked out of the U17 World Cup, and during the flight home Fernando Torres and Andrés Iniesta, close friends since they had met at 14, decided to put their feelings into words. As they sat on the plane, they wrote a letter outlining everything that had gone wrong. They never posted it but the writing helped and when they touched down back at Barajas airport they swapped shirts, dedicating them to...
The derby, one of the few matches of the penultimate weekend with anything riding on it, didn’t disappoint Betis’s bus made its way through a cloud of green smoke, while Sevilla’s passed the police cordon down the last, short stretch of empty street, turning off palm tree avenue to the Benito Villamarín. It was momentarily quiet outside, just a few stall holders in the sunshine, but inside the bus was different. On the right, a window had been smashed – not there, but four kilometres away, where a Sevilla fan had waved his team off over-enthusiastically – and sitting alongside it was the manager Joaquín Caparrós, exposed and in his element. Someone had put the club anthem on and he...
Perhaps with time, Ernesto Valverde and his team sealing a first unbeaten Spanish league title since 1932 will be more valuedThe league came to a close at both ends of Riazor, two human circles forming. Deportivo de La Coruña’s players joined together, arms around each other, for a few final words offered quietly and sadly in the rain. As they broke, there were some whistles and they walked slowly towards the tunnel and the second division, relegated again. The manager, their third this season, told them to go with their heads held high, insisting “we’re not angry, we’re unhappy”, but most looked down as they left, eyes lost. In the stands above, there were tears and reproach. Do you understand...
La Liga has always appealed more in the Americas than in Asia but is desperate to change that and is looking at playing league games outside SpainSpanish teams may have been knocking English teams out of Europe this season but challenging the Premier League in Asia is a much tougher prospect. La Liga has talked before of making inroads in the east and, like a young Rocky Balboa, it is ready to do whatever it takes to knock the grizzled No 1 off its perch.Despite the PR overdrive it will be tough for a league that has always appealed more in the Americas than Asia but, with varied strategies that do not depend on the tired route‑one tactic of sending glamour teams...