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.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani could have done anything with his time, and with all of his responsibilities on his docket, president of a football club would seem to be near the bottom of his list.  Born from Qatari royalty, the Sheikh billionaire currently sits on the Board of Directors of Doha Bank and the Qatar Equestrian Federation as well as running a business empire including but not exclusive to hotel chains, shopping malls, and cellular phone companies.

Sheikh Al Thani, however, worked and negotiated to buy Málaga Club de Fútbol for a price of €36 million in June with then-owner Lorenzo Sanz and president Fernando Sanz, while devoting and extended four to five months to this acquisition.  Foreign ownership has become the rage throughout Europe, but La Liga, and Spain in general, has historically kept ownership and president roles to Spanish citizens only.  When the Sheikh took over Málaga in June, he opened the old boys’ club and became the only non-Spanish owner in the top flight of Spain.

Whereas most of the new crop of foreign owners in Europe keep to the matter of their own clubs and merely worry about big-money signings, Sheikh Al Thani put his nose into the internal issues of Spanish football.  Aside from the historical teams in Spain, the rest of the clubs usually have little say when it comes to the RFEF (the governing body of football in Spain), but Al Thani cared little for the normal protocol when the issue of revenue sharing came to light.

The new TV deal will come into effect starting in the 2014-15 season, and according to the contract, Real Madrid and Barcelona will take 34% of the pot, Atlético Madrid and Valencia will garner 11% of the money, 1% will be held for those who get relegated to the Segunda División, and the rest will be split among the remaining La Liga teams.  Several of the clubs symbolically spit on this contract, Sevilla president José María del Nido leading the charge.  While Málaga agreed to the terms of the deal, Sheikh Al Thani still voiced a dissenting opinion concerning the future TV contract:

“The situation now honestly is not good, regarding the TV rights,” he said, according to Reuters.  It’s not good for the clubs, because only the two big teams are leading the whole issue.  We wish to have the same system as they have in England because it’s much more fair.  There are some clubs at the bottom, they have some financial problems.  It doesn’t make for fair competition.”

While these statements might come off as a tad (or completely) hypocritical since he has the billions to pay for any player in the world, his sentiments are no less correct or meaningful.  Usually, any new owner, whether domestic or foreign, wants to assimilate himself into the league and the other owners before speaking out on important football issues, but Sheikh Al Thani has been a trend-breaker in his business career, and his association with Málaga has not changed the way he operates.

One of the trends, however, that he has followed has been the tendency for new owners to make an immediate impact with a multitude of new signings.  Sheikh Al Thani was not shy in splashing the cash during the summer transfer window, but knowing Málaga’s modest standing in Europe and Spain’s pecking order, Al Thani did not immediately start with huge, mega-million Euro bids like what Sheikh Mansour executed when his Abu Dhabi United Group purchased Manchester City in 2008.  The club spent a relatively middling €16.15 million on eight different players, the two most expensive being €4 million striker from Banfield, club-record signing Sebastián “Seba” Fernández, and €3.5 million striker from Las Palmas, Salomón Rondón.

With this infusion of new players, Jesualdo Ferreira replaced incumbent Juan Ramón López Muñiz as manager of Málaga, and the new dawn was supposed to rise on the Costa del Sol.

Nine matches into this season, with losses in their first five home matches and a grand total of seven points earned, Sheikh Al Thani fired Ferreira, who José Mourinho described as “a story of a donkey who worked for thirty years but never became a horse.”  Seba found it hard to adjust to life and football in Spain, a goalkeeping crisis hit the club with three different goalkeepers having to start within those nine matches, and the defense leaked an astonishing twenty-one goals in that short nine-game span.

Sheikh Al Thani’s experiment was blowing up in his face, but he made a big and surprising splash with the hiring of former Villarreal and Real Madrid manager Manuel Pellegrini to replace Ferreira.  Unfortunately, for Pellegrini and Málaga, the situation did not improve significantly as los boquerones only gained six points in seven matches to end 2010, and if there were one owner in Spain to mark as the wheeler and dealer of the January transfer window, Sheikh Al Thani was the odds makers’ favorite.

Six new players joined Málaga in January, and while new club-record signing and Pablo Piatti clone Diego Buonanotte will arrive in the summer, the other five players can be sorted into two different groups: the has-beens and the could-bes.

If this were 2005, Martín Demichelis, Enzo Maresca, and Júlio Baptista would have been quite a triumvirate of transfers.  Baptista signed from Sevilla for €20 million to Real Madrid, Maresca joined Sevilla from Fiorentina for €2.5 million and became a staple in the attacking midfield for los nervionenses, and Demichelis established himself as an ever-present in the Bayern Munich central defense, with whom he was a part of three Bundesliga titles, three DFB-Pokal (German Cup) crowns and a finals appearance in the 2009-10 UEFA Champions League.  Now, these three are in the twilight of their careers, hoping to recapture the magic they wielded in the past.

Ignacio Camacho and Sergio Asenjo were supposed to be the future of both Atlético Madrid and the Spanish national team.  Camacho rose through the ranks of the Atleti cantera to the first team while captaining the Spanish under-17 team to a European Championship in 2007.  He could not supplant the likes of Paulo Assunção, Tiago, Raúl García, Cléber Santana, etc., so Atlético let go their once promising midfielder to Málaga for a bargain-basement price of €1.5 million.

Asenjo was presumed as the heir to Iker Casillas in the Spanish national team.  He was the first-choice goalkeeper for the Spanish under-21 team at the 2009 European Championships and the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup, and when he supplanted both Ludovic Butelle and Alberto López as the undisputed number one goalkeeper for Real Valladolid at the end of 2007, he became the youngest starting keeper in La Liga at the tender age of eighteen.

Atlético thought so highly of Asenjo that they let go of Grégory Coupet and long-time starter Leo Franco and brought Asenjo from Valladolid for €5 million in the summer of 2009.  A nervous start and some unforgivable gaffes saw his grip on as first-choice Atlético keeper loosened completely with Roberto Jiménez taking over, and eventually David de Gea rose above both Roberto and Asenjo with Asenjo relegated to third choice, a stunning and immediate fall from grace.

Manuel Pellegrini drafted all five of these players directly into the starting eleven, but circumstances had not improved.  Four points out of five matches in January, including conceding a late goal that lost a match 1-2 to relegation rivals Real Zaragoza, had the Andalucian club at the foot of the table, four points below the safety line.  So when Málaga traveled west to their provincial rivals Sevilla on Sunday afternoon, the gloaming looked to continue los boquerones.

Málaga had conceded forty-seven goals in La Liga prior to Jornada 22, eleven more than any other team in the Primera División, and with a rojiblanco team loaded with talented attacking players like Frédéric Kanouté, Luís Fabiano, Jesús Navas, etc., it was not a question of if but how many would they allow.

Sevilla trainer Gregorio Manzano, however, strayed from the normal 4-4-2 and employed a 4-2-3-1 with Fabiano as the lone striker up front in order to shore up a midfield that had given up a plethora of scoring chances in the past few weeks.

Manuel Pellegrini changed his tactics for this match by closing his open, attacking style and employing Eliseu Pereira, the attacking left winger, at left back ahead of the incumbent Patrick Mtiliga.  Pellegrini’s strategy worked to perfection, as his team allowed only one scoring chance and gave up three shots, only one of which was on target, in the first half.  Eliseu bottled up Jesús Navas on the right wing for the most part, and while Eliseu could not bomb forward because of the Navas threat, he unearthed defensive acumen that apparently Pellegrini only saw.

The match did not perk up that much in the second half, and Málaga nearly stole the three points in the fifth minute of stoppage time.  In the last action of the match, Eliseu whipped in a free kick into a host of bodies in the box, and Weligton got a surprisingly unmarked header on target.  Andrés Palop, who had little to do for the whole match, came up with a flying parry that saved the draw for Sevilla, and Seba Fernández fluffed a potential reply from Palop’s save as it screwed miles wide of the right near post.

0-0 fulltime, and Málaga could not be more pleased with a boring, tedious draw.

Málaga fully deserved to come out of the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán with at least a point, and while the match was a snoozer for the neutral and a frustration for the Sevilla fans, this match was a very positive sign for Málaga, not only because they got a point in the middle of a relegation battle against a European-caliber team but also because they kept a clean sheet for only the third time all season.  While Pellegrini will likely not apply this type of defensive strategy too often, he made a point of making Sevilla have to penetrate a Fort Knox-like team to signal to his players that they are capable of playing well defensively while limiting the egregious turnover and mistakes to a minimum.

If Pellegrini can keep his team this organized while opening up a little more to allow Baptista, Rondón, and the other attacking personnel to express themselves in the final third, they should rise above the bottom three by the end of the season.  Pellegrini’s main objective is to keep Málaga in La Liga, and if he accomplishes this task, Sheikh Al Thani has shown that he is fully invested in all facets of this club besides player transfers but will also provide all the funds necessary for Pellegrini to craft this team in the way Pellegrini wants.  Bright days are ahead of this club that has been known as the classic yo-yo team, bouncing up and down from the first division, and if Málaga becomes a mainstay in La Liga, what player would not want to play in a beautiful city on the Costa del Sol that is bankrolled by a billionaire?

Fueras de Juego

- Villarreal must have assumed that playing at El Madrigal against a modest Levante team would require little effort, but their sleepwalking performance inspired Levante to channel this disrespect into a positive outcome, and Levante shocked their Comunitat Valenciana neighbors 0-1, handing Villarreal only its first loss at home all season.  With Valencia comfortably handling Hércules 2-0 at the Mestalla in the other Comunitat Valenciana derby on Sunday, Valencia is only one point behind Villarreal for third in the table, and the Yellow Submarine will regret their arrogant attitude against Levante if Valencia and they remain close together at the end of the season.

- Many assumed Osasuna would experience a massive letdown after the physical and emotional nirvana of defeating Real Madrid 1-0 at the Estadio Reyno de Navarra last weekend in front of their ravenous home faithful, but while they only managed a 1-1 draw at home to Mallorca to remain one point above the relegation zone, Osasuna performed with a surprising vim and vigor throughout the ninety minutes, scoring within the first ten minutes from a Miguel Flaño goal.  Six of Osasuna’s next seven fixtures feature teams tenth or below in the standings, so the gorritxoak could sew up top-flight football for another year in this stretch.

- FC Barcelona won their sixteenth consecutive La Liga match on Saturday, breaking the 1960-61 Real Madrid record of fifteen, and Lionel Messi scored another hat-trick to raise his total to a mere twenty-four goals in nineteen starts in the league and thirty-seven goals in thirty-one appearances in all competitions.  What is new?  Not much, and that is the brilliance of this streak.  They have had more 5+ goal victories (Sevilla, Almería, Real Madrid, and Real Sociedad) than one-goal victories (Valencia and Levante) during this run, and besides the occasional knocks and niggles, the squad has been healthy for the most part.

Real Madrid kept pace to stay seven points behind Barcelona after they cruised to a 4-1 victory over Real Sociedad, but to expect Barcelona to drop points in three or four matches in order for Real Madrid to catch up seems improbable at this point.  With the Champions League returning next week, that might provide the only plausible avenue for Barcelona to drop points, balancing La Liga and the Champions League with possible squad rotation and general fatigue.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani could have done anything with his time, and with all of his responsibilities on his docket, president of a football club would seem to be near the bottom of his list.  Born from Qatari royalty, the Sheikh billionaire currently sits on the Board of Directors of Doha Bank and the Qatar Equestrian Federation as well as running a business empire including but not exclusive to hotel chains, shopping malls, and cellular phone companies.

Sheikh Al Thani, however, worked and negotiated to buy Málaga Club de Fútbol for a price of €36 million in June with then-owner Lorenzo Sanz and president Fernando Sanz, while devoting and extended four to five months to this acquisition.  Foreign ownership has become the rage throughout Europe, but La Liga, and Spain in general, has historically kept ownership and president roles to Spanish citizens only.  When the Sheikh took over Málaga in June, he opened the old boys’ club and became the only non-Spanish owner in the top flight of Spain.

Whereas most of the new crop of foreign owners in Europe keep to the matter of their own clubs and merely worry about big-money signings, Sheikh Al Thani put his nose into the internal issues of Spanish football.  Aside from the historical teams in Spain, the rest of the clubs usually have little say when it comes to the RFEF (the governing body of football in Spain), but Al Thani cared little for the normal protocol when the issue of revenue sharing came to light.

The new TV deal will come into effect starting in the 2014-15 season, and according to the contract, Real Madrid and Barcelona will take 34% of the pot, Atlético Madrid and Valencia will garner 11% of the money, 1% will be held for those who get relegated to the Segunda División, and the rest will be split among the remaining La Liga teams.  Several of the clubs symbolically spit on this contract, Sevilla president José María del Nido leading the charge.  While Málaga agreed to the terms of the deal, Sheikh Al Thani still voiced a dissenting opinion concerning the future TV contract:

“The situation now honestly is not good, regarding the TV rights,” he said, according to Reuters.  It’s not good for the clubs, because only the two big teams are leading the whole issue.  We wish to have the same system as they have in England because it’s much more fair.  There are some clubs at the bottom, they have some financial problems.  It doesn’t make for fair competition.”

While these statements might come off as a tad (or completely) hypocritical since he has the billions to pay for any player in the world, his sentiments are no less correct or meaningful.  Usually, any new owner, whether domestic or foreign, wants to assimilate himself into the league and the other owners before speaking out on important football issues, but Sheikh Al Thani has been a trend-breaker in his business career, and his association with Málaga has not changed the way he operates.

One of the trends, however, that he has followed has been the tendency for new owners to make an immediate impact with a multitude of new signings.  Sheikh Al Thani was not shy in splashing the cash during the summer transfer window, but knowing Málaga’s modest standing in Europe and Spain’s pecking order, Al Thani did not immediately start with huge, mega-million Euro bids like what Sheikh Mansour executed when his Abu Dhabi United Group purchased Manchester City in 2008.  The club spent a relatively middling €16.15 million on eight different players, the two most expensive being €4 million striker from Banfield, club-record signing Sebastián “Seba” Fernández, and €3.5 million striker from Las Palmas, Salomón Rondón.

With this infusion of new players, Jesualdo Ferreira replaced incumbent Juan Ramón López Muñiz as manager of Málaga, and the new dawn was supposed to rise on the Costa del Sol.

Nine matches into this season, with losses in their first five home matches and a grand total of seven points earned, Sheikh Al Thani fired Ferreira, who José Mourinho described as “a story of a donkey who worked for thirty years but never became a horse.”  Seba found it hard to adjust to life and football in Spain, a goalkeeping crisis hit the club with three different goalkeepers having to start within those nine matches, and the defense leaked an astonishing twenty-one goals in that short nine-game span.

Sheikh Al Thani’s experiment was blowing up in his face, but he made a big and surprising splash with the hiring of former Villarreal and Real Madrid manager Manuel Pellegrini to replace Ferreira.  Unfortunately, for Pellegrini and Málaga, the situation did not improve significantly as los boquerones only gained six points in seven matches to end 2010, and if there were one owner in Spain to mark as the wheeler and dealer of the January transfer window, Sheikh Al Thani was the odds makers’ favorite.

Six new players joined Málaga in January, and while new club-record signing and Pablo Piatti clone Diego Buonanotte will arrive in the summer, the other five players can be sorted into two different groups: the has-beens and the could-bes.

If this were 2005, Martín Demichelis, Enzo Maresca, and Júlio Baptista would have been quite a triumvirate of transfers.  Baptista signed from Sevilla for €20 million to Real Madrid, Maresca joined Sevilla from Fiorentina for €2.5 million and became a staple in the attacking midfield for los nervionenses, and Demichelis established himself as an ever-present in the Bayern Munich central defense, with whom he was a part of three Bundesliga titles, three DFB-Pokal (German Cup) crowns and a finals appearance in the 2009-10 UEFA Champions League.  Now, these three are in the twilight of their careers, hoping to recapture the magic they wielded in the past.

Ignacio Camacho and Sergio Asenjo were supposed to be the future of both Atlético Madrid and the Spanish national team.  Camacho rose through the ranks of the Atleti cantera to the first team while captaining the Spanish under-17 team to a European Championship in 2007.  He could not supplant the likes of Paulo Assunção, Tiago, Raúl García, Cléber Santana, etc., so Atlético let go their once promising midfielder to Málaga for a bargain-basement price of €1.5 million.

Asenjo was presumed as the heir to Iker Casillas in the Spanish national team.  He was the first-choice goalkeeper for the Spanish under-21 team at the 2009 European Championships and the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup, and when he supplanted both Ludovic Butelle and Alberto López as the undisputed number one goalkeeper for Real Valladolid at the end of 2007, he became the youngest starting keeper in La Liga at the tender age of eighteen.

Atlético thought so highly of Asenjo that they let go of Grégory Coupet and long-time starter Leo Franco and brought Asenjo from Valladolid for €5 million in the summer of 2009.  A nervous start and some unforgivable gaffes saw his grip on as first-choice Atlético keeper loosened completely with Roberto Jiménez taking over, and eventually David de Gea rose above both Roberto and Asenjo with Asenjo relegated to third choice, a stunning and immediate fall from grace.

Manuel Pellegrini drafted all five of these players directly into the starting eleven, but circumstances had not improved.  Four points out of five matches in January, including conceding a late goal that lost a match 1-2 to relegation rivals Real Zaragoza, had the Andalucian club at the foot of the table, four points below the safety line.  So when Málaga traveled west to their provincial rivals Sevilla on Sunday afternoon, the gloaming looked to continue los boquerones.

Málaga had conceded forty-seven goals in La Liga prior to Jornada 22, eleven more than any other team in the Primera División, and with a rojiblanco team loaded with talented attacking players like Frédéric Kanouté, Luís Fabiano, Jesús Navas, etc., it was not a question of if but how many would they allow.

Sevilla trainer Gregorio Manzano, however, strayed from the normal 4-4-2 and employed a 4-2-3-1 with Fabiano as the lone striker up front in order to shore up a midfield that had given up a plethora of scoring chances in the past few weeks.

Manuel Pellegrini changed his tactics for this match by closing his open, attacking style and employing Eliseu Pereira, the attacking left winger, at left back ahead of the incumbent Patrick Mtiliga.  Pellegrini’s strategy worked to perfection, as his team allowed only one scoring chance and gave up three shots, only one of which was on target, in the first half.  Eliseu bottled up Jesús Navas on the right wing for the most part, and while Eliseu could not bomb forward because of the Navas threat, he unearthed defensive acumen that apparently Pellegrini only saw.

The match did not perk up that much in the second half, and Málaga nearly stole the three points in the fifth minute of stoppage time.  In the last action of the match, Eliseu whipped in a free kick into a host of bodies in the box, and Weligton got a surprisingly unmarked header on target.  Andrés Palop, who had little to do for the whole match, came up with a flying parry that saved the draw for Sevilla, and Seba Fernández fluffed a potential reply from Palop’s save as it screwed miles wide of the right near post.

0-0 fulltime, and Málaga could not be more pleased with a boring, tedious draw.

Málaga fully deserved to come out of the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán with at least a point, and while the match was a snoozer for the neutral and a frustration for the Sevilla fans, this match was a very positive sign for Málaga, not only because they got a point in the middle of a relegation battle against a European-caliber team but also because they kept a clean sheet for only the third time all season.  While Pellegrini will likely not apply this type of defensive strategy too often, he made a point of making Sevilla have to penetrate a Fort Knox-like team to signal to his players that they are capable of playing well defensively while limiting the egregious turnover and mistakes to a minimum.

If Pellegrini can keep his team this organized while opening up a little more to allow Baptista, Rondón, and the other attacking personnel to express themselves in the final third, they should rise above the bottom three by the end of the season.  Pellegrini’s main objective is to keep Málaga in La Liga, and if he accomplishes this task, Sheikh Al Thani has shown that he is fully invested in all facets of this club besides player transfers but will also provide all the funds necessary for Pellegrini to craft this team in the way Pellegrini wants.  Bright days are ahead of this club that has been known as the classic yo-yo team, bouncing up and down from the first division, and if Málaga becomes a mainstay in La Liga, what player would not want to play in a beautiful city on the Costa del Sol that is bankrolled by a billionaire?

Fueras de Juego

- Villarreal must have assumed that playing at El Madrigal against a modest Levante team would require little effort, but their sleepwalking performance inspired Levante to channel this disrespect into a positive outcome, and Levante shocked their Comunitat Valenciana neighbors 0-1, handing Villarreal only its first loss at home all season.  With Valencia comfortably handling Hércules 2-0 at the Mestalla in the other Comunitat Valenciana derby on Sunday, Valencia is only one point behind Villarreal for third in the table, and the Yellow Submarine will regret their arrogant attitude against Levante if Valencia and they remain close together at the end of the season.

- Many assumed Osasuna would experience a massive letdown after the physical and emotional nirvana of defeating Real Madrid 1-0 at the Estadio Reyno de Navarra last weekend in front of their ravenous home faithful, but while they only managed a 1-1 draw at home to Mallorca to remain one point above the relegation zone, Osasuna performed with a surprising vim and vigor throughout the ninety minutes, scoring within the first ten minutes from a Miguel Flaño goal.  Six of Osasuna’s next seven fixtures feature teams tenth or below in the standings, so the gorritxoak could sew up top-flight football for another year in this stretch.

- FC Barcelona won their sixteenth consecutive La Liga match on Saturday, breaking the 1960-61 Real Madrid record of fifteen, and Lionel Messi scored another hat-trick to raise his total to a mere twenty-four goals in nineteen starts in the league and thirty-seven goals in thirty-one appearances in all competitions.  What is new?  Not much, and that is the brilliance of this streak.  They have had more 5+ goal victories (Sevilla, Almería, Real Madrid, and Real Sociedad) than one-goal victories (Valencia and Levante) during this run, and besides the occasional knocks and niggles, the squad has been healthy for the most part.

Real Madrid kept pace to stay seven points behind Barcelona after they cruised to a 4-1 victory over Real Sociedad, but to expect Barcelona to drop points in three or four matches in order for Real Madrid to catch up seems improbable at this point.  With the Champions League returning next week, that might provide the only plausible avenue for Barcelona to drop points, balancing La Liga and the Champions League with possible squad rotation and general fatigue.

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.

With the league title slipping away from Real Madrid’s hands, their two cup competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the Copa del Rey, could be the tournaments that they can realistically expect to win.  Real can stamp its name in the final of the Copa del Rey on Wednesday night if they can navigate a more than tricky second leg tie against the current holders of the cup, Sevilla.

Real leads the semifinal tie 1-0 after nicking a crucial away goal at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in the first leg.  The win for los blancos was significant, but the actual result took a backseat because of two incidents in that game dominated the talk afterward: Luís Fabiano’s disallowed goal and Iker Casillas’ bottle incident.

Concerning Fabiano’s shot on the line just before halftime, several different angles and thousands of super slow-motion replays still have not conclusively rendered a definitive answer as to whether or not the whole ball crossed the whole of the goal line.  Fermín Martínez Ibáñez, the linesman who made the pivotal and fateful call (or non-call as it were), should receive credit for the situation because referees and linesman are always taught to make a decision only if they are 100%, and it was not clear if Fabiano scored.  In addition, it would have been easy for Martínez Ibáñez to cave into the ravenous and vociferous Sevillista crowd, but he stuck to his convictions and made the call he felt was correct (although now some have now considered him another covert agent for the Real Madrid cause).

Despite the disputed goal/no goal from Fabiano and the general hot-blooded, robust tension throughout the match, there is no excuse for supporters to throw missiles onto the pitch, and after the final whistle blew, someone in the crowd through a bottle and hit Iker Casillas flush on the back of his head.  Luckily, the missile was merely a plastic bottle and not an object with more mass, but regardless of what was thrown, the RFEF (the Spanish football governing body), was disgusted with what happened and handed Sevilla a €6,000 fine and stern threats about stadium closure if similar incidents occur in the future.

Hopefully, the second leg will be about only the football and not about ancillary incidents or refereeing decisions.  Emmanuel Adebayor is expected to make his home debut at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu for Real, and after Real unexpectedly lost at Pamplona to Osasuna in the league on Sunday, José Mourinho and his players would want nothing more than to make their first Copa del Rey final since 2004 and possibly win it for the first time since 1993.

For Sevilla, new January signings Gary Medel and Ivan Rakitic could make their debuts in the match, and apart from the suspended Andrés Palop and the long-term injured Tiberio Guarente and Ivica Dragutinovic, Sevilla trainer Gregorio Manzano will have a full squad from which to choose his starting eleven.  Should Sevilla overturn the tie and reach the final, it would be the first time in their long history that they would have advanced to the Copa del Rey final in consecutive years.

Preceding the Real Madrid – Sevilla match is the other second leg semifinal between Almería and FC Barcelona, almost forgotten by everyone because Barcelona holds a 5-0 advantage from their home leg, and Barça scored eight without reply the last time they visited the Estadio de los Juegos Mediterráneos in November.

With the hectic schedule Barcelona has had and what they will have in the next month or two, Pep Guardiola will likely rest most of his normal starting eleven.  Guardiola has not implemented a rotation-type system like most top European clubs, so the likes of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa, etc. have played nearly all of Barcelona’s matches in all competitions.  Guardiola has said all the right things, stating that this tie is still alive and that he will not take this match lightly, but if his top guns make more than short substitute stints late in the match, it would be very surprising.

Almería trainer José Luis Oltra jokingly proclaimed to the media in Tuesday’s press conference how he had his team practice penalties just in case they overturn their five-goal deficit, but his focus has turned more toward this weekend against Espanyol:

“We must take it as a challenge, and we want to win.  We, by the way, have been practicing penalties, but, hey, that is not our goal.  Our big game and our final is on Saturday, [against Espanyol] but the match against Barcelona has many attractions.  Our challenge [on Wednesday] simply is to win.”

It will be interesting if Oltra does send out his best players, including Pablo Piatti, Kalu Uche, Albert Crusat, etc., but whatever decision he makes concerning his starting eleven, it will make no difference as Barcelona should be in the Copa del Rey final on April 20.  As Oltra said, this match for Almería is about pride.

Feb. 2

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

Real Madrid vs. Sevilla – 3:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

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.

For the past several seasons, Real Madrid treated the Copa del Rey as a nuisance and a burden rather than a competition worth winning.  José Mourinho has changed that mentality.  One Taça de Portgual with FC Porto, two Carling Cups and an FA Cup with Chelsea, and a Coppa Italia with Inter Milan signals Mourinho’s intentions of taking the domestic cup as seriously as the domestic league and the European competitions.

Real Madrid is making their first appearance in the semifinal of the Copa del Rey since 2006, and they face the defending champions Sevilla, who are in a mini-revival since hitting rock bottom in the middle of December.  They have only lost one of their last eight matches in all competitions, and this club has had a legitimate reputation for saving their best performances for cup competitions.  Sevilla’s three strikers, Luís Fabiano, Frédéric Kanouté, and Álvaro Negredo, are finally starting to play well at the same time, and that is a departure from much of this campaign, whenonly  one, and on occasion two of them, would string together a few games together of decent play.

Sergio Sánchez can only prove to be an inspiration to the team after coming back into the fold after over a year, when many feared that he would not be able to play football again due to his heart problems.  Predictably, Sánchez has looked a little off the pace in the center of defense, but as he regains trust with his teammates and more importantly in himself that he can exert 100% of his energy without fear of a potential episode, he should return to the player that Sevilla paid Espanyol €4 million for in 2009.

In the other semifinal, most have already given FC Barcelona a berth in the Copa del Rey final because their opponent, Almería, sits 18th in the table and in the relegation zone, and when these two clubs opposed each other in La Liga, Barça equaled their most lopsided away victory in their illustrious history, an 0-8 embarrassment that was the final straw for Juan Manuel Lillo’s tenure as Almería manager.

José Luís Oltra has somewhat steadied the ship since taking over for Lillo, and he has been helped by the reemergence of Kalu Uche, who has provided Almería the center forward necessary for Pablo Piatti, Albert Crusat, and co. to roam from the wings, provide the crosses, and cut in to take shots on their own.  José Ulloa has flourished as the super-sub striker when Almería needs a goal, scoring seven in just five starts and fourteen substitute appearances.

Without the stellar play of Diego Alves in goal, however, whatever goals Almería scored would be rendered moot.  The Brazilian goalkeeper has saved 103 shots on goal, by far the most in La Liga, and somehow has only conceded thirty-four.  Almería only has two clean sheets, tied with Málaga for the fewest in the league, but that has everything to do with Almería and hardly anything to do with Diego Alves.  He continues to be linked with a move away from Almería, but until that happens, he is the only chance for Almería to advance to the final past Barcelona.

Jan. 26

Sevilla vs. Real Madrid – 1:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN3

Barcelona vs. Almería – 3:55 PM on Gol TV HD

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.