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.

Gregorio Manzano took the reins of Sevilla FC one week ago from the sacked Antonio Álvarez, and he did not inherit a club that inspired any confidence from los nervionenses that filled the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán on Sunday afternoon.  Although the Andalusians only lost one of their first five matches in La Liga, two draws against cellar-dwellers Racing de Santander and Deportivo La Coruña and a loss to newly-promoted Hércules prompted Sevilla chairman José María del Nido to act swiftly and hire the man that was the betting favorite to become Sevilla manager during the summer months.

Last season, Manzano led Mallorca, a club that fostered mediocre expectations at the commencement of the campaign, to the brink of the UEFA Champions League, when, ironically, Antonio Álvarez and Sevilla broke los barralets‘ collective hearts with a stoppage time goal against Almería that propelled Sevilla into the playoff round of the Champions League and dropped Mallorca into the playoff round of the UEFA Europa League.  Besides a fourth-place finish in La Liga, Álvarez and Sevilla defeated Atlético Madrid in the Copa del Rey final to add to their trophy case.

Del Nido faced a similar situation that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich endured in 2008, when the managerial mid-season replacement accomplished feats that would make it hard for the owner to supplant him.  In Abramovich’s case, Avram Grant led Chelsea to the Champions League final, and save for a John Terry penalty kick that hit the post, Chelsea would have won the trophy that Abramovich most desired.  In addition, Chelsea harried Manchester United to the final matchday for the Premier League title, where Chelsea eventually capitulated when they could only draw 1-1 against Bolton Wanderers, whereas Manchester United defeated Wigan Athletic 2-0 to win the league by two points.

Amidst a groundswell to retain Grant as the manager, Abramovich made the decision to release Grant three days after the Champions League heartbreak and eventually hired Luiz Felipe Scolari later that summer.

When Mallorca released Manzano not due to performance but due to financial difficulties that eventually led to administration, José María del Nido wrestled over the future of his team’s managerial leadership between Manzano and Álvarez, but unlike Roman Abramovich, del Nido rewarded Álvarez for his work after replacing Manolo Jiménez and extended his contract through at least the end of the 2010-11 season.

After the ignominy of failing to qualify for the Champions League group stage at the hands of the little Portuguese team that could in Sporting Braga before the start of the La Liga season, Álvarez’s leash shortened considerably, and any other slip-up would be the impetus for Sevilla to fire Álvarez.  The 2-0 defeat to Hércules last weekend became that tipping point.

Amazingly, no team hired Manzano in the offseason, but he likely was biding his time until the Sevilla job opened, and immediately after Álvarez received the axe, Manzano accepted the position.

Manzano’s first test in La Liga came against an Atlético Madrid side who dearly wants to right the wrongs of last season’s domestic campaign.  While they marveled as a cup team, winning the UEFA Europa League and reaching the Copa del Rey final, their indifferent form in the league equally flabbergasted as they finished ninth, their worst finish since 2006.  Atleti has returned to their normally solid play in La Liga this season, sitting in fifth spot prior to the match against Sevilla.  The schizophrenia that marred this team last season has not completely left the brain, as their Europa League form reeks of indifference and middling.

Los colchoneros were not at full strength against Sevilla because José Antonio Reyes was serving his suspension for a red card he received in the previous match against Real Zaragoza and Sergio Agüero suffered an injury to the gluteus maximus muscle of his left buttock (no joke) in Friday’s training session.

For Sevilla, Manzano’s team started to come back to a good bill of health as Abdoulay Konko, Frédéric Kanouté and Renato returned to the starting eleven.  When Sevilla has been most successful, they played in a classic 4-4-2 formation with Jesús Navas and either Diego Perotti or Diego Capel flying down the wings to provide service for the two forwards Kanouté and Luís Fabiano.  While Navas did not play due to a thigh strain and Fabiano sat on the bench due to poor form, Manzano returned Sevilla to the 4-4-2 with Capel and Perotti on the wings and the maligned Álvaro Negredo pairing with Kanouté up front.

After the opening hour where Sevilla slightly wielded the upper hand, Sevilla scored twice within a span of six minutes to break open a tight affair.  In the 29th minute, Diego Perotti cut from the right and brought defenders with him, and when he made the reverse pass to his right for Álvaro Negredo into the penalty area, Negredo found some valuable space in which to work.  Negredo was not quite set for the shot, so he took a vital touch to his left to set himself up and create space from the two Atlético defenders that were scrambling to close down Negredo.  He curled the shot toward the left far post, and de Gea had no chance of getting a hand on it.

Six minutes later, Diego Capel’s feathery touch sent in Frédéric Kanouté into the box free and unmarked, and de Gea did well to rush off his line and close down the angle to save Kanouté’s shot.  The rebound from the save, however, lofted to Perotti just beyond the “D,” and Perotti took the shot on first-time, deflecting off Paulo Assunção to the left side of the goal, and de Gea was frozen once the ball took the deflection.

Save for a period of ten to fifteen minutes in the second half when Atlético Madrid scored their only goal of the match, Sevilla controlled the flow and never felt threatened by the rojiblancos.  The search team could not find Diego Forlán throughout the match as he continually looked a frustrated figure, and while Filipe Luís and Diego Costa provided a small spark coming off the substitute’s bench to start the second half, the same team that struggled to secure a draw against Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday showed up against Sevilla on Sunday.

Sometimes, managers receives too much credit or blame for what their players do on the pitch, but the eleven that Manzano put out against Atlético Madrid played with a freedom and desire that was achingly unapparent under Antonio Álvarez.  As with José Mourinho with Real Madrid, a managerial change can affect the group of twenty-five players in a positive manner if the manager commands the respect of those players immediately.  While Gregorio Manzano does not own the sprawling curriculum vitae of Mourinho, Manzano’s achievements at Mallorca certainly deserve credit.  When he inspired his Mallorca team to perform at their best when the players were not getting paid, that might be the toughest task to do with professional footballers.

After Sevilla goes to El Molinón to play Sporting Gijón after the international break, their following three fixtures will determine if they will be a genuine factor at the top of the table: home against Athletic Bilbao, at the Camp Nou against FC Barcelona, and home against current league leaders Valencia.  If Luís Fabiano brightens his moody attitude and avoids injuries that have plagued him in the past year and a half, his combination with Frédéric Kanouté, as proven in the past, can turn into the lethal force once again.  With Real Madrid and Barcelona slightly more vulnerable than at any point last season, Sevilla must seize this tough stretch by the neck and play without fear in order to attain at least six points out of nine.  Gregorio Manzano is the right man to motivate this team and lead them for the foreseeable future.

Fueras de Juego

- Scoring problems?  What scoring problems?  Real Madrid laid the 6-1 hammer down on pathetic Deportivo La Coruña in the final match of the round, and Gonzalo Higuaín got off the schneid with his first goal of the season.  This match was Real Madrid’s first since the club replaced their “potato field,” as José Mourinho coined it, with imported Slovakian grass, and the pitch looked and played just as fine as its owners did.  Despite the six-goal outburst, Mourinho will not be happy that they conceded a late goal to Juan Rodríguez.

- Mallorca has gone two for two against Real Madrid and Barcelona as Mallorca held Barcelona to a 1-1 draw at the Camp Nou.  Mallorca also drew with Real 0-0 in their opening match of the season to steal two valuable points against the royalty of Spanish football.  For Barcelona, the same story keeps being told: numerous golden and silver chances but unable to capitalize on enough occasions.  Last year, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was supposed to give the Catalans a different element with his size and aerial ability.  This year, David Villa is supposed to be the savior as the center forward in the front three.  The ghost of Samuel Eto’o continues to loom, as Barcelona has not been as clinical in front of goal since Eto’o went to Inter Milan.

- Almería played the best football of the twenty teams this weekend but somehow managed to only draw against Málaga 1-1 at home in their newly-named arena Estadio Juan Rojas.  Ten ocasiones de gol (scoring chances), twenty-six shots overall, and a leaky Málaga defense that conceded the most goals in La Liga prior to this round of matches should have equaled an easy win, but three efforts off the woodwork, a missed penalty by Kalu Uche, and various other misses that avoided the target by a couple of yards or less conspired to split the points with an undeserved Málaga.  These types of matches hurt the most, especially for a team that could be in the relegation fight throughout the course of the season.

Depor could definitely use their former left back Filipe Luís Kasmirski at this dire moment.

Flashback ten years ago to the year 2000.  La Liga rose to the top spot of the UEFA coefficient rankings for the first time since 1966.  The final of the UEFA Champions League featured two Spanish teams with Real Madrid defeating Valencia 3-0 at the Stade de France.  Despite that Champions League victory, Real Madrid only finished fifth in the league, as Deportivo La Coruña won their first championship in its history.  This started a five-year run where the Galicians played their best football in the Champions League, and they did not finish worse than third in La Liga.  Fast-forward to September 26, 2010, and this Depor is eons away from their former selves as they played with impotence after they meekly fell to Almería 0-2 at the Riazor.

Last season, this column asked the question if Deportivo could return to their “Super Depor” days, but now, staying in the first division has come to the forefront for manager Miguel Ángel Lotina as Depor has continued their dip form since halfway through the previous campaign.

At first glance, the obvious, glaring problem lies within the Depor attack.  Two goals in their first five matches, both via Andrés Guardado penalties, will not invoke fear in any opposing defense.  Adrián and Lassad Nouioui lacked any chemistry between them heading the front line, and Riki, their top goal-scorer last year with only eight, has made constant reservations with the medical staff as he struggles with injury.  Andrés Guardado, the most dynamic player for Deportivo La Coruña, has become a frustrated figure as his constant exertions have ultimately led to little result.

On the left wing, Guardado has missed the presence of Filipe Luís Kasmirski, now patrolling the  left side of the defense with Atlético Madrid.  Depor sailed high in the table throughout the first half of the 2009/10 season when Filipe Luís scored the opening goal against Athletic Bilbao in Jornada 19.  The events that ensued in scoring that goal left grisly images and video of Filipe Luís’ ankle completely disfigured after Bilbao goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz unintentionally pinned Filipe Luís underneath him.

Rarely is the starting left back the best and most important player of a team, but Filipe Luís embodied both of those roles, and Lotina said as much when he said that he would have rather been in the relegation zone and have a healthy and fit Filipe Luís than the fifth-place team that they were without him.  It was no coincidence that Depor’s fall from the European places coincided with Filipe Luís’ injury.

They never scored many goals with him, but without him, Guardado, Riki, Juan Domínguez, and Juan Rodríguez all saw their levels drop.  Depor scored the second fewest goals in La Liga with a mere thirty-five tallies, and with the selling of Filipe Luís to Atlético Madrid for €12 million, the offensive slump continues to be a major problem.  Laure, Zé Castro, and Knut Olav Rindarøy have failed to provide support for Guardado on the left flank, and with the financial difficulties that Depor face, they cannot afford to bring in a clinical striker that can finish off the few moves that Depor create.

Deportivo La Coruña and recently promoted Hércules share many similarities in terms of their footballing philosophies, but Hércules bolstered their front line with Nelson Haedo Valdez and David Trézéguet to provide a cultured air to those scoring chances.  While Trézéguet’s wife was originally from Alicante and likely influenced his move to Hércules, Borussia Dortmund made Valdez available to any European team that would pay for his transfer.  Hércules splashed the €3.8 million necessary to pry Valdez from Germany, and Valdez won the match for Hércules at the Camp Nou against Barcelona, and Trézéguet won the match against Sevilla at home.

Depor could only afford to look into the free transfer market and the loan signing market because the money from the Filipe Luís sale had to be used for their internal debt.  Yves Desmarets and Rubén Pérez have not exactly inspired in the midfield, and their loan signing from Valencia, Míchel Hererro, has been spending too much time with Riki in the training room with injury.

In Sunday’s match against Almería, while the offense maintained their lack of form, the usually solid back line of Manuel Pablo, Alberto Lopo, Diego Colotto, and the carousel of left backs (Knut Olav Rindarøy for yesterday’s match) blinked twice, and with such fine margins at which Depor are playing, a two-goal deficit is simply too large to overcome at this bleak moment.

Kalu Uche scored in the 5th minute from a straightforward corner to the six-yard box, and with Depor’s zonal marking system, Uche scythed through the mass of players and flew through the air unmarked as Depor goalkeeper Manu had no chance to get a finger on Uche’s header.

Uche sealed his brace in the 19th minute through fortunate circumstances, but he can thank Rindarøy for his second goal because Rindarøy’s attempted clearance inside the box took a wicked deflection off Albert Crusat onto the crossbar, and with a sprawled Manu after trying to get his hand onto the deflection, the rebound off the crossbar caromed directly to Uche, who headed it in unmolested for the 0-2 cushion.

Then a few minutes prior to the halftime whistle, Diego Colotto received a straight red card for what referee José Luis González González deemed to be a denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity as Colotto stuck a leg out to prevent Pablo Piatti from entering the penalty area.  Piatti’s final touch that forced Colotto into the foul may or may not have been retrieved by Manu, but nevertheless, Piatti caught Colotto flat-footed and made the decision go to the referee rather than Colotto getting into the correct position so that he would not have had to leave his leg hanging to stop Piatti.

With all of these negative consequences on the pitch, the normally supportive and frenzied Riazor turned on their players, and every time Lotina made a substitution, the whistles rained down, especially on Yves Desmarets and Adrián when they left the pitch.

The final whistle blew after ninety-three minutes, but the Depor fans (well, whatever fans were left by that time) drowned out González González’s whistle with whistles of their own as they shouted their disgust with the players.  While they vented their venom for the final result, they seemed more frustrated that Depor laid down in the second half, even though they were a man down, and let Almería cruise without any extended effort.

Is there any light for Depor as they stumble into the arduous middle of the season?  Save for this performance against Almería, the defensive four remains a stout unit, and if Depor can sneak in a goal or two, those goals have a decent chance of standing up as match-winners.  Until Riki rises to full health, Depor will have to scrap and scratch and claw for goals, and even when Riki returns to the starting eleven, the onus will be on captain Manuel Pablo to lead the defense and concede one or zero goals in order to stay afloat.

Paging Roy Makaay and Diego Tristán to the emergency room.  Depor is on life support.

Fueras de Juego

- In Greek mythology, Hercules made his name with his strength and giant-killing.  In 2010, Hércules CF follow in their eponymous namesake as they slay their second giant, Sevilla, on Sunday evening with a 2-0 victory, courtesy of two David Trézéguet goals in the first half.  Sevilla chairman José María del Nido needed a final pillar to break so that he could bring in former Mallorca manager Gregorio Manzano and sack Antonio Álvarez, and a loss to Hércules provided the ammo del Nido desired.  The Álvarez era ended with a Copa del Rey triumph, a last-breath win to secure fourth place in La Liga, an embarrassing exit from the UEFA Champions League to Sporting Braga, and a listless five matches in this current season.

- Real Madrid must have caught the Depor disease because they too cannot fire the ball into the back of the net.  A 0-0 draw at the Estadi Ciutat de València to lowly Levante will ratchet the pressure on José Mourinho as he tries to mix the right ingredients for his master plan.  After a visit to Auxerre in the Champions League, they host Deportivo La Coruña in the late Sunday match in Jornada 6 in a game sure to have plenty of goals…

- With low expectations following a season that came within a minute and a half of a Champions League playoff berth, new manager Michael Laudrup has steered Mallorca to a respectable seven points through five matches, including a comfortable 2-0 win over a Real Sociedad side that will trouble La Liga sides all season long.  Fernando Cavenaghi scored both goals for Mallorca, and if Laudrup can count on Cavenaghi to score goals after his long drought last season with Bordeaux and through the first four games with Mallorca, Laudrup will be a contender for the Don Balón Award for the best manager of the year in Spain.

A dispiriting final matchday left Mallorca forty seconds away from qualifying for the Champions League.  Sevilla manager Antonio Álvarez took a huge gamble late in that match by sending Sevilla youth product Rios Lozano Rodri into the match instead of Luís Fabiano, and Rodri broke the hearts of Los Barralets with an acrobatic goal in the fourth and final minute of stoppage time to defeat Almería 2-3 and finish fourth in La Liga, the final Champions League place.  To watch the drama unfold on the jumbo screen at the ONO Estadi was already hard enough, but the news that the club will enter administration will likely wreck an exciting squad that became one of the pleasant surprises in La Liga this season.

For those who do not know what administration means in this context, here is a brief explanation.  When a football team cannot pay off their outstanding debts, the court will assign “administrators,” mostly accountants, in charge of nearly every aspect of the club, and the accountants’ first order of business includes paying off football-related debts before any other job.  Administration serves as a rescue mechanism so that the club can continue to operate despite their debt owed to players, staff, and creditors.  In America, it is similar to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The dirty little secret behind Mallorca’s success this campaign was their massive debt accumulated over the past few seasons.  Whether Champions League money would have eased that burden and prevented them from having to seek voluntary administration will always remain an unanswered question, but their reported €85 million debt grew too large to ignore any further.

According to majority shareholder Mateu Alemany:

“Over the past two years, Mallorca has suffered a very complex economic situation, with serious financial problems and an inability to meet its commitments.  This is a legal instrument that enables Mallorca to see the future in another way: to have a budget structure that has logic and controls debt, to take stringent budgetary measures to bring spending in line with earning capacity.

These are necessary things that open a future of hope that is necessary and has not existed at the club for two years. The bankruptcy law gives us this opportunity and provides a positive expectation for the club. It is a solution, not a problem.

Whatever happens, we start a new stage. It’s exciting because it ensures the viability of this club, which has been in serious danger of disappearing.”

With all of the economics explained, how will administration affect the team for next season?

UEFA president Michel Platini has not held back his criticism of clubs who continue to run their clubs on such poor economic standing and has threatened to exclude teams from UEFA competitions who are forced to enter administration or pile up an enormous debt.  There were more than a few whispers that Mallorca would be one of those clubs shut out of Europe, but Alemany ensured that Mallorca would compete in the UEFA Europa League next season after the Spanish football federation (RFEF) granted Mallorca their UEFA license.

Gregorio Manzano, the man who led Mallorca for the past four and a half seasons, will not return next season because the club cannot afford to meet his technical and financial demands.  In his first spell with the club in the 2002-03 season, he led Mallorca to a decent ninth place finish, but his biggest achievement that season was capturing the Copa del Rey with a 3-0 triumph over Recreativo Huelva with all three goals coming from fairly decent strikers: one from Walter Pandiani and the other two from Samuel Eto’o.  The winner of the Don Balón award for coach of the year in 2008, Manzano will likely receive the award for the second time this season after guiding Mallorca to their best finish in La Liga for nine years.

For a manager to keep his players focused on the pitch when economic turmoil behind the scenes made the club unable to pay the players for a few months, Manzano performed miracles, especially at home, where the seemingly unimposing ONO Estadi transformed into a formidable fortress.  Fifteen wins and one draw out of nineteen matches was an incredible feat, and he had to maintain such a stellar record at home because of their woeful play away from the Balearic Islands.

Whether Mallorca entered administration or not, Manzano was heavily linked to the Sevilla job currently held by caretaker Antonio Álvarez, and with Mallorca having no ability to compensate for Manzano €1.5 million per year salary, Manzano will need to seek a new club.  West Ham United noted their interest in Manzano, although Avram Grant looks set to take over the reins at Upton Park for the recently fired Gianfranco Zola.

As for the squad, many of the top-rated players will likely leave in the summer as well.  For the previous season, the wage bill equaled €34.6 million, and Mallorca will cut that budget considerably.  Alemany noted this impending fire sale when he said, “There will be a philosophy of austerity.  The insolvency will affect the first team squad and those who earn the most.”

Borja Valero, the influential playmaker in the midfield, will go back to his parent club West Bromwich Albion, who will return to the Premier League next season after spending a season in the Coca-Cola Championship.  Earlier in the season, Mallorca wanted to make his loan move permanent, but with the economic realities rushing upon them, Mallorca cannot afford a €5 million+ transfer fee.

Iván Ramis, who was rumored to go to Celtic in the January transfer window, formed a pivotal partnership with Nunes in central defense and held opponents to forty-four goals, the fourth-best defense in La Liga.  Ramis will attract many European teams, and while Mallorca wanted a fee in the neighborhood of €3.5 million when Celtic coveted him in January, Mallorca’s desperation to balance the books means that anything more than €3.5 million will be highly unlikely despite Ramis’ outstanding season.

Felipe Mattioni, the 21-year-old Brazilian right back starlet, will not return, as Maga Esporte, the sporting agency that owns his rights, expects a hefty fee for this promising defender from the Grêmio youth system.

Others might be on the way out, such as Aritz Aduriz, Gonzalo Castro, and Dudu Aouate, so the Mallorca squad that came within one minute of Champions League recognition will be drastically different from the team that will play their first official match of the season in the Europa League qualifiers in August.  Valencia can commiserate with their Mallorcan neighbors, as their debt has coerced them to sell David Villa to FC Barcelona and likely give David Silva to the highest bidder (Real Madrid).  Valencia, however, has the depth to be relevant in European competition in spite of the losses of Villa and Silva, whereas Mallorca does not.

Unless the club has a billionaire owner or has a glorious history, Mallorca’s fate, unfortunately, will become more and more frequent as these smaller clubs try to compete with the Real Madrids and the Barcelonas of the world by overpaying in both transfer fees and wages.  The news that the total debt in La Liga amasses over €3.53 billion with a “b” only furthers the notion that clubs are compelled to overspend in order to stay afloat in the league.  Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Numancia were the only teams to make an operating profit, and Numancia was relegated to the Segunda División last season.

The same seven or eight teams in Europe continue to pursue the most valuable and most talented players in the world, and if the status quo remains, teams like Mallorca, Valencia, and other second-tier teams throughout Europe will eventually become mere breeding grounds for Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, etc. to pilfer their players when they have matured, much like what Ajax, PSV, and Lyon have become.

Gonzalo Castro celebrating his game-winning goal.

At the crossroads of the Pyrenees and the fruitful Ebro valley lays the Estadio Reyno de Navarra in Pamplona, where RCD Mallorca visited Osasuna in Round 14 of La Liga.  A cold, crisp night with a wintry wind whipping through the bones of the players and the supporters, the below freezing weather suits no team but especially the not the islanders, who continue to experience the last bit of Fall conditions on the Mediterranean Sea.

This Sunday evening in Navarre was meant to sit around the fireplace with brandy in hand rather than sit in the exposed seats of Reyno de Navarra and bundle up in blankets, coats, and other people.  Regardless of the conditions, Mallorca was on a mission.  Winless in six away matches this season, Mallorca wanted to right this wrong at a place notorious for visitors trying to achieve a positive result.

Just as walking through Navarrería, the Casco Viejo (old city) part of Pamplona, emotes a completely different atmosphere from the fashionable and modern Barrio de San Juan in the western section of the city, Mallorca’s performances at home in the ONO Estadi are in stark contrast to their away form.  Starting this weekend’s matches in sixth place, their high position is solely due to a perfect seven for seven record in Palma de Mallorca, accounting for twenty-one of their twenty-four points.  Although the toughest opponent they beat at home was mid-table Getafe, a team worthy of a European place should defeat the teams below them in the ladder at home.

Whereas the city of Pamplona is known for its languid, leisurely pace, the first half of the Osasuna – Mallorca match was anything but slow.  Both teams created few significant chances, and the twenty-two combined fouls duly described the physical nature of this encounter.

Osasuna’s Walter Pandiani and Nacho Monreal missed the match due to injury, and Mallorca did not have the services of Borja Valero due to a thigh injury in last week’s match against Real Zaragoza.  These three players provide attacking inspiration for their respective sides, and their absences were painfully obvious because the best chance to score in the first half came from Osasuna, when a swift counter-attack in the second minute of stoppage sent substitute Jorge Galán on a run down the right flank with trailing defenders only hoping to track him down.  When he cut into the box, he had ample opportunities to trouble Israeli international goalkeeper Dudu Aouate, but what transpired was a weak roller that Aouate scooped up easily.

Mallorca, although creating few chances, likely was the happier team heading into the dressing room because their away form has been atrocious compared to their 100% home record.  Keeping a clean sheet for forty-five minutes when they had conceded thirteen goals in six away matches should have pleased entrenador Gregorio Manzano.

Pamplona’s call to worldwide fame is the San Fermín festival, held every year in early July.  The most prominent event of this festival is the Running of the Bulls, where locals and foreigners alike navigate and scramble through the streets of Pamplona in the traditional and iconic white shirt and pants with the red waistband and neckerchief to avoid the onrushing bulls as they enter the bullring.

Akin to this spectacle, the first fifteen minutes of the second half seemed as though the shackles were lifted, and the players allowed each other to generate attacking opportunities.  This open style favored Mallorca, and although Osasuna produced decent chances themselves, Mallorca broke the deadlock in the 61st minute with a wonder strike from Gonzalo Castro.  Slashing into the penalty area, Castro had the option of squaring the ball across the box to Aritz Aduriz, who looked as though he had an easy tap-in.  Aduriz’s high-level form this season initiated whispers of a possible spot on the Spanish national team for World Cup 2010, so the possibility of Aduriz scoring from that position was quite high.  Castro, however, decided to take one more dribble laterally and unleashed all the might in his left leg into the ball.  Osasuna keeper Ricardo had no chance as it punished the top left corner of the net.

Once Mallorca grabbed the lead, they reverted to their first half philosophy and flooded the midfield to stunt an Osasuna comeback.  Two of their substitutions included the insertions of midfielder Paulo Pezzolano and right back Felipe Mattioni in place of attacking forces Pierre Webó and Gonzalo Castro.  Gregorio Manzano’s gameplan and tactics worked to perfection, with Osasuna failing to bother Dudu Aouate in the final half-hour.  Mallorca secured their first win on their travels against a worthy foe on a bitterly chilly dusk.

Café Iruña

This Mallorca campaign started out as a nice early season story, but now as the league continues toward the Christmas break, their supposedly inevitable fall has not happened.  Currently, they stand fifth in the table; the last time they finished in the top five was the 2000/01 season, when a young Cameroonian striker from Real Madrid Castilla named Samuel Eto’o led their forward line and completed their second third-place finish in three years.  After a numbing and glacial two hours in the Navarre winter, the Mallorca players and staff deserved a small token of appreciation for their workmanlike performance.

The beautiful art deco Café Iruña, a Pamplona institution, is a perfect place to relax and dine on some sumptuous tapas.  Might this writer recommend the Paella Valenciana as a first course, Escalope de Jamon y Queso con Patatas Fritas as a second course, and Flan Casero al Caramelo for dessert.  Wash this down with the local Navarre tinto, and this will conclude a fitting capper to a pleasant Sunday evening.  At least for the Mallorcans, but even for the Osasuna fans who braved the elements.  Commiseration and celebration always merits exquisite food and drink.