Manolo Preciado: The Most Interesting Man in the World

There was a time on Saturday night when Lionel Messi actually became frustrated with himself and his teammates.  There was a time on Saturday night when Xavi Hernández could not find the killer pass through the hard-working, organized defense.  There was a time on Saturday night when Gerard Piqué was absolutely skinned alive by an opposing forward, costing FC Barcelona only its twelfth conceded goal all season in La Liga.

When these previous statements are applicable against Barcelona, one would assume the club on the other side of the pitch that forced the Catalans to toil for a draw was one of the European powers.  It certainly was not Real Madrid, nor Villarreal, nor Valencia.  It was the humble club from an industrial town that plays it football at a stadium named for the old watermill that once stood on that piece of land.

Sporting de Gijón, led by the most interesting man in the world, Manolo Preciado.

Similar to Blackpool’s Ian Holloway, Preciado filters very little what comes out of his mouth, and in almost beautiful synchronicity, both managers spit in the face of accusations that they purposefully set out weakened teams in a “lose the battle, win the war” type of creed.  In Holloway’s case, he made ten changes to his starting lineup against Aston Villa in November, in which that Villa match was the third of four matches Blackpool played in a short span of thirteen days.

Holloway threatened to resign from his post if the Premier League found the club guilty, and when the league handed down the guilty verdict, Holloway was true to his word, handing his resignation papers to Blackpool chairman Karl Oyston.  Oyston duly rejected Holloway’s resignation, but despite all of the strange and bold statements that come out of Holloway’s mouth, he genuinely believes in all of them and stands by everything he says.

Manolo Preciado is no different, and when José Mourinho charged Preciado of fielding a weakened team against Barcelona in September because “they [Sporting] felt they could not win,” in Mourinho’s words, Preciado went on a priceless diatribe that hearkens to the Rafael Benítez “Fact” rant or Diego Maradona’s “suck” castigation:

“I do not like Mourinho and I am going to tell him that to his face.  Who the hell is this guy?  He claimed that we gave away the points at Camp Nou and has since repeated this.  Even if he says this as a joke, it is very bad.  But if he means it, I think he is despicable and a poor professional.  I don’t like it at all.  If Madrid don’t teach him respect, I will.  We deserve the same respect he does.  To say that Sporting, who have killed ourselves to get into the top flight, would give up on a match?  Who the hell does he think he is?”

To say that the Sporting players backed their manager would be one of the understatements of the year.  They had already defeated Sevilla, drawn with Villarreal and Athletic Bilbao and frustrated Barcelona in a 1-0 loss with that “weakened” team, but when Sporting hosted Real Madrid in November and faced Mourinho for the first time since Mourinho made his disparaging comments against Sporting and Preciado, El Molinón developed into a fiery cauldron and a white-hot crucible that has not been matched in Spain this season.

Unfortunately, Mourinho sat in a private box for that match because he was in the middle of a two-match touchline ban for his own firebrand statements about referees.  He would have reveled in the hate raining down on him from the Sporting faithful as the clever and not-so-clever chants created an extra element of flavor and flair in an already combustible atmosphere.  The Sporting players channeled the positive energy from the El Molinón crowd and hassled and harried Cristiano Ronaldo and co. for the whole of the match.  Real expected the initial surge from Sporting, but the pressing and the closing down did not waver as the clock hit the 30th, 60th and even the 90th minute.  Gonzalo Higuaín eventually scored the decider in the 82nd minute to give Real the 0-1 victory, but their win was overshadowed by the effort of the Sporting players and their tangible love for their manager Manolo Preciado.

All that heart and emotion spent against Real Madrid took a toll on los rojiblancos, as they would not win in their next seven league matches, and with each successive game without a victory, Preciado’s leash shortened bit by bit until he was within one loss short of a sacking as was widely reported.  Sitting in the relegation zone and tied on points with the bottom of the table, Preciado’s players rallied behind their coach and reeled off three consecutive victories in January, including a 1-0 over Atlético Madrid and a 0-4 thrashing over Mallorca.

Heading into their home match against Barcelona on Saturday night, Sporting sat in a nominally safe 13th in the table, but with only one point separating them with those in the relegation zone, they were supposed to rely on other results of the round to keep them above the drop line because no one had taken a point off Barcelona away from the Camp Nou this season.

Sporting should have been comforted by the fact that under Pep Guardiola, Barcelona’s record coming of FIFA-sanctioned international matched was a relatively mediocre 5-6-1, and that one loss came at the hands of Hércules in September.  Added to the player fatigue from the internationals was the impending UEFA Champions League Round of 16 first leg against Arsenal this upcoming Wednesday, so if there were a time when Barcelona would not be at their best, Sporting would get them at the perfect time.

Preciado and the El Molinón crowd did not have any qualms against Barcelona, but subconsciously, Preciado wanted to prove Mourinho wrong and show that Sporting believed they could beat Barcelona, even though he firmly denied Mourinho’s indictments about his team in their first meeting against the blaugrana earlier in the season.

The same intensity that Sporting showed against Real Madrid resurfaced against Barcelona in the first twenty minutes of the match, but whereas the impetus against Real arose from hatred and disgust, the vigor displayed against Barcelona came more from fear as the threat of relegation looms for the bottom eight La Liga clubs.

Sporting employed a high defensive line and a suffocating on and off-ball pressure that defines Barça’s defense, and this strategy forced Barcelona into some uncharacteristic turnovers and lack of composure on the ball.  After Sporting foiled another Barça offensive move, the subsequent counter-attack ended with Gijón taking the shock 1-0 lead.

Diego Castro sent a ball down the left wing for David Barral, and Barral did the rest.  Gerard Piqué is one of the most complete defenders in the world, but he is not blessed with blistering pace, so when he went against Barral in a one-on-one battle down the left wing, Piqué was always going to finish second best.  Barral cut in from the left wing, leaving Piqué in his wake, and when Gabriel Milito tried to help out Piqué in the box, Barral ran laterally past Milito with Milito stumbling to the floor in the process, and Barral struck a shot to the right far post that Víctor Valdés had no chance of saving.

1-0 to Sporting, but what were they going to do for the final seventy-four minutes plus stoppage time?

While they stood by their high pressure for a few minutes after the goal, they predictably began to sit back more and more in their own half of the pitch as the game wore on because they could not keep up the high intensity for the whole of the match.

When Sporting converted into a 4-6-0 formation later in the match, they plugged every hole and covered every hint of open space in which Barcelona wanted to exploit.  Preciado was almost serenely calm (feisty for normal folk), and the faint possibility of three points slowly became more and more of a reality.

Then the local boy done good, David Villa, broke his people’s hearts with a deft twenty-yard chip over goalkeeper Iván Cuéllar with ten minutes remaining, and Barcelona somehow came out of El Molinón with a point.

Ever since Pep Guardiola took over FC Barcelona in the summer of 2008, every team has tried to find the magic formula or blueprint to contain and ultimately defeat Barça on a somewhat consistent basis.  Has Sporting Gijón, of all clubs, provided the plan for others to follow when they encounter Barcelona?

High pressure and the early goal for the opposition has been the common theme when Barcelona has struggled, and Sporting completed these two tasks.  Unless the team has players that can fight with this intensity for the entire match, eventually they will have to sit back and withstand the inevitable Barcelona onslaught.  Without the early goal, Sporting would likely have tired at a much higher rate, and Barcelona would have found their goal sooner or later, but with the thought that they could actually defeat Barcelona dancing in their heads, they transcended their own physical and mental limits for the cause.

While Sporting did not finish the way they wanted, Preciado had nothing but effusive praise for his whole team, and the individual players reciprocated that love back to their trainer.

Sporting Gijón fell three spots to 16th despite the point earned and perilously stand one point above Osasuna for the final relegation place.  As the Asturian club claws their way toward safety in La Liga for another year, the luscious mustache from across the border in Cantabria soldiers on, running his team in his way, regardless of others from the outside have to say about he and his team.  La Liga would sorely miss his graveled, stern voice and his larger-than-life character if Sporting were to go down, and if Mourinho stays with Real Madrid for the foreseeable future, who else will keep him in check?

Fueras de Juego

- If Quique Sánchez Flores has not been sacked, he should just resign if he wants to keep his sanity.  Valencia came up with another late-goal winner to rise to third in the table, and Atlético Madrid’s schizophrenia has morphed into a chronic depression that has little chance of curing at this point.  Diego Forlán missed a penalty that would have given Atlético a 2-1 lead, and he falls further into the doghouse with both the Atlético fans and the coaching staff.  It might be time to blow up this team and start over, and Quique will not want part of any of that.

- Sevilla found another way to blow a match, and all of the blame for Manuel Arana’s first-time forty-yard loop with the outside of his right boot game-winner should fall on Andrés Palop, who went on an absent-minded walkabout outside of his area and left the goal wide open.  The goal nearly left Arana in tears, and back to the future new boss Marcelino García Toral shrewdly decided to run in ecstasy on the grass after he nearly broke his butt celebrating Racing’s second goal on the slippery technical area.  Sevilla now is fourteen points behind Villarreal for the final Champions League spot, and Gregorio Manzano looks like he is on the hot seat and the next manager to go after Quique Sánchez Flores with the bookmakers.

- Villarreal’s inexplicable poor play for a second week as they fell to a deserved Deportivo La Coruña team that needed three points with relegation a real possibility for the Galicians.  The Depor ball kids must have watched Osasuna defeat Real Madrid a couple of weeks ago because with a few minutes remaining on the clock and Villarreal in a dangerous attacking position on Daniel Aranzubia’s goal, the Depor ball kid threw a second ball on the pitch, and referee Rafael Ramírez Domínguez had no choice but to stop play.  On the drop ball, Depor kicked into the Villarreal half, and all of the attacking momentum disappeared.  Anything for a win apparently.

- Real Madrid had one of its best performances of the season, even with Iker Casillas receiving his marching orders from referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz in the second minute.  Emmanuel Adebayor gelled with Cristiano Ronaldo and the other Real attackers and fit in seamlessly in José Mourinho’s team.  Karim Benzema might have to be comfortable sitting on the bench for the rest of the season save for some substitute appearances.  Pepe deserved man of the match honors because he made a multitude of stellar defensive plays, and he had to pick up the slack of Ricardo Carvalho, who had a rare off day in the center of defense.  Seven points down to five, and La Liga seems realistic for Real.  For now.

Expo 2008 was held in the city of Zaragoza, and one of the striking structures built for the expo was the Torre del Agua, shaped to represent a droplet of water. Photo courtesy of Salvador Bru.

Round 23 of 38 might be a little too early to mention relegation six-pointers, but with teams twelfth to twentieth a within a slender five points of each other and the gap widening between these teams and the first eleven of La Liga, a three-point win should not be underestimated as time snowballs downward to the end of the campaign.

Two of these meetings occur this weekend as Hércules hosts Real Zaragoza at the Estadio José Rico Pérez, and Almería travels to Valencia to face Levante.

After Hércules became the darling of Spain in the first half of the season with wins over Barcelona, Sevilla, and Atlético Madrid and a draw against Villarreal that prevented the Yellow Submarine from topping the table for the first time in their history, the Alicante-based team has lost four consecutive matches by multi-goal margins without scoring a single goal in the process.  In their defense, three of those four losses came against clubs that currently sit on the top five, but the perennial second and third-tier team has more problems than their poor play on the pitch.

The whole Royston Drenthe pay-for-play saga has splintered the team into two different factions, some supporting him while others despise his stance, David Trézéguet has more than hinted that he wants out to return to his native France, and Nelson Haedo Valdez’s form has fallen precipitously as Hércules continues to struggle.

For Real Zaragoza, their trend is going completely opposite of Hércules.  Before the winter break, Zaragoza did well to snatch a point at the Estadion Reyno de Navarra against Osasuna, but the bore 0-0 draw kept los maños as the cellar-dweller in La Liga with a paltry ten point through sixteen matches.  The new year, however, brought a new revitalization to the Aragonese club, winning four of their six games in the league with their only loss understandably coming at the hands of Espanyol at the Cornellà – El Prat.

Zaragoza has risen to a lofty twelfth place on the back of this exceptional run, but they are only two points above the relegation zone, and the meat of their second-half schedule starts in a couple of weeks when they encounter Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona, Valencia, Mallorca, Sevilla, Getafe, and Villarreal in consecutive weeks.  Of all the clubs fighting the drop, Zaragoza has done the best in terms of earning points against the other relegation rivals, so they will feel confident heading to Alicante on Sunday, even though they have recorded only one away victory this season.

After looking dead in the water for most of the campaign, Levante has suddenly won two straight matches against in-form sides Getafe and Villarreal and climbed within a point of rising out of the bottom three.  Earlier in the season, Levante attempted to play an attractive style of football, but with the Segunda División looming with the losses piling up, they have opted to become much more physical, relying on more long-ball tactics and counter-attack opportunities to provide the goals, and Luis García Plaza’s team is finally starting to achieve the positivity in the negativity, per se.

Levante welcomes an Almería team that has won two of their last three games in the league, including a 3-2 stunner over Espanyol that saw the Andalucians build a three-goal lead within the first nineteen minutes of that match.  The difference in Almería uptick in form has been the incorporation of José Leonardo Ulloa into the starting eleven.  Used mostly as a super-sub throughout the majority of the season, José Luis Oltra has recently put him up front with Kalu Uche, and with Pablo Piatti and Albert Crusat flying down the wings, Almería’s attack has grown into a fearsome foursome.  They will face a stiff, obstinate Levante resistance in Valencia on Sunday, and whoever wins the flank battle between Piatti and Crusat against the wily fullback veterans Javi Venta and Asier del Horno will be the overriding factor in the determination of this match.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Feb. 12

Atlético Madrid vs. Valencia – 11:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Sporting Gijón vs. FC Barcelona – 1:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Racing de Santander vs. Sevilla – 3:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Feb. 13

Real Sociedad vs. Osasuna – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477 (477-1 for HD)

Málaga vs. Getafe – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 478 (478-1 for HD)

Hércules vs. Real Zaragoza – 10:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Deportivo La Coruña vs. Villarreal – 12:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Espanyol vs. Real Madrid – 2:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Feb. 14

Mallorca vs. Athletic Bilbao – 2:45 PM on DirecTV channel 477 (477-1 for HD)

Unfortunately, the Levante – Almería match at the Estadi Ciutat de València will not be shown on US TV.

The Fundación Picasso, an organization whose purpose is to promote the works of Pablo Picasso, headquarted at Picasso's birth home on the Plaza de la Merced in Málaga.

Two of the most active clubs in the January transfer window meet together this weekend in an Andalucian derby at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán between Sevilla and Málaga.  Málaga and new owner Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani scoured the world in January for bright, young talents and seasoned veterans (or washed-up former stars depending on personal opinion) to augment a team fighting relegation, and the early returns have not provided the results they expected.

Martín Demichelis, Júlio Baptista, and Enzo Maresca would have been near the top of many European clubs’ lists four or five years ago, but as they reach their thirties, Málaga is trying to resurrect their fading light as the three want to prove that they are still capable of consistently playing at a high level.

While €4.5 million Boca Juniors winger Diego Buonanotte will join in the summer, Ignacio Camacho and Sergio Asenjo were immediately drafted into the starting eleven for trainer Manuel Pellegrini, and Camacho and Asenjo both want to show that Atlético Madrid made a mistake in showing little faith for them.

Despite the obvious motivation for all of these players to perform well not just for themselves but for the team, it has not fully translated on the pitch, as they have lost four of their five January matches in La Liga, including a heartbreaking 4-3 loss at the Mestalla against Valencia and a crucial late loser against fellow relegation fighters Real Zaragoza.

Málaga has lost seven of their last eight away matches in the league, and with those around Málaga at the bottom of the table helping themselves with surprising wins and important draw points, los boquerones cannot afford to stay on this losing slide if they want to stay in La Liga.  Sheikh Al Thani has extensive plans for Málaga in the summer in the transfer market, but all of those designs and ambitions will be thrown out of the window if they fall to the Segunda División.

Whereas Málaga has suffered a downward trend, Sevilla is on their way back up, as they have only lost one of their last five league matches after losing five straight matches prior.  Now only five points out of a Europa league spot and eleven points out of an improbable Champions League berth, los nervionenses are riding the hot wave at the perfect time.

They bolstered their midfield with two shrewd signings in January, €3 million defensive midfielder Gary Medel and €1.5 million playmaker Ivan Rakitic, and as Frédéric Kanouté and Luís Fabiano look for their next lucrative contract with Sevilla or with someone else, Sevilla has extra motivation to put their full effort into claiming a top-four finish, a feat that seemed impossible a month ago.

Sevilla bowed out meekly to Real Madrid in the second leg of the Copa del Rey semifinal on Wednesday, but with key league matches and the knockout phase of the UEFA Europa League on the horizon, they can put their disappointing loss behind them and look forward to a hectic final four months.  Renato will miss out against Málaga with an ankle injury, but trainer Gregorio Manzano will the vast majority of his squad available, and with the rumor looming that Joaquín Caparrós might return to Sevilla if Manzano does not deliver, the Sevilla manager also has extra motivation to get the results as quickly as possible.

In some other matches this weekend, FC Barcelona will attempt to break the legendary Real Madrid 1960-61 team’s record of consecutive La Liga wins at 16 against Atlético Madrid, the team that has frustrated the blaugrana more than any other Spanish team in the past few years, Real Madrid continues to pick up the pieces of their shattered confidence at home against Real Sociedad, and Giovani dos Santos, the former Barcelona B starlet, will make his debut for Racing de Santander as they face Real Zaragoza in a relegation six-pointer.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Feb. 5

Almería vs Espanyol – 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477 (477-1 for HD)

Osasuna vs. Mallorca – 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 478 (478-1 for HD)

Athletic Club vs. Sporting Gijón – 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 479 (479-1 for HD)

Getafe vs. Deportivo La Coruña – 11:45 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Villarreal vs. Levante – 1:55 PM on Gol TV HD

FC Barcelona vs. Atlético Madrid – 3:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Feb. 6

Sevilla vs. Málaga – 10:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Real Madrid vs. Real Sociedad – 12:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Valencia vs. Hércules – 2:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Unfortunately, the Real Zaragoza – Racing de Santander match at La Romareda will not be shown on US TV.

Photo courtesy of Jon Gonzalo Torróntegui

The headlines emanating from Bilbao have had little to do with Athletic’s white-hot form, as the rumors swirling around Fernando Llorente’s future destination have blanketed this historic club.  Tottenham Hotspur has been the main culprit of the Llorente saga, originally offering €30 million, but after Athletic rejected the bid, they upped the ante to an astronomical €38.5 million, which Athletic president Fernando García Macua dismissed yet again.

While Tottenham continues to press on for the striker they desire elsewhere (€29 million for Giuseppe Rossi rejected, €27 million for Andy Carroll rejected, a supposed €45 million for Sergio Kun Agüero supposedly rejected, and a last-ditch €20 million bid for Diego Forlán on the table), Llorente has not let the hearsay affect his performances on the pitch as Athletic has risen to sixth place in La Liga with a chance to fortify this position on Sunday against Atlético Madrid.

With Sevilla only able to muster a draw against Deportivo La Coruña on Saturday night, Athletic had an opportunity to move five points clear of both Sevilla and Atlético Madrid for sixth with a win against the Atleti.

Joaquín Caparrós has been the steadying influence for Athletic in these more successful yet turbulent times, and with the constant barrage of stories concerning Llorente’s theoretical transfer, he has remained steadfast about his star striker staying in Bilbao.  Speaking about this subject to AS, his frustrations have nearly bubbled up to the surface:

“How would they like it if we were constantly saying that Xabi Alonso or Cristiano Ronaldo were going to sign for Milan?  The president has said plenty of times that Llorente is an Athletic player, and we have a project here with him.”

Caparrós has always been underrated as a manager, and the players he has managed over the years would say the same thing.  The most unpretentious and unassuming man that one will ever come across in the managing ranks was the manager when Villarreal rose to La Liga for only the second time in their history, and when he left, Villarreal became a mainstay in the Primera División, eventually morphing into a perennial European tournament club.

After lifting Villarreal to the first division, he left to join Sevilla, who was then in the Segunda División.  He could not resist managing the club that he grew up watching from his hometown of Utrera, a mere thirty kilometers away from Sevilla.  Following the lineage of legendary Sevilla managers, such as Miguel Muñoz, Carlos Bilardo, Luís Aragonés, and José Antonio Camacho, he immediately pushed Sevilla back into La Liga in 2001.  With his partnership with new owner José María del Nido, they transformed a mid-table team into a perpetual European club.  Shrewd signings, shrewd sellings, and a simple team philosophy of a high-pressure defense and an organized attack symbolized Sevilla, and Caparrós brought these same characteristics when he accepted the manager’s job at Athletic Club in 2007.

All Caparrós has done since anchoring in Bilbao includes their first Copa del Rey final since 1985, their first European competition since 2004, and an eighth-place finish last season, Athletic’s best since the 2003-04 season.

With all the sexier European football clubs wrangling and yearning for Fernando Llorente, Llorente remains committed to the Athletic cause, and the main reason is the leadership and man-managing skills of one Joaquín Caparrós.

If Athletic Bilbao evokes the notion of stability in the past few years, Atlético Madrid masochistically remains in a constant condition of turmoil.  Atlético can aptly be described as bipolar, and this latest stretch since the beginning of the new year would fall in the more depressive state of mind.  Only two points behind Valencia for the final Champions League spot prior to the winter intermission, one win in seven in all competitions has seen los colchoneros meekly knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Real Madrid and has dropped them a chasmic ten points behind Valencia for fourth.

Whereas Athletic have only had to deal with the Llorente transfer gossip, Atlético have had to handle a myriad of internal problems, not only with the potential departures of Agüero and Forlán but the tenuous nature of Quique Sánchez Flores stay as manager and the purported disharmony inside the dressing room.  What cures most ills for a football club is winning, and despite the troubles abounding for los rojiblancos, a win at home over Bilbao would regain sixth place while somewhat keeping pace with Valencia and Espanyol for Champions League football.

Atlético received an extra and necessary boost prior to their match with Athletic when Quique Sánchez Flores was able to pen Sergio Agüero into his starting eleven after Agüero suffered a muscle tear in his left leg against Real Madrid in the first leg of the Copa del Rey quarterfinal two and a half weeks ago.  Atlético’s paltry returns have existed since the end of December, where they have scored more than one goal in only one of their last nine matches in all competitions, but without Agüero for the past two to three weeks, scoring has become a painful chore.  The chances they have created have dwindled to a new low when Atlético did not record a shot on goal against Sporting Gijón last weekend until the final minute of injury time, when Iván Cuéllar brilliantly tipped over Juan Valera’s header to preserve the 1-0 win for struggling Sporting.

With Agüero available against Athletic, Atlético’s attack instantly became more fluid, and with Athletic opening up their play from the first whistle, it was amazing that only one goal was scored in the first half between the two teams.  Forlán had a couple of strikes coolly saved by Athletic goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz, Agüero split the Athletic central defense several times and missed an unmolested header at the left back post from Tomáš Ujfaluši’s right-wing cross, and José Antonio Reyes, the Atleti’s best player this season, provided killer through balls and threatened Athletic with runs cutting in from both flanks.

Despite all that attacking intent, Atlético could not break through, and they shot themselves in the foot when referee Fernando Teixeira Vitienes sent off Luís Perea for, in his judgment, denying Fernando Llorente an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.  The red card was debatable, but the penalty was not.  David López and Llorente underwent a strong discussion about who would take the penalty, and after Llorente won the argument, he dragged his penalty nearly a yard wide of the left post.

Llorente and Athletic Club did not let the missed penalty affect them negatively, and they took advantage of their man advantage to score the crucial opening goal in the only minute of stoppage time in the first half.  Andoni Iraola’s cross from the right wing was perfectly weighted for Gaizka Toquero in the box, and Toquero volleyed it first-time toward the right far post and past de Gea for the 0-1 lead.  The Atlético marking was criminal as Toquero had yards of space after the Iraola cross to take it down and control it if he wanted, but Toquero wasted no time and slotted it home for his first goal in La Liga this season.

Until Gaizka Toquero scored his second of the match in the 64th minute, Atlético engendered more scoring chances, pinning Athletic in their own half of the pitch even with ten men, but the scoring drought continued, and when Toquero tallied the second goal for Athletic, the spirit in which they played throughout the match slowly dissipated from the Atleti players.

0-2 fulltime, and while the red card changed the complexion of the match, Atlético still had several golden chances to score with a man down and could not capitalize.  For Athletic, Llorente’s missed penalty could have set Athletic behind even though they were a man up at that point, but they kept plugging away, and no player on Athletic personified that heart and desire like Gaizka Toquero, who deservedly scored twice in this match to open his account for the season.

Toquero received the match ball and man of the match honors, and those plaudits were duly warranted, but with Athletic Club playing an expansive style against Atlético, the 18-year-old future of Bilbao, Iker Muniain, thrived under those conditions.  His slight frame is not built for the direct, physical nature of Athletic’s general play, but he has seamlessly adapted into the Athletic approach by toughening up and by willing to engage in physical encounters without being knocked off the ball.  With the match stretched for the majority of the time, Muniain found the scything passes and the pockets of space to lead his teammates into, and he challenged the Atlético defender numerous times with direct runs with the ball.

Athletic Bilbao showed the diversification of their portfolio against Atlético with their adaptation to playing a more indirect, passing football when the situation allows such a system to exist, and Joaquín Caparrós again demonstrated his flexibility to change his tactics rather than bullishly sticking to one mode of play.

Athletic hovered around the Europa League spots last season but finished a mere four points behind Getafe for the final Europa League berth (the Villarreal ascension into the Europa League due to Mallorca entering into administration notwithstanding).  The inconsistency that plagued this team a year ago has lessened this campaign because the stability provided by Caparrós and President Fernando García Macua has given this team time to build a chemistry that is comparable to the instinctive and telepathic communication displayed at FC Barcelona.  Fran Yeste was the only significant departure this past summer, Iker Muniain has matured exponentially both physically and mentally, and the two representatives at the World Cup for Bilbao, Javi Martínez and Fernando Llorente, have grown as leaders of this relatively young Athletic squad both on and off the pitch.

Espanyol, in a similar track to Athletic, recently lost two of their young, talented defenders, Víctor Ruiz and Dídac Vilà, to those European suitors, so keeping their top talents is the only way that Athletic can maintain these top half finishes consistently.  The glory days of the 1930s and the 1980s might not have arrived at Athletic just yet, but if they can somehow fend off the European suitors that desperately want both Muniain and Llorente, they could become a mainstay in the top-six of La Liga for years to come.

Fueras de Juego

- Can the title race really be called off with seventeen rounds remaining?  Another lackluster performance by Real Madrid finally resulted in a loss, as Javier Camuñas’ chip over Iker Casillas ended up as the lone goal in a match that was more about desire and desperation than it was about the football.  Osasuna had only lost once at the Estadio Reyno Navarra all season in La Liga, and the thick and heavy atmosphere of the stadium troubles any team that visits Pamplona.  Los merengues now trail Barcelona by seven points, an enormous gulf considering that the blaugrana have dropped only five points in twenty-one matches this season.  Emmanuel Adebayor, the No. 9 that José Mourinho desired for so long, came in with about half an hour left and provided little as Real might have to look to the Copa del Rey or the UEFA Champions League if they want any silverware before the end of the campaign.

The moral of this story: if your team is leading late in the match, and the opposition is pelting your team’s half of the pitch with every ounce they have, tactical and professional fouls can work to slow them down, but the best remedy to break the game up is to have the ball boys and girls throw extra balls on the field during the run of play.  Osasuna’s minors did that twice and unsurprisingly at important times.  Like Jeffrey Maier, whose fan interference was key in the New York Yankees run to the World Series championship in 1996, these kids will be lauded by the Osasuna fans as much as Javier Camuñas for scoring the only goal.

- FC Barcelona looked underwhelming for once but still achieved a 0-3 road victory at the Estadio José Rico Pérez against Hércules.  The side from Alicante tends to bring about Barcelona’s worst play, and if Hércules could have somehow pulled off another shocker, they would have notched their fourth straight victory over Barça, which had not been achieved since 1965 when Atlético Madrid pulled off that feat.

- Deportivo La Coruña has only scored more than two goals three times in all competitions this season, so when Sevilla goalkeeper Andrés Palop was sent off for an intentional handball, and Lassad Nouioui scored a brace to lead the Andalucians 2-0 with twenty-seven minutes remaining, the odds of Sevilla storming back with three unanswered goals was highly unlikely.  Welcome to the world of Miguel Ángel Lotina.  Sevilla scored their three in a short sixteen minutes with a man down to take the 2-3 lead, but as time neared the ninety-minute mark, Laure equalized for Depor in one of the most controversial moments of the season.

The linesman clearly raised his flag because he felt Laure was offside when he knocked his half-volley past Javi Varas, but referee Miguel Ángel Ayza Gámez waved play on, and the replay backed up Ayza Gámez’s overrule of his assistant.  The Sevilla players were incensed, to put it mildly, and the whole team promptly surrounded both the linesman and the referee in one of the uglier scenes in Spanish football this season.  Luckily, for both Depor and the refereeing crew, the match was at El Riazor in A Coruña.  If this had happened at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, with the images of Iker Casillas being pelted by a bottle still fresh in the mind, all hell might have broken loose.

- The best display of football happened at the Estadi Cornellà El-Prat, where Villarreal escaped with a narrow 0-1 victory because of the blistering power and accuracy of Giuseppe Rossi’s shot, which beat Carlos Kameni at his left near post with nearly no angle in which to shoot, surely a top-five candidate for goal of the season.  The big question for Espanyol coming into the match was how they would replace the losses of Víctor Ruíz and Dídac Vilà to Napoli and AC Milan respectively.

Jordi Amat, the 18-year-old central defender from the Espanyol cantera, played and emitted an aura of a veteran, assuredly commencing build-up play from the back even with pressure on him and getting physical with his man when necessary.  While Espanyol lost, a draw would have been the fairer result, as Espanyol controlled possession and the flow of play throughout the match, and los periquitos look well equipped to stay in the auspices of the European places for the rest of the season.

What the match also showed is that Villarreal can win when they have to play on the counter-attack and rely on their defense and organization.  A 0-1 lead away from home was not usually a lead that the Yellow Submarine could hold too often, but against a quality club who had won every match but one at home in La Liga all season, Villarreal passed another difficult test in their quest for a top-three finish.

The Palau Reíal Major in Barcelona was the home for counts of Barcelona and later the Kings of Aragon.

Espanyol’s surprising start has not only stretched to this juncture of the season but has also improved from a club that only garnered points at home to a team that can win the tough matches away from home.  Impressively winning at Sevilla and Getafe in their last two games have shown that a top-six finish and a subsequent European berth is not only a possibility but a likely probability.

As a smaller team in La Liga and a club still fighting financial problems when it went into administration a few years ago, this January transfer window forced Espanyol to become a selling team rather than a buying team.  Two of their young and talented defenders, Víctor Ruiz and Didac Vilà, were sold within the past week to the Serie A, as Napoli payed los periquitos €6 million for Ruiz’s services and AC Milan valued Vilà at €4 million to become Milan’s future left back.

Espanyol will have to scramble this weekend to reshape their back four as they host third-place Villarreal at the Cornellà El-Prat, where the Catalans have won eight of their nine home matches this season, the only blemish being the 1-5 humbling by their city rivals FC Barcelona.  Another future defensive starlet, 18-year-old Jordi Amat, will likely play in central defense to pair up with Juan Forlín, but cover at left back could be dicey because Ernesto Galán and David García are doubtful.

Even though the Cornellà – El Prat has become a fortress for Espanyol, their defensive instability at this moment could not come at the worst time with the highly creative and innovative Villarreal coming to Barcelona on Sunday.  The seamless transition from Nilmar to Marco Rubén as Giuseppe Rossi’s strike partner has not slowed down Villarreal’s attack as Nilmar still recovers from his knee problems, and Villarreal cannot relax for a second with Valencia biting at their heels, only two points behind Villarreal for third place.

In this weekend’s other top matchup, Atlético Madrid hosts Athletic Bilbao as they have the traditional Sunday 5:00 PM kickoff time all to themselves.  The Atlético has reared its ugly head again, but this latest spell can directly fall on the absence of Sergio “Kun” Agüero because Diego Forlán has underwhelmed since his Golden Ball-winning performances in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and Diego Costa has been mediocre to decent.

For Athletic Bilbao, their self-destruction against Real Sociedad in the Basque derby in December led to a mini-renaissance for los leones.  Joaquin Caparrós, known for his tough love with his players, must have dressed the Athletic team down to its core after that loss, and they have responded with a 4-1-1 in La Liga since that loss and an inspiring two-legged cup tie with FC Barcelona in the Round of 16 in the Copa del Rey, where a late Éric Abidal goal gave the Culés just enough to advance 1-1 on aggregate because of the away goals rule.  Fernando Llorente continues to be the talisman for Athletic, and even through the swirling rumors of his departure, he has not let those distractions affect his performances on the pitch.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Jan. 29

Mallorca vs. Sporting Gijón – 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477 (477-1 for HD)

Levante vs. Getafe – 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 478 (478-1 for HD)

Real Sociedad vs. Almería – 11:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Hércules vs. FC Barcelona – 1:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Deportivo La Coruña vs. Sevilla – 3:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Jan. 30

Atlético Madrid vs. Athletic Bilbao – 10:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Osasuna vs. Real Madrid – 12:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Espanyol vs. Villarreal – 2:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Jan. 31

Racing de Santander vs. Valencia – 2:45 PM on DirecTV channel 477 (477-1 for HD)

Unfortunately, the Málaga – Real Zaragoza match at La Rosaleda will not be shown on US TV.

Maybe Florentino Pérez might start to appreciate Gonzalo Higuaín now.

The man that Pérez wanted to offload since he returned for his second stint as Real president sits in the stands because he is recovering from surgery that repaired a herniated lumbar disc in his back, and José Mourinho has not developed a successful system to cope with this loss.  The natural deputy for Higuaín is Karim Benzema, the talented and young French international who came with his own expectations when Real splashed a cool €35 million in the summer of 2009, but he has failed to impress since arriving at the Bernabéu.

This injury was so severe for Higuaín that he was an unused substitute in Real’s most important match of the season to this point against FC Barcelona, and Barça drubbed los blancos 5-0.  Benzema, thrown unexpectedly into the Camp Nou cauldron because of Higuaín’s absence, predictably let the moment get to him and became largely ineffective against the Catalans.  To be fair, the whole squad had run out of any plausible ideas against Barça, but setting aside El Clásico, Benzema, in essence, was on trial for his future in Madrid from that match forward because Higuaín’s layoff from action extended from a week to a couple weeks to four months when the doctors recommended surgery.

Without looking deeply into the statistics, since Benzema became the starting striker against Barcelona prior to the Mallorca match on Sunday, he had scored six goals in eleven matches in all competitions.  Any top-notch striker strives for a goal ratio of one every two games, and Benzema surpassed that, but those six goals came in two matches: a hat-trick against Auxerre in the final match of the UEFA Champions League group stage, when Real already secured the top spot in the group; and a hat-trick against lowly Levante in the first leg of the Copa del Rey Round of 16, when Real ran rampant on the Valencians with an 8-0 thrashing.

Seven appearances in La Liga accrued zero goals, and in five of those matches, Mourinho substituted him.  The real indication, however, that Mourinho did not trust in Benzema came last round against Almería, when he was not named in the starting eleven, and Cristiano Ronaldo, an attacking midfielder, played as the lone striker up front with Ángel di María, Mesut Özil, and Kaká supporting Ronaldo.  In their next match in midweek against Atlético Madrid, with the tie still alive in the Copa del Rey, Mourinho opted again to place Ronaldo up front and leave Benzema on the bench.

Since Mourinho settled on his optimal starting eleven after the first few weeks of the season to gauge the situation himself with his new club, he hardly made any changes from week to week, so for Mourinho to experiment wildly with his lineup this far into the campaign showed signs of confusion and desperation within the technical staff about the current state of affairs.

Regardless of whatever happens with Real Madrid, calm or stormy, the rumors always fly around them during any January transfer window about whom they are going to sign, and with the Higuaín injury and the Benzema ineffectiveness, the names floated around.  Hugo Almeida, Emmanuel Adebayor, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Miroslav Klose, Didier Drogba, and now Roman Pavlyuchenko.  The players would never admit to this, but the dissent apparent among Mourinho, Pérez, and technical director Jorge Valdano concerning the striker question is indirectly affecting their play on the pitch, and with Barcelona routinely cruising to three, four, and five goal victories, any slip-up is magnified hundred-fold.

Despite the drama enveloping events at the Santiago Bernabéu, they have won every single match at home in all competitions this season, and after their 1-1 debacle at the Estadio Juegos Mediterráneos against Almería, Real needed the comfort of the Bernabéu to assuage their growing concerns.

Unfortunately, they hosted a Mallorca team that earned a share of the points at the Iberostar Stadium against Real in the opening round of the season, and Michael Laudrup’s team had no intention of bowing for their illustrious opponents.  In three matches as manager against the club with whom he used to play, two with Getafe and one with Mallorca, Real had only scored one goal in those three games, and in a famous 0-1 win for Getafe in February 2008, Ikechukwu Uche fired the lone goal immediately after the Real players were celebrating an Arjen Robben goal that was nullified by referee Arturo Daudén Ibáñez because he correctly ruled Raúl offside.  The win for Getafe spoiled Real Madrid perfect home record that season, and Laudrup’s Mallorca wanted to repeat the same feat on Sunday.

Laudrup has a different type of squad with Mallorca than he had with Getafe, and he cannot play the free-flowing, open type of football for long stretches like he did with Getafe.  Pablo Hernández, Ikechukwu Uche, and Manu worked and created seamlessly at Getafe to play as Laudrup wanted, and while Pierre Webó, Gonzalo Castro, Emilio Nsue, etc. are decent attacking players, they are not the type of players that will scare opposing defenses for more than a few occasions in a match.  What he does have at Mallorca is a pair of central defenders that will rival any duo in Spain, Iván Ramis and José Nunes, and a goalkeeper that continues to be underrated and under-appreciated among the Spanish scribes, Dudu Aouate.

Mallorca limited Real to a few scoring chances in their 0-0 draw in August, and when Real bossed the match in the second half and pinned all ten Mallorca players in their own half, Aouate made a multitude of outstanding saves, and Ramis and Nunes closed down and blocked several shots that would have menaced Aouate’s goal.

With Webó’s strike partner Víctor Casadesús out for eight to ten weeks with a thigh injury, both Jonathan de Guzman and Pep Lluís Martí on the sidelines with minor knee injuries, and right back Pau Cendrós suspended, Laudrup could have expected to defend for most of Sunday’s match, similar to the second half of the reverse fixture earlier in the season.

Mourinho tinkered with his lineup again, benching Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira, and Mesut Özil in favor of Fernando Gago, Esteban Granero, and Karim Benzema respectively.  With a Copa del Rey semifinal on Wednesday against Sevilla, Mourinho might have looked to rest a few players against Mallorca, but with Real blundering and bumbling through their last few matches, Mourinho could have easily been sending a message to his squad that no spot is guaranteed.  Without Benzema in the starting eleven for the past two matches, Real struggled to score, so with little choice, Mourinho stuck Benzema back up front.

While los merengues huffed and puffed in the first half, Mallorca’s Emilio Nsue had the best scoring chance of the half in the 13th minute when he shot from the right side of the penalty area across the face of goal toward the left far post and past Iker Casillas, but the post was unkind for Mallorca, pinging the ball away from goal.  Nsue entered into acres of space down the right wing because Marcelo was out of position inside Mallorca’s final third, and Casillas made sure that Marcelo knew that when he confronted Marcelo immediately after Nsue banged the post, displaying the increasingly frayed nerves and tensions among the Real players.

Mourinho admitted to his mistakes when he made two halftime changes, sending in Xabi Alonso and Mesut Özil and taking out Fernando Gago and Kaká.  In his press conference after the match, he stated how the Copa del Rey was a priority and because of that, he made a few changes because, in his words, “We [the coaching staff] have noted the physical and emotional wear and tear of the team at the moment.”

When Webó’s left-footed, pirouette first-time volley forced a stellar save by Casillas early in the second half, and referee Eduardo Iturralde González correctly did not call a handball in the box on Nunes in the 58th minute, it would not have been a stretch to imagine that Michael Laudrup would have done it again to his old team.  In all of this uncertainty, the opening goal went to Real just after the hour mark, and Karim Benzema, of all people, gave Madrid the 1-0 lead.

The build-up play set up Benzema in the box, with Ronaldo setting up Granero, who then played a through ball for Benzema.  Benzema still had plenty of work to do, and after a stepover and a dribble to create a crucial yard of room and to get the ball on his left foot, he rifled it to the left far post and past Aouate for a vital goal not only for this match but for Real’s hope of stealing the La Liga title away from Barcelona.

For the final half-hour, Real pounded Aouate’s box.  Ronaldo had a header that struck the crossbar, he also had a free kick that whizzed by the right far post by the width of a ball, and Benzema had three different chances to seal the victory, none of which he capitalized, reverting back to the Benzema that the Real fans knew.  Mallorca almost had the last laugh in the third minute of stoppage time when Nsue and Webó perfected a two-man game down the right side of the penalty area, leading to a Webó shot that needed the outstretched legs of Casillas to prevent from Mallorca equalizing at the death.

1-0 fulltime, and Real somehow pulled three points out of the Bermellón fire.

Real Madrid cannot stay in this form for too much longer if they want to reclaim La Liga from Barcelona, and while their next eight matches in the league would not worry them too much, save for Espanyol at the Cornellà – El Prat and maybe their match at home against Real Sociedad, it only takes one really poor performance as they had against Almería to squander their chance in La Liga.  They cannot ride the suggestion that Barcelona will drop points even though their world-beating ways must end at some point, and despite Cristiano Ronaldo’s Pichichi-leading twenty-two goals, he is not the answer as the lone striker up top.

There is one full week left in the transfer window, and Real Madrid may well provide the extra striker that Mourinho always wanted since he arrived in Madrid in the summer, but if Jorge Valdano wins Florentino Pérez’s influence over Mourinho, Benzema will be the man to shoulder the responsibility up front.  Speaking about Benzema after the match on the club website, Valdano continued to reiterate his support for Benzema:

“Goals are essential to strikers.  A striker needs confidence and it comes with goals.  He [Benzema] had a good game and scored a goal that allowed us to take three points.  In the past, it was players like Higuaín who had to resolve similar situations as they were heavily scrutinized, and Higuaín has turned out to be a great striker for Real Madrid. We hope the same happens to Benzema.”

While Valdano would definitely back Benzema since he was instrumental in bringing him to the Bernabéu in the summer of 2009, Benzema’s situation is strikingly similar to Higuaín when the Argentinean made his €13 million move from River Plate to Real Madrid in January 2007.  After a hit-and-miss year and a half at the Bernabéu, he banged in the goals at the end of the 2007-08 season to give Real their 31st league title, and Higuaín has never looked back.

Benzema’s goal against Mallorca on Sunday, his first in La Liga since September against Espanyol, could be the watershed moment that he needs to raise his confidence and become the striker that Valdano and Pérez saw with Lyon and the French national team.  Unfortunately, this was also said about his hat-trick against Auxerre and his hat-trick against Levante.

Fueras de Juego

- Valencia and nine-man Málaga’s 4-3 thriller at the Mestalla further ingrained the opinions about each team.  For Valencia, their attack is much more effective when both Roberto Soldado and Aritz Aduriz pair up together, and Valencia’s shaky second-half defense will cost them important points that could determine if they earn a Champions League berth at the end of the season.  For Málaga, their numerous signings this January should keep them from the relegation fight because their attacking talent should carry them through, but their defense continues to leak goals, conceding forty-five, eleven more than the next worst defenses, Almería and Levante.

- Cani did not score another goal from the halfway line, but Villarreal worked hard for their 2-1 victory over Real Sociedad to regain third place from Valencia and maintain a two-point lead over their provincial rivals.  Marco Rubén has been more than a capable deputy for Nilmar, and the jack-of-all-trades midfield work of Borja Valero and Bruno Soriano have returned the Yellow Submarine back to its lofty perch of a top-three Spanish side.

- If Atlético Madrid’s limp performance in the second leg of the Copa del Rey quarterfinal against Real Madrid signaled trouble at the Vicente Calderón, their 1-0 defeat at El Molinón against relegation-fighting Sporting Gijón was outright impotent.  The absence of Sergio “Kun” Agüero and Atlético’s corresponding poor showings without him proves the point that he is more valuable to the Atleti at this moment than Diego Forlán, and whereas Marco Rubén has filled in admirably for Nilmar, Diego Costa has not provided that same spark deputizing for Agüero.  Atlético is starting to fall away from the top-five, seven points behind fifth-place Espanyol and ten points away from Valencia for the final Champions League spot, and Quique Sánchez Flores’ may face a sacking sooner than later.  Is that not the situation with every Atlético manager however?

The Passeig des Born, a picturesque promenade in the heart of Palma de Mallorca, is lined with high-end shops coupled with quaint pavement cafés while hosting numerous festivals and fiestas throughout the year.

La Liga officially begins the second half of its season this weekend, and FC Barcelona has continued its stellar form with a staggering fifty-two points out of a possible fifty-seven points, a Spanish record for the opening half of any campaign.  Despite this extended run of breathtaking football, Barça only has a four point lead over their eternal rivals Real Madrid.  At the halfway point of last season, the Catalans held a five point edge on Real.  Two blips on the radar have blemished Barcelona’s record: a home loss to Hércules and a draw against Mallorca.

As impressive as it were for Hércules and Mallorca to take points away from Barcelona, Mallorca should receive an extra star because they also shared the points at home against Real Madrid in the opening round of the campaign, the only team in La Liga to achieve such a feat.  Similar to the Bundesliga and the Serie A, the second half of La Liga’s schedule is identical to the first half except that those who were home in the first half would now be away in the second half, and Real Madrid will want their revenge on los barralets in one of the highlight matches of this weekend.

Despite cruising to the semifinals of the Copa del Rey on Thursday night with a surprisingly easy 0-1 victory over an impotent Atlético Madrid to win by four goals to one on aggregate, the doom and gloom still hovers over the Santiago Bernabéu after their 1-1 draw last weekend against 19th place Almería dropped them four points behind Barcelona in the league.  The leaked and alleged stories of dressing room bust-ups between Sergio Ramos and Cristiano Ronaldo, Iker Casillas and Ronaldo, Jorge Valdano and José Mourinho, etc. only help to increase the pessimistic fervor among the Madridistas that are already losing hope that the championship is slipping away in the middle of January.

Mourinho has lost trust in Karim Benzema in recent matches, placing Ronaldo as a lone striker while easing Kaká into the rotation after months out due to knee troubles.  The results of this tweak have not convinced, only scoring a single goal against both Almería and Atlético Madrid, and while the Real Madrid board wade in the water about acquiring another striker during the January transfer window, Mourinho has to keep the ship on track before Barcelona sails out of sight.

Mallorca will be below full strength because Pau Cendros is suspended, Jonathan De Guzman and Pep Lluís Martí are still recovering from knee injuries, and Víctor Casadesús has just learned that he will miss up to ten weeks with a thigh injury.  Despite these significant absences for Michael Laudrup’s team, Mallorca’s defense has been solid throughout the season, and if they can frustrate Real Madrid and hope for an uninspiring performance from Real as what happened in Jornada 1, a merengue victory might not be such an easy bet.

Other intriguing matches this round include Valencia hosting the burgeoning squad of Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani’s Málaga club, whose latest edition is a Pablo Piatti clone, 5′ 3″ winger/striker Diego Buonanotte from River Plate, precocious Real Sociedad traveling to El Madrigal to face Villarreal, the best of the rest, and Getafe welcoming Espanyol to the southern edges of Madrid in a match of two top-eight outfits that most pundits predicted would be much lower in the table than where they currently stand.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Jan. 22

Sevilla vs. Levante – 11:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

FC Barcelona vs. Racing de Santander – 1:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Valencia vs. Málaga – 3:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Jan. 23

Real Zaragoza vs. Deportivo La Coruña – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477

Getafe vs. Espanyol – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 478

Sporting Gijón vs. Atlético Madrid – 10:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Real Madrid vs. Mallorca – 12:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Villarreal vs. Real Sociedad – 2:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Jan. 24

Athletic Bilbao vs. Hércules – 2:45 PM on DirecTV channel 477

Unfortunately, the Almería – Osasuna match at the Estadio de los Juegos Mediterráneos will not be shown on US TV.

La Sagrada Familia, the famous unfinished work of Antoni Gaudí, has become the symbol of the city of Barcelona.

Back from personal vacation, this weekend’s round of matches is the last one of the 2010 calendar year before the players go on their own vacations during the La Liga winter break.  To top off the end of 2010, El Derbi Barceloní headlines the round as FC Barcelona travels to the south of the city to face an Espanyol club that has won every single match at home this season.

Many of those who witnessed Barcelona’s destruction of Real Madrid three weekends ago could not help but think that Barcelona reached its zenith both competitively and stylistically; however, this period of universe-class football started a month prior to El Clásico when Barcelona dismissed a then-strong Sevilla side 5-0.  If some felt that Barcelona would suffer a letdown after El Clásico, a rugged and effective 0-3 performance against Osasuna that included a Home Alone-type panic of planes, trains, automobiles, and buses, along with a footballing 5-0 exhibition against a confident Real Sociedad squad clearly showed that Barcelona would not take any matches for granted.

Meanwhile, Espanyol flies under the radar, as they always do, and in any other season, their fourth-place standing with a week prior to the winter break would be more of a story in El Mundo Deportivo, Sport, and other Spanish sports dailies, but their city rivals have garnered more headlines than usual with their total annihilation of La Liga and their style that could possibly be the most attractive since the 1970 Brazil Seleção squad that ran rampant in the World Cup.

Espanyol had its chance to rise up to third after Getafe pulled a significant 0-1 upset against Villarreal, and after the first half against Athletic Bilbao on Sunday, their 0-1 advantage looked good enough to carry them to a rare away win.  Espanyol, however, went into its shell for the entirety of the second half to hold on to their one-goal lead, and Athletic pounded Carlos Kameni’s goal until they scored twice in a span of five minutes to earn a deserved three points.  Los periquitos are much more cavalier at home while at the same time conceding the fewest goals at home, a measly two tallies.  If the last few derbies are any indication, Espanyol will bunker down in their own half despite their high confidence this season, and physicality coupled with hard and occasionally questionable tackles and challenges will rule the night.

After Real Sociedad was humbled by FC Barcelona last Sunday, they return home to the friendly confines of the Estadio Anoeta to encounter a slightly demoralized Valencia club following their poor second-half performance against Osasuna on Monday night that led to a concession of a 3-1 halftime lead to share the points unwillingly.  Both teams will want to avenge the results of the last round, and especially for Valencia, they will want this win even more because if Espanyol loses to Barcelona and Valencia squeezes out a quality road victory, they will be tied for fourth in the league with Espanyol and have the goal difference tiebreaker in their favor.

Unai Emery worked the extra hours on the training pitch with his team this week after their horrendous defensive display against Osasuna, and with the Llorente – Griezmann- Prieto triumvirate clicking, sans the Barcelona match, expect this game to be a tight, tactical affair, which would favor the more conservative Emery.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Dec. 18

Levante vs. Athletic Bilbao - 11:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477

Deportivo La Coruña vs. Sporting Gijón – 11:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Villarreal vs. Mallorca – 11:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Espanyol vs. FC Barcelona – 1:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Real Sociedad vs. Valencia – 3:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Dec. 19

Osasuna vs. Real Zaragoza – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477

Almería vs. Getafe – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 478

Málaga vs. Atlético Madrid – 12:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Real Madrid vs. Sevilla – 2:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3/ESPN2 HD

Unfortunately, the Monday night football match between Racing de Santander vs. Hércules at El Sardinero will not be shown on US TV.

El Parque de la Taconera in Pamplona, designed in the 17th century, has its own version of the Fountain of Neptune among the many sculptures in the park.

Now that the El Clásico tornado has swept through Spain, leaving bits of Real Madrid debris in its wake, everyone can take a breath and move on with the rest of the season.  Real must pick up the pieces and stay in the present rather than dwell on the 5-0 beating that Barcelona handed them because in the late Saturday kickoff, they host a Valencia team that is slowly returning to their consistent form that saw los che top the table in early October.

Valencia won last weekend 2-1 over an Almería side under the new management of ex-Tenerife trainer José Luís Oltra, and Roberto Soldado scored a brace to notch his tally to nine goals in all competitions.  Unai Emery, known for his more conservative approach by employing a lone striker in his 4-2-3-1, has made a major adjustment by pairing Soldado with Aritz Aduriz more often, and the Valencia attack has thrived, creating more scoring chances.

Because of this switch to an old-fashioned 4-4-2, an attacking midfield had to be withdrawn from the starting eleven, and the Spanish international Pablo Hernández has more often than not been the victim of this tactical change.  Going into the Santiago Bernabéu against a team that will be desperate to regain some of their invincibility and honor, Emery will likely revert to a one-striker system, and this type of match would be a perfect opportunity for Pablo to impress and recapture his place in the starting lineup.

For Real Madrid, they would want nothing more than to thrash Valencia and prove that the 5-0 humbling was merely a blip on the radar screen, but José Mourinho and his players know that any sort of win against a quality Valencia side would be more than adequate to reclaim some of their lost confidence.  Los blancos have been perfect at home this season in all competitions, and while the Madridistas will give their club a little stick for their performance on Monday at the beginning of the match, they will quickly return to their rabid support of their boys in white, which will only help Real return to winning ways.

Sergio Ramos will serve his one-match ban against Valencia after receiving a straight red card for his vicious tackle on Lionel Messi and his petulant pushes on Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernández after he had been sent off, but Álvaro Arbeloa is more than capable of deputizing for Ramos at right back for a match, so while Real will lose a little on offense, Arbeloa will stay at home more often and cover the left wing, where Juan Mata will likely roam.

Gonzalo Higuaín, however, will potentially be out of action for two to three months due to a herniated disk in his back, and Karim Benzema will have the true audition he has wanted since he arrived in Madrid in the summer of 2009.  The rumormongerers have bandied about names such as Hugo Almeida, Nelson Haedo Valdez, and Edin Dzeko to augment the strike force in January, and Benzema will have a string of seven or eight matches to prove his worth.  Real cannot rely on Cristiano Ronaldo for all of their goals, so Benzema has become the vital piece in the opposition final third to provide a true second option after Ronaldo and return Real to its winning ways.

For Real’s Clásico rivals FC Barcelona, they cannot afford to rest on their laurels and become complacent because they travel north to Pamplona and encounter an Osasuna team that has not lost at home in La Liga all season long.  The Barça players know well how tough and physical Osasuna is at home.  They can look back to the last campaign, when Osasuna showed no reverence for the champions, chopping them down legally and illegally on a regular basis.  In the dying seconds, Gerard Piqué’s attempted clearance/block went into his own goal, giving los rojillos a deserved 1-1 draw, and Barcelona can expect the same type of rugged affair on Saturday night.

Other intriguing matches in Jornada 14 include a matchup of perennial Champions League clubs Villarreal and Sevilla at El Madrigal, a relegation six-pointer between Almería and Real Zaragoza, both on their second managers, and the Basque derby between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao at San Sebastián in the late Sunday kickoff.

The times listed are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleasantries, although sometimes the matches on the DirecTV La Liga specific channels may not go to match coverage until right before kickoff.

Nov. 4

Levante vs. Atlético Madrid – 11:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Osasuna vs. FC Barcelona – 1:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Real Madrid vs. Valencia – 3:55 PM on Gol TV HD

Nov. 5

Getafe vs. Mallorca – 10:45 AM on DirecTV channel 477

Almería vs. Real Zaragoza – 10:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Espanyol vs. Sporting Gijón – 10:55 AM on Gol TV HD

Villarreal vs. Sevilla – 12:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Real Sociedad vs. Athletic Bilbao – 2:45 PM on DirecTV channel 478

Nov. 6

Deportivo La Coruña vs. Hércules – 2:45 PM on DirecTV channel 477

Unfortunately, the Málaga – Racing de Santander match at La Rosaleda will not be shown on US TV.

Under trainer Mauricio Pochettino, Espanyol has gone through one of these hot streaks in every season he has managed the club.  After the club fired José Manuel Esnal “Mané” in the middle of the 2008-09 season, they hired Mauricio Pochettino to get out of the relegation zone.  As late as Jornada 30 in that season, Espanyol propped everyone at the foot of the table, ominously looking at the Segunda División for the first time since 1994, but the Catalans won eight of their last ten matches to finish in a comfortable tenth.

Last season, Espanyol only lost two of their first eight matches and never felt the fight for relegation because of their decent start as they finished a mediocre eleventh place, eight points above the drop zone.

It would be easy to write off Espanyol as merely an early season surprise that will return to its place in mid to lower table as their campaign wears on into the winter months.  They have achieved a fourth-place position based on their stellar six-for-six home record with only Real Madrid able to keep up with such solidity at home, but away from the Cornellà-El Prat, los periquitos have been less than ordinary, racking up a paltry four points out of eighteen heading into the Vicente Calderón on Saturday night against Atlético Madrid.

For many teams that find themselves in the top four of a league, they have a defined identity that characterizes why they are playing well.  Taking the top four currently in La Liga, Barcelona’s identity is a possession team that continually prods the defense until they see a tiny opening, when their talented players exploit such weaknesses to the maximum.  Real Madrid’s identity directly comes from their trainer José Mourinho, who emphasizes defensive reliability, then lets his players flourish in the opponent’s final third.  Villarreal’s identity is based on their slick, short passing game and their ability to thrive through the middle of the pitch despite playing narrower than most teams.

What is Espanyol’s identity?

They are not particularly physical, like Osasuna and Athletic Bilbao.  They are not overtly defensive, like Deportivo La Coruña or Mallorca.  They do not play with a flair like Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Villarreal.  They are not schizophrenic or wildly inconsistent like Atlético Madrid, Málaga, or Sevilla.  They do not have an outspoken, demonstrative manager that inspires them like Manolo Preciado for Sporting Gijón or Unai Emery for Valencia.

What is Espanyol’s identity?

They are that anonymous team that no one really notices, but when people look at the results, they scratch their heads and ask from where did they come?

They are the master of the close matches, as five of their seven victories were won by a single goal, including four 1-0 victories.  When they lose, they tend to get blown out with three of their four losses coming at a three-goal margin or higher.

If they were located in another city in Spain, Espanyol would have more press about their impressive start, but they are situated in the city of Barcelona, where their city rivals FC Barcelona completely engulf El Mundo Deportivo and Sport, the two main sports daily newspapers in Barcelona, and quite frankly, Espanyol does not mind that they are in the shadows of their more famous neighbor.  They do not carry an inferior complex like their opponents on Saturday night, Atlético Madrid, have with their local rivals Real Madrid.

The 2-3 victory for Espanyol over Atlético Madrid on Saturday felt like that other matchup between the other two teams from their respective cities, and El Clásico on Monday night will find it hard to live up to this undercard at the Vicente Calderón.

Quique Sánchez Flores, for the first time all season, could name the same starting eleven as the previous round with Sergio Agüero and José Antonio Reyes continuing their good form while Diego Forlán has recently come out of the doldrums with three goals in his last two matches against Osasuna and Real Sociedad.

Mauricio Pochettino also had the luxury of naming consecutive starting elevens, and his cradle of young footballers have matured at a high rate and now lead a talented group that could see Espanyol compete for European places on a regular basis.  Cantera products Dídac Vilà, Jordi Amat, Javi Márquez, etc. now feature regularly in Pochettino’s lineup, and with Boca Juniors import Juan Forlín, they had the responsibility of containing Atlético’s rampant attack.

After a frantic opening five minutes, where turnovers in the midfield led to scoring opportunities for Forlán and Pablo Osvaldo, the match settled down to a muddle in the midfield until the 20th minute, when referee José Antonio Teixiera Vitienes whistled and pointed to the penalty spot in favor of Espanyol.  José Callejón’s free kick hit José Antonio Reyes in the wall that was inside the penalty area, but in trying to protect himself from receiving a beaning from the free kick, he lifted his arms to shield his face, and the ball hit his arms.  Teixiera Vitienes judged that he made himself bigger by raising his arms and thus the penalty had to be called.  Luís García blasted the penalty kick down the middle, hitting the underside of the crossbar, and scoring Espanyol’s second away goal of the season.

Comfortably holding that one-goal advantage despite Atlético slightly controlling both the possession and the flow of the match, Espanyol looked poised to go into halftime with the 0-1 lead, but in the final ten minutes of the first half, Atlético ramped up the pressure ten-fold, camping inside Carlos Kameni’s penalty area, and in the final action of the half, Atlético equalized despite the heroics of Kameni.

?Kameni did the best he could, first stopping Tiago’ header from Simão’s corner from six yards out and then blocking Diego Godín’s follow-up from point-blank range, but he could not stop Tiago’s second effort from just in front of the goal line as his defenders complained more about an offside call than trying to clear Kameni’s lines.

If a person went to Ladbrokes, Bwin, or any other betting place at halftime, the odds of Atlético Madrid winning the match would likely have been at even money or below.  In Espanyol’s lone away win against Mallorca, they took the lead with another Luís García penalty and never conceded the lead.  With such a devastating blow in the final seconds of the first half, few would have bet their savings on Espanyol to recover and win the match.

Espanyol struck again nine minutes into the second half due to a goalkeeping gaffe by the young starlet David de Gea, as a usually routine save on Pablo Osvaldo’s shot was bumbled away by de Gea to the right far post, where Joan Verdú ghosted in and cleaned up the mess.  Unlike after Espanyol’s first goal, where the lead seemed secure, the 1-2 scoreline looked like it would not hold up as Atlético pressed on to equalize again, and a classic Forlán – Agüero hookup in the 66th minute made the game all square for the second time.

Surely, Atlético would now deliver the final blow on an Espanyol club that fought well but would ultimately come up short on the road yet again.  After los rojiblancos blew three more scoring chances following their second equalizer, Pablo Osvaldo sealed the win for Espanyol with an outstanding volley that took all the technical skill he could muster.  Luís García’s cross from the right wing was slightly behind Osvaldo, and he knew that controlling the ball would have killed any chance of scoring, so he struck the ball sweetly with the laces of his boots to the upper right corner of the goal, and de Gea dove in vain as Espanyol showed for the first time this season the persistence and resiliency that comes with winning tough away matches.

Emotions and passions will run high in El Clásico on Monday night, but they will not likely spill over like the fracas that occurred at the end of the Atlético Madrid – Espanyol match, when Quique Sánchez Flores went ballistic on Luís García after Diego Godín clattered Javi López on the sideline.  Sánchez Flores claimed that García laughed at him and suggested to López to stay down to waste more time.  Sánchez Flores attempted to lift López off the ground, and the Espanyol players took exception, with Mauricio Pochettino coming into the scene to diffuse the situation and keep Sánchez Flores back from doing more harm than he had already done.

2-3 fulltime, and Quique Sánchez Flores continued his tirade at Luís García, and both his coaching staff and Espanyol goalkeeper Carlos Kameni had to restrain him from getting near García.

The little episode at the end of the match should not cloud the extraordinary performance of Espanyol, who dispelled some of the insinuations that they could not win away from home against the upper echelon clubs in Spain.  Will Espanyol finish in the top four and qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history?  Likely not, but unlike some of the talented Espanyol teams of the past decade that fell short of expectations, this team has a core of young stars that do not fear success.

While Raúl Tamudo will always be a club legend for Espanyol, the drama that surrounded him in the past two years, including his manager and former teammate Mauricio Pochettino phasing him out of the starting eleven as well as contract disputes with the board, needed to dissipate so that these young players could move on, and Pablo Osvaldo can now play with a freedom, knowing that Tamudo is not in his rear view mirror anymore.

With Pochettino’s young energy and the team’s young blood coming through the Espanyol academy into the first team, the future of Barcelona’s second club looks bright.  El derbi Barceloní between Espanyol and FC Barcelona will occur in Jornada 16, and while this match is usually played for pride rather than table positioning because Espanyol normally occupies the lower half of the table, the 153rd edition of the derby might be the most significant derby in decades.

Monday’s El Clásico can only hope to live up to this match between a Madrid and a Barcelona team.

Fueras de Juego

- The knives were out for Míchel González after Getafe went through another lifeless half against Sevilla, but somehow, with the help of a complacent Sevilla, Míchel’s team overturned the 1-0 deficit with three goals in the second half, including a Pedro Ríos shot that could have easily ripped through the back of the net because of it exhilarating velocity.  Sevilla has become the Atlético Madrid of this season, notching impressive wins over Valencia and Atlético Madrid while inexplicably losing to Hércules and Sporting Gijón by multiple-goal margins.

- While the neutrals will want a winner in El Clásico on Monday night, the one team that wants the match to end in a draw is Villarreal.  They took care of Real Zaragoza at La Romareda 0-3, and they currently stand four points behind Barcelona and five points behind Real Madrid.  The Yellow Submarine does not want either team to go too far beyond them, with the dying hope that they still have a chance to finish inside the top two.

- Whether Roberto Soldado meant to or not, his first goal in Valencia’s 2-1 win over Almería deserves the golazo of the week with an incredible bit of luck/skill to set up his shot at goal.  Bruno Saltor’s cross from the right wing came just a shade short for Soldado to head it toward another teammate, so Soldado backheaded it to himself to control the ball, then he juked a couple of Almería defenders and shot it past Diego Alves for the 1-0 lead.  If Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi performed such a skill, no one would question that they did it deliberately to control the ball, but gangly and awkward Roberto Soldado could not have possibly done that on purpose, or did he?

]]> 0