La Liga 2009/2010: A Season Preview (Part Three)

Con­tin­u­ing the La Liga pre­view, part three will dis­cuss the final six teams in alpha­bet­i­cal order: Tener­ife, Valen­cia, Val­ladolid, Vil­lar­real, Xerez, and Zaragoza.

Tener­ife

Will the tan­dem of Juan Fran­cisco Mar­tinez, com­monly known as Nino, and Ale­jan­dro Alfaro trans­late their scor­ing prowess from the Segunda División to La Liga?  After seven sea­sons in the Segunda División, Tener­ife secured pro­mo­tion in their penul­ti­mate match 0–1 over Girona.  With an aver­age start of 6–2-6, equal­ing twenty points from the first four months of the cam­paign, they went an impres­sive 18–7-3 in the final twenty-eight matches, nar­rowly miss­ing the league title by one point.

Nino and Alfaro led the sec­ond best attack in Liga Ade­lante with a com­bined forty-nine of the seventy-nine goals Tener­ife scored, with Nino win­ning the Pichichi with twenty-nine goals.  Also in favor of Tener­ife was the rel­a­tive con­stancy of the start­ing eleven.  Cap­tain Manolo Mar­tinez had the fewest starts of the out­field ten with thirty-one, so man­ager José Luis Oltra could rely on his play­ers to be avail­able every match day.  Start­ing goal­keeper Ser­gio Aragone­ses put in a solid first half of the sea­son, only con­ced­ing six­teen goals in nine­teen matches; how­ever, a bout of acute pan­cre­ati­tis struck him in the mid­dle of the sea­son, caus­ing him to miss the remain­der of the cam­paign.  Luis Gar­cía dep­u­tized for the rest of the season.

Rein­force­ments were nec­es­sary in case any­one within the first eleven sus­tained an injury.  Mid­fielder Román Martínez arrived on loan from Espanyol, Cameroon striker Serge N’Gal moved on a free trans­fer from Gim­nàs­tic de Tar­rag­ona, and Aitor Nuñez left Atlético Madrid to sign with Tener­ife.  Despite these sum­mer trans­ac­tions, the fate of Tener­ife falls on the two front men Nino and Ale­jan­dro Alfaro.  If they can com­bine to score half the goals they net­ted last year, Tener­ife should be a favorite to stay in La Liga.

Valen­cia

Will the recent finan­cial sta­bi­liza­tion free Valen­cia CF to focus only on foot­ball?  Valen­cia quickly came out of the gates with six wins out of their first seven matches and hov­ered around the top four through­out the first half of the sea­son.  As news fil­tered from the club about its mas­sive debt and finan­cial cri­sis, a dip in form coin­cided and saw Valen­cia drop to eighth by Round 27.  The play­ers were not being paid, and rumors started to spread about key Valen­cia play­ers, such as David Villa and David Silva, being sold in the sum­mer trans­fer win­dow to bal­ance its finan­cial books.   After Valen­cia secured a loan that would help pay the play­ers’ wages for the rest of the sea­son, the team mag­i­cally reawak­ened from their slum­ber, con­tend­ing for the last Cham­pi­ons League spot until the final cou­ple of games of the season.

Again, the eco­nomic issues sur­round­ing Valen­cia sur­faced in the sum­mer when Vicente Sori­ano promised a new begin­ning for the club.  Hav­ing become major­ity owner of the club, Sori­ano teamed with the invest­ment com­pany Inver­siones Dal­port to clear the team’s debt; how­ever, Dal­port could not back up their claims, and Valen­cia was in deeper trou­ble.  Valen­cia even­tu­ally secured a loan from the Span­ish bank Ban­caja for €74 mil­lion and rein­stalled Manuel Llorente as pres­i­dent of the club, oust­ing the grand­stand­ing Soriano.

Back to the actual foot­ball on the pitch, Valen­cia kept most of the core of the team, with Raúl Albiol being the only sig­nif­i­cant player to leave.  David Silva will be much fit­ter after a frus­trat­ing last sea­son due to chronic ankle prob­lems, and the Three Broth­ers, Juan Mata on the right, Silva on the left, and David Villa in the mid­dle, should ter­ror­ize oppos­ing defenses with their speed and ver­sa­til­ity.  With Albiol join­ing Real Madrid, Alexis and Maduro look to be the cen­tral defen­sive pair with Car­los Marchena in front of them as the defen­sive mid­fielder.  Emil­iano Moretti returned to Serie A with Genoa, so Valen­cia picked up Jérémy Math­ieu on a free trans­fer to replace Moretti at left back.  Valen­cia also delved into the trans­fer mar­ket with the sign­ing of for­mer Mal­lorca goal­keeper Miguel Angel Moyà.  Even if Cesar receives the start­ing posi­tion, it will only be for one year, and Moyà is for the future any­way.  If the Valen­cia board­room sorts itself out and gives the team the back­ing it deserves, Los Che should be fight­ing for a Cham­pi­ons League spot this year.

Val­ladolid

Was the eleven match win­less streak to end the last cam­paign a sign of events to come in the upcom­ing sea­son?  Ever since they returned to La Liga in the 2007/2008 sea­son, they nar­rowly escaped rel­e­ga­tion both sea­sons.  They cruised at mid-table through­out the major­ity of last sea­son and then inex­plic­a­bly fell off the map to avoid rel­e­ga­tion by a sin­gle point.

Because of this alarm­ing drop in form, Val­ladolid made many changes in the sum­mer to whip a new, fresh atti­tude within the team.  Unfor­tu­nately, some of these mod­i­fi­ca­tions were due to eco­nom­ics.  Ser­gio Asenjo was their home­grown tal­ent and future star­let, but Atlético Madrid offered €5.5 mil­lion, and Val­ladolid could not afford to let the deal fall through.  Pedro León, the cre­ative force, lead­ing assist man, and speedy winger on the right flank, trans­ferred to Getafe for €4 mil­lion.  Henok Goitom, top goal scorer for Val­ladolid, went to Almería for €2.2 million.

Even though Val­ladolid now had a trans­fer kitty with which to work, they had to be judi­cious in their sign­ings.  A €3 mil­lion pur­chase of Alberto Bueno from Real Madrid looks to be a solid sign­ing, as he tries to prove to his youth team that he was worth keep­ing.  Bueno will likely play sec­ond striker to newly signed Manu­cho from Man­ches­ter United.  Manu­cho talks a big game, recently guar­an­tee­ing thirty to forty goals for Val­ladolid, but his pal­try strike rate in Europe debunks his state­ment.  The most intrigu­ing trans­fers for Val­ladolid are three young and promis­ing play­ers who have not deliv­ered with their rep­u­ta­tions as of yet: 22-year-old right back Anto­nio Bar­ragán from Deportivo La Coruña, 25-year-old attack­ing mid­fielder Héc­tor Font from Osasuna, and 21-year-old cen­tral mid­fielder Pelé from FC Porto.

With the team cur­rently con­structed, Pucela is not as appalling as the team that did not win any of their last eleven matches, but they will likely be fight­ing rel­e­ga­tion the entire year.  If they stay up this year, with another year’s expe­ri­ence for all of Valladolid’s young play­ers, they will be a much more cohe­sive and threat­en­ing team in two years.

Vil­lar­real

Can Ernesto Valverde build on the suc­cess that Manuel Pel­le­grini con­structed at Vil­lar­real?  Only a decade ago, Vil­lar­real was a regional team toil­ing in the lower divi­sions of Span­ish foot­ball.  When Pel­le­grini arrived from River Plate in 2004, Vil­lar­real trans­formed from a lower table team to La Liga and Cham­pi­ons League threats.  Their accom­plish­ments in the past five years led to higher expec­ta­tions, and their fifth place fin­ish was dis­ap­point­ing com­pared to pre­vi­ous seasons.

The back four for Vil­lar­real became a lit­tle sus­pect through­out the year, espe­cially in the cen­tral defense, where the oppo­si­tion at times over­matched Diego Godín and Gon­zalo Rodríguez.  They con­ceded fifty-four goals, only the eighth best defense in La Liga.  To com­pete with Godín and Gon­zalo for the two start­ing cen­ter back posi­tions, Vil­lar­real bought Rac­ing San­tander prod­uct Iván Mar­cano for €6 mil­lion.  What also hurt Villarreal’s defense was the matches Marco Senna missed due to injury.  Ham­string prob­lems forced him out of some matches, includ­ing the sec­ond leg of the Cham­pi­ons League quar­ter­fi­nal against Arse­nal when the tie was poised 1–1.  A rock in front of the back four, Senna’s abil­ity and lead­er­ship are vital in Villarreal’s chances to reclaim a Cham­pi­ons League place.

Nihat Kahveci and Matías Fer­nán­dez are the two most nota­bles to leave the club, each gar­ner­ing a €4.5 mil­lion trans­fer fee; how­ever, they did not fea­ture heav­ily last sea­son, so their depar­tures were inevitable.  Vil­lar­real added pieces to an already strong squad, includ­ing the loan returns of Jonathan Pereira and Damián Escud­ero, 20-year-old Paraguayan mid­fielder Hernán Pérez for €2 mil­lion, and the most expen­sive trans­fer in Villarreal’s his­tory, striker Nil­mar from Brazil­ian club Inter­na­cional, for €11 mil­lion.  With Giuseppe Rossi and Joseba Llorente com­bin­ing for twenty-seven goals last sea­son, the addi­tion of Nil­mar will only strengthen an already fear­some attack.  Ernesto Valverde has the tal­ent avail­able to him, and if he com­mands the respect and dis­ci­pline of the play­ers, Vil­lar­real will vir­tu­ally guar­an­tee them­selves a Cham­pi­ons League spot.

Xerez

Do Xerez have enough play­ers to com­pete in their maiden sea­son in La Liga?  Even before Xerez played a sin­gle match in La Liga, they were almost rel­e­gated back to Liga Ade­lante.  Real Betis peti­tioned to the LFP to inves­ti­gate alleged impro­pri­eties con­cern­ing a cap­i­tal increase in 2002.  The LFP ruled in favor of Xerez; there­fore, Xerez finally had full play­ing priv­i­leges to play in La Liga.

The Xerez heads of state were also in a state of flux.  For­mer Xerez pres­i­dent Joaquín Bil­bao resigned from the posi­tion in March due to his involve­ment in a drive-by shoot­ing at a brothel.  Este­ban Vigo, the man­ager who led Xerez to the Liga Ade­lante title and sub­se­quent pro­mo­tion into La Liga, left by mutual con­sent to man­age another Segunda División side, Her­culés.  José Ángel Ziganda now leads the team, hop­ing to inspire a team sure to be rel­e­ga­tion favorites.

While Antoñito, Mario Bermejo, and Momo were the for­wards who coa­lesced into a forty-three goal strike force, the per­for­mances of the play­ers loaned to Los Xerecis­tas are the source of a stay in La Liga for another sea­son.  Aythami from Deportivo La Coruña and David Pri­eto from Sevilla will be the stop­gaps in cen­tral defense, Víc­tor Sánchez from Barcelona will pro­vide cover in front of the back four, and Renan from Valen­cia will pro­tect the defense in goal.  If any of these play­ers goes down with an injury, Xerez will find it hard to pro­vide cover.  As inspir­ing a story as Xerez is, it will likely end in rel­e­ga­tion heartbreak.

Zaragoza

Can Zaragoza some­what erase the embar­rass­ment of rel­e­ga­tion and become the mid-table team that they always were?  After the 2006/2007 sea­son, where they fin­ished sixth and earned a UEFA Cup place, they suf­fered a shock­ing next sea­son that saw them rel­e­gated on the final match day.  In the last forty-two years, Zaragoza was in the Segunda División for only four sea­sons, and each time Los Blan­quil­los were rel­e­gated, they achieved pro­mo­tion in the fol­low­ing sea­son.  Last sea­son was no excep­tion as they fin­ished sec­ond in Liga Adelante.

Zaragoza only had one depar­ture of any note from last year’s team, defen­sive mid­fielder Alberto Zap­a­ter who left for Genoa for €4.5 mil­lion.  Replac­ing him will be the phys­i­cal Peter Luc­cin, who was on loan at Rac­ing San­tander last year.  Lead­ing the attack is Liga Adelante’s sec­ond lead­ing scorer Ewerthon, who scored an impres­sive twenty-eight goals in thirty-six appear­ances.  Sup­port­ing Ewerthon will be Javier Ariz­mendi and €5.5 mil­lion sign­ing from Getafe, Ikechukwu Uche.  On the wings, Zaragoza was active in the trans­fer mar­ket, adding well-traveled Eng­lish­man Jer­maine Pen­nant and for­mer Bayer Lev­erkusen star Marko Babic.  In defense, Javier Pare­des will com­pete with 21-year-old Ser­bian inter­na­tional Ivan Obradovic, who signed for Zaragoza from FK Par­ti­zan for an undis­closed fee.

With these new play­ers and the guid­ance of man­ager Marcelino Gar­cía, who led Recre­ativo Huelva to pro­mo­tion and a sub­se­quent eighth place fin­ish the next sea­son, Rac­ing San­tander to sixth place and a UEFA Cup posi­tion, and now Zaragoza to advance­ment in his first year, Zaragoza should be com­fort­able in mid-table.

La Liga 2009/2010: A Sea­son Pre­view (Part Three), 5.0 out of 5 based on 2 rat­ings

Tagged as: David Villa, nilmar, tenerife, valencia, Valladolid, villarreal, xerez, Zaragoza