Barça coach takes his team to face Real Madrid at the Bernabéu having lost the initiative in battle for La Liga title and a gory goodbye awaits him if they loseLuis Enrique’s final days at the Camp Nou are dark ones and they could get even darker yet. That is how he sees it, at least – a dystopian vision of his immediate future, a gory goodbye as his time at Barcelona comes to a grisly end. After their superb 3-0 victory over Sevilla on 5 April, hope briefly emerging after an impressive run, the Barcelona coach said that he’d had a great time but insisted that if and when they lost “a cannibal holocaust” would be released.Three days later,...
The former Arsenal captain flailed wildly on the touchlines as a borrowed team of players who could not understand him or one another were hammered by Celta Vigo’s second-string – and there was little sympathy from fans or pressAt the end of his first game as coach of Granada, Tony Adams strode on to the pitch and, pointing to the stands at Los Cármenes, told his players to applaud the fans. When they did, the fans booed them. Those that were still there did, anyway. A total of 13,442 came and by then most had gone again. It was late: late on a Sunday night, late in the season and too late to save them. Holy week ended with no...
Barça’s fate was in their own hands, which as it turned out was the worst place it could be against Málaga, despite the draw by La Liga title rivalsBarcelona’s fate was in their own hands, which as it turned out was the worst place it could possibly be. Saturday’s story was the story of the season in Spain: everything changed to stay the same, the table remaining unmoved. Another dead ball, another defender leaping to score, another victory coming for Real Madrid, this time in the city derby – the game the front pages had declared “half the league” only that was not the half of it. Pepe’s header would have been an appropriate way to win their first title...
It was the round of games that could have changed everything, but didn’t really change anything, except that the finish line drew closerMálaga’s manager Míchel González called it liberation, safety virtually secured against Sporting Gijón. Real Betis’s fans called for coach Víctor Sánchez del Amo to go, just like Gus Poyet, except that time they actually wrote a letter demanding his sacking and this time they just sang it. Diego Simeone appealed for Atlético’s fans to put down their sandwiches and shout. Thirteen kilometres down the A42 at Butarque, where the sandwiches are better than anywhere else, sizzling away on a portable hotplate, Leganés’s supporters did, beaten but singing about their top flight status on the night Real Madrid visited...
Sevilla are suddenly in crisis, and the departure of their brilliant transfer wizard after 26 years leaves an enormous hole to fill at the Sánchez PizjuánOn Sunday afternoon Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo did something he had only done once before and hasn’t done for almost 20 years: he hid from Sevilla supporters at the Sánchez Pizjuán. Just before midnight on 10 September 1997, ‘Monchi’ watched a late lob fly over him into the net, allowing tiny Isla Cristina to knock them out of the cup, and fans were so furious that the kitman smuggled him out in the back of his van, the defeated keeper covering his face whenever he pulled up at the lights and his coach briefly even removing...