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...
Another grim episode in Spain unfolded on Sunday night, but in confronting this, there is hope that it is inescapable nowThis Sunday, for the first time in 1,285 games as a coach and 47 years in football, Carlo Ancelotti refused to talk about the game. He had just seen Real Madrid lose 1-0 to Valencia but, standing in the cramped, narrow tunnel that leads to the Mestalla dressing room where he said his best player sat “angry and sad”, he didn’t care about that and couldn’t comprehend anyone else caring either. So when the standard post-match interview began with the standard post-match question, an enquiry as to his thoughts on another defeat, he decided that, actually, no, this wasn’t going...
The La Liga side rightly left the pitch against Cádiz over alleged racial abuse, so why did they end up coming back on?Every time the camera focused on Mouctar Diakhaby sitting in the stands, and Juan Cala still on the pitch, it felt worse. An opportunity lost, everything the wrong way round. On Sunday afternoon Valencia became the first top-level team in Spain to walk off the pitch in protest at alleged racist abuse suffered by their player, only to turn and come back on again.Now the game, which no longer felt like a game, had started again – without the abused and with the alleged abuser. Diakhaby sat in silence, arms crossed, the mask over his face not really...
The Spanish trophy’s derided trip to Jeddah sees Barcelona fans buying just 300 tickets and Valencia shifting as few as 27The sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo last week offered advice for football fans travelling to Spain’s new, revamped Supercopa, which begins with Valencia v Real Madrid on Wednesday night and Barcelona v Atlético on Thursday before Sunday evening’s final between the winners. The fourth of an eight-point checklist informed them they would not be allowed to take ham or any pork product, “even if it is vacuum packed”. A couple of days later one Barcelona fan told the radio show El Larguero that he would be doing so anyway but not many will defy the rules – if only because not...
A thrilling finale left honours even but Valencia on their knees after the Real goalkeeper headed upfield and caused mayhem“I’m two metres tall; that frightens people,” Thibaut Courtois said. It was late, it was loud and he had nothing to lose, so there he was: Real Madrid’s goalkeeper, up the other end, running into the Valencia penalty area for one last shot at saving this, the fear he said his opponents felt about to become real. “It was his idea,” Zinedine Zidane admitted, and it was an idea that had been going around his head since the moment Carlos Soler had given Valencia the lead with 12 minutes left on Sunday night. “I thought: shit, the game’s escaping us, I...