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

The first year of the post-Manuel Pellegrini era commenced with a startling thud, as through seven rounds last season, Villarreal propped every other Primera División team up at the bottom of the table.  This smooth, plucky team from the Valencian Community had not felt such futility since they made their maiden voyage to La Liga in the 1998/99 season.  In that campaign, Villarreal was relegated to the Segunda División after losing a relegation playoff to Sevilla, the last year that La Liga had a relegation playoff.

Staving off relegation never entered the mind Ernesto Valverde’s team, and they steadily improved through the next several months.  The upward curve plateaued, however, and in January 2010, the board sacked Valverde and promoted Villarreal “B” coach Juan Carlos Garrido to manage the senior team.

The unassuming yet intense Garrido knew that his time from January to the end of the season would become a de facto audition to keep the job.  He settled the squad, and Villarreal finished a respectable seventh place despite their torrid beginning.  Chairman Fernando Roig Alfonso rewarded Garrido for his work and extended his contract to June 2011 so that Garrido could have a full season to show his worth.

Garrido took that vote of confidence from the board into this season and returned Villarreal to their normal perch in the highest percentiles of Spanish football.

Even though Villarreal has been known for maintaining shrewd financial stances when it comes to signings and transfers, Fernando Roig Alfonso gave Garrido a decent transfer kitty with which to work this summer, but Garrido felt that the players he currently had were more than enough to threaten for a top-four position.  Garrido and Sporting Director Fernando Roig Negueroles believed that they only needed a couple of reinforcements from the summer transfer window.  They did not even need to use that budget because they earned enough from the transfers of Diego Godín, Damián Escudero, and Joseba Llorente to achieve for what they set out in the market.

Both of Villarreal’s summer signings, €2.2 million Carlos Marchena and €6 million Borja Valero, have made instant impacts with the team.  Specifically, Borja Valero’s sparkling play on both flanks has given both Joan Capdevila and Ángel López extra potency from their fullback positions because Borja’s combinations with them have created openings deep inside the opposition half that only enhances Nilmar and Giuseppe Rossi’s chances of finishing these moves.

Because Villarreal only signed two players for this season, Garrido felt that the players currently in the squad would raise their games and expectations from the last campaign, and they have not disappointed.

After a year of fighting major and minor injuries, Santi Cazorla has restored his place in the Spanish national team with sprightly, ebullient play for Villarreal.  Whereas Ernesto Valverde marginalized Cazorla to an extent by forcing him more into the central midfield, Garrido reinstituted Cazorla back onto the wings with the freedom to cut inside when necessary, and Cazorla has thrived under Garrido’s system with two goals, three assists, one behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Özil for the league lead, and countless numbers of pinpoint passes and unselfish runs that keep Villarreal flowing fluently.

Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar have made themselves into the second most prolific tandem statistically with a combined ten goals through eight matches, only behind Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín’s fourteen goals.  The previous season’s trio of Rossi, Nilmar, and Joseba Llorente looked formidable on paper because of Llorente’s height and strength as the center forward with the smaller, faster Rossi and Nilmar supporting on either side of Llorente.  With Nilmar adapting to Spain after his record €11 million transfer from Internacional, Rossi dealing with constant transfer rumors, and Llorente failing to feature in half of Villarreal’s fixtures due to injury and managerial decisions, they could not score consistently, even though Villarreal scored a respectable fifty-eight goals.

The most improved part of Villarreal’s team runs down the spine, as Villarreal “B” graduate and central defender Mateo Musacchio has admirably stepped into the void left by Diego Godín after his transfer to Atlético Madrid and central midfielder Bruno Soriano has controlled the center of his park by supporting the defense with his ball-winning as well as instigating counter-attacks with his array of passes.  Spanish national team coach Vicente del Bosque has been so impressed with Bruno that he called him up to the squad for their friendly against Mexico as well as their two Euro 2012 qualifiers against Lithuania and Scotland.

With all these ameliorative properties syncing together, Villarreal has won five of its first seven matches in La Liga, with only one loss to Real Sociedad in the opening round of fixtures, and currently lead their Europa League group with six points from three matches.

Villarreal, like their provincial neighbors Valencia, played through a fairly soft schedule and racked up a point tally that could compete with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona through the first seven rounds in La Liga.  Valencia has fallen back after sitting on top to their more familiar territory below Madrid and Barça due to consecutive losses to Barcelona last week and Mallorca this weekend.

After failing to claim the first position when they could only draw 2-2 against local rivals Hércules on Monday, the late Sunday kickoff against Atlético Madrid would start a stretch of five matches in the league that would truly delineate Villarreal’s odds of staying within striking distance of not only a UEFA Champions League berth but the alien concept of ripping the champion’s trophy away from Barcelona.

Villarreal could not count on the services of Mateo Musacchio and Borja Valero because of their suspensions stemming from their red cards against Hércules, but Gonzalo Rodríguez and vice-captain Cani were more than capable replacements for the pair.

For Atlético Madrid, they sent out their normal starting eleven with one exception: Diego Forlán sat on the bench for the second straight La Liga match in favor of Diego Costa.  Whether Quique Sánchez Flores kept Forlán on the sidelines because he had just played in the Europa League against Rosenborg on Thursday or because of generally poor form, the increasingly agitated striker has now become transfer speculation with links to Liverpool, Juventus, and other top European clubs.

Fortunately for Villarreal, Atlético Madrid played with a strange disinterest after the first twenty minutes that made work for the Yellow Submarine minimal to come out with a victory at home.  Cani was involved in both Villarreal goals, providing the end product after Nilmar terrorized Atlético with pure speed and composure on the ball to slot in Cani inside the box, and creating the second goal for Giuseppe Rossi after cutting in from the left wing to slice the Atlético defense yet again with a telling through ball into the penalty area.

Unfortunately for Villarreal’s perception throughout the country, Atlético Madrid did not provide the stern test that they forced Barcelona and Valencia through when they played those teams.  This match against Atlético was supposed to supply evidence whether or not Villarreal was for real.  Villarreal will have to wait to show their merits for the championship until November when they face Athletic Bilbao at home, Barcelona at the Camp Nou, and Valencia at home in consecutive weeks.  What transpired on Sunday night did not sway opinion one way or the other about Villarreal, but it did point out one glaring detail: Atlético Madrid’s schizophrenic personality has not been cured after a summer of therapy.

Fueras de Juego

- Luís Fabiano awoke from his slumber to score his first two goals of the season in Sevilla’s topsy-turvy 4-3 victory over Athletic Bilbao.  After all the summer haranguing about wanting to leave Sevilla, Fabiano stayed with the Andalucian club, and in his prior appearances before Sunday’s match against Athletic, he played and acted like a pouting schoolboy.  He actually looked interested throughout the match today, and when Fabiano cares, to no surprise, he produces with devastating aplomb

- Speaking of occasionally moody players, Cristiano Ronaldo poured in four goals in Real Madrid’s 6-1 drubbing of pathetic Racing de Santander.  While Ronaldo will receive the deserved plaudits for his outstanding performance, the man of the match was €25 million summer signing Ángel di María.  Besides assisting in two goals, he created Ronaldo’s fourth goal when Domingo Cisma felled di María in the penalty area and played an excellent left back, a position foreign to di María, when Pedro León replaced Marcelo with twenty minutes remaining.

Di María’s early struggles (he had only played in three matches for Real, mind you) had the Madridistas worried that he would become another flop.  His “Welcome to Madrid” moment came against Real Sociedad, when he gave his team the lead with a spectacular curler to the top right corner with his “weaker” right foot.  Ever since that point, he suddenly became indispensable to the starting eleven, and when a player receives the full confidence of José Mourinho, it will only help spur on his game.

- César Santin, the Brazilian forward for FC København, made himself an object of ridicule against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night when he stopped playing with a two-on-two breakaway with teammate Dame N’Doye, thinking he was called offside.  The assistant referee did not raise his flag, and referee Stéphane Lannoy did not blow his whistle.  That opportunity ended up as one of only two or three chances that København had of threatening José Manuel Pinto’s goal that entire night.

The situation took a turn to the weird when København lodged a formal complaint to UEFA on Friday, stating that Pinto simulated the referee’s whistle in order to dupe Santin.  Pinto could face a two-match European ban for this alleged “violation of decent conduct.”  With all the whistles that rain down from the crowd every match, Santin should not get his signals crossed with the real whistle, but if Pinto has the ability to whistle just like a referee’s whistle, full credit to Pinto for such a ruse.  Unsportsmanlike behavior, absolutely, but would not pride prevent Santin from admitting that Pinto fooled him into grinding to a halt?  Pinto could not even make the halfway line with his goal kicks, so apparently, he allegedly needed to use the last item in his bag of tricks to keep FC København at bay.  More column space about this delicious “Whistle-Gate” side story to come.

An impressive 1-0 win by Deportivo La Coruña over Sevilla on Saturday raises Depor to a tie of third place with Sevilla at fifteen points, four points behind league leaders FC Barcelona.  Los blanquiazules have won five of their first seven matches this season, and their only two losses came at the hands of Espanyol 2-3 and Real Madrid 2-3.  Depor has built their success this season on their quick counter-attacking ability and their positional defense.  Besides their 0-3 drubbing of lowly Xerez at Chapín, Depor’s other four victories ended in 1-0 score lines in favor the Galician club.

The Depor – Sevilla match was a microcosm of how Deportivo La Coruña continued their solid form.  For the first fifteen minutes, Depor canceled out any semblance of a Sevilla attack.  Sevilla was somewhat handicapped by injuries and the previous week’s World Cup qualifiers.  A majority of Sevilla’s players performed in the international break, including their stalwart central defender Sébastien Squillaci, who missed the Depor match with a calf injury sustained while playing for France, and Luís Fabiano, who was not included in the match day squad because of his long travels from South America with the Seleção.  Andrés Palop, unrelated to the World Cup qualifiers, also had a calf injury and was forced to miss the clash with Depor.

The breakthrough came in the 38th minute when Juan Rodríguez absolutely uncorked a low-range missile from twenty-five yards that struck the frame and sneaked into goal to beat deputy goalkeeper Javi Varas on his near post.  From a long diagonal ball, Depor flicked it on towards goal, but with no teammate in the area, it was a simple clearance for the left back Fernando Navarro, but he scuffed it right into the direction of Rodríguez.  Rodríguez settled the ball, took one touch forward, and sent a lash of fury past a defenseless Javi Varas.

Rather than retreating into a shell after capturing the lead, Deportivo La Coruña actively sought after the second goal to seal the three points.  In the first minute of stoppage time to end the first half, Iván Pérez swung a free kick from near the edge of the penalty area, and Riki created space for himself to make contact on the free kick.  Riki struck his header cleanly, but Javi Varas exhibited his cat-like quickness and batted the ball wide of his left near post.  Even though Sevilla possessed the ball for 59% of the half, they hardly did anything with it.  They did not have a shot on goal, while Depor seemed to have more impetus in all phases of the game.  Depor deserved the 1-0 lead.  Whether Sevilla’s phlegmatic play and lack of vitality were due to injuries or general fatigue from World Cup qualifiers, they inexcusably ghosted through the first half.

Sevilla picked up their play in the second half and pinned Deportivo La Coruña in their own half of the pitch for a majority of the time, but Sevilla managed only one shot on target, and Daniel Aranzubia routinely tipped Álvaro Negredo’s shot over the crossbar.  At the end of the match, with Depor hanging on to their one-goal advantage, Mexican international Andrés Guardado exemplified his team’s unending work rate and fighting spirit.  Guardado did not have a particularly great game and did not influence the Depor attack in accordance with his usual high standards, but his mediocre performance was not due to a dearth of energy.

In the 93rd minute, Depor was eating the seconds away at this point, and Guardado was sent on a long run down the right wing.  The diagonal ball was well past Guardado, and it would have been excusable if he let the ball go into touch, but Guardado ran at full speed and slid to keep the ball in play.  That touch was a little heavy, and the ball headed toward the end line, but Guardado picked himself up and made another slide to prevent a goal kick.  At most, his efforts cost Sevilla five or six seconds, but those precious seconds were paramount with Sevilla trying to equalize late in the game, and this unselfish attitude was evident throughout the squad.

With Deportivo La Coruña’s inspiring start to this season’s campaign, there will be inevitable comparisons to the success of the Super Depor teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s.  One glaring difference between the two eras is the attacking talent and skill.  With “Das Phantom” Roy Makaay, Diego Tristán, and “El Rifle” Walter Pandiani up front, Deportivo La Coruña continually was one of the top scoring teams in La Liga.  No one will mistake Riki, Adrián, and Iván Pérez for the former trio, but they are capable of scoring the important goals if not necessarily a high quantity of goals.

Andrés Guardado is fast becoming a force in La Liga with his pace and skill, similar to former Depor wingers Albert Luque and Fran González.  Juan Rodríguez admirably fills the defensive midfielder role previously occupied by Aldo Duscher and Depor legend Mauro Silva.  The back line remains a strength as current right back and captain Manuel Pablo lends his leadership and skills to his defensive mates.  He was a main part of those former Depor teams, so he has the experience of witnessing Depor at their stratospheric heights.  The other two holdovers from the Super Depor days are box-to-box midfielder Sergio González and the midfield playmaker Juan Carlos Valerón.

With the limited budget that Deportivo La Coruña currently works under these days, they cannot afford to bring in expensive talent as they did ten years ago.  They have to rely more on industry and guile than the flair and style to what they became accustomed when Javier Irureta roamed the technical area.  Current entrenador Miguel Ángel Lotina keeps this modest squad in the top half of the table, and with the backing of club president Augusto Lendoiro, Lotina’s only worries pertain to the improvement of the team and its results rather than always looking behind his shoulder.  A renaissance to domestic and European glory is obviously premature, but the building blocks are currently in place for Depor to continue their slow and steady ascent toward their former perch as one of the leading lights of Spanish football.

Photo courtesy of Metro Centric.

While the press and the media focus most of their ink and font on the newly built Real Madrid and the continued brilliance of FC Barcelona, Sevilla carries on with their consistent good form.  On the surface, there is nothing too sexy that immediately grabs headlines, but arguably, Luís Fabiano is currently playing as the best forward in the world since the continuation of World Cup Qualifying at the beginning of June.  He tallied four goals in four Eliminatorias Sudamericanas for the Seleção, including a brace in a historic road victory against Argentina, five goals in the Confederations Cup to earn that tournament’s Golden Shoe, and three goals in four matches in all competitions for Sevilla this season.

Sevilla also made some shrewd acquisitions in the summer transfer window to bolster the squad.  They brought back Lolo from his loan spell at Málaga and bought Didier Zokora from Tottenham Hotspur for €10 million to reinforce the central midfield, they got Espanyol academy graduate Sergio Sánchez for €3 million to augment the defense, and they acquired Álvaro Negredo from Real Madrid for €14 million to deepen the pool of strikers.  Probably the best move Sevilla made in the close season was not an acquisition but the ability to keep Luís Fabiano from suitors such as AC Milan.  Now they are two deep in every position on the pitch and can cope with the demands of three competitions without compromising their ability to feature quality squads in each competition.

An inauspicious start to the La Liga initially raised questions about the viability of Sevilla this season.  Even though Frédéric Kanouté earned a red card at the end of the first half against Valencia, Valencia outplayed Sevilla for the entire match, save for a few pockets of brilliance sprinkled in between, and lost their first game of the season at the Mestalla 0-2.  A defeat by the hands of Valencia was by no means shameful, but Sevilla wanted to build on their third place showing from last season with a defining opening win in the biggest game of Jornada 1.  Manolo Jiménez did not allow his players to sulk after the setback, and his Sevilla side defeated Real Zaragoza and Osasuna in La Liga in an easy fashion and turned away a disciplined Unirea Urziceni outfit 2-0 in the Champions League.

In sixth position at the start of Round 4, Sevilla faced a fourth placed Mallorca squad that gained seven points in their first three matches, including an unlikely 1-1 draw at El Madrigal against Villarreal in torrential rain and a 4-0 flogging against promoted Tenerife.  Sevilla engendered a feeling of vast superiority as they made Mallorca look ordinary and unworthy to hold such a high position in the La Liga table.  Sevilla combined their penchant for neat, passing football with a more direct approach to play Mallorca off the field in the first half.

The first goal came after seventeen minutes, when Julien Escudé flicked a header from a corner in the direction of Sébastien Squillaci, and Squillaci outleaped Mallorca midfielder Bruno China to the header and scored from five yards away.  The second Sevilla goal arrived in the 25th minute, and this time, they displayed the fluid football for which they have been known.  Jesús Navas initiated the move with a run down the right wing, where he passed the ball to Luís Fabiano.  Continuing the run, Navas slashed inside toward the penalty area where Fabiano produced a cutting ball to Navas inside the box.  Taking two defenders with him, he resumed his dash toward the end line and supplied a telling ball across the six-yard box and over Mallorca goalkeeper Dudu Aouate’s head.  Diego Perotti headed the cross into the back of the net from a yard out, but there was a good possibility that Navas’ cross would have gone in anyway.

Mallorca would eventually become more comfortable and create some opportunities, most of them in the last ten minutes of the first half.  Aritz Aduriz’s header forced a good save by Sevilla goalkeeper Andrés Palop in the 38th minute, Sevilla defenders blocked shots by Pierre Webó and Aduriz in the 44th minute, and Palop batted away Fernando Varela’s near-post strafer in the 45th minute.

The second half consisted of more Sevilla pressure from every part of the pitch, whether it was an inch-perfect diagonal ball from just inside their own half to the right edge of penalty area by Negredo, a lung-busting run by left back Adriano down the left wing that forced substitute goalkeeper Germán Lux out of his area, or a couple of headers inside the area from Squillaci that tested Lux.  Alhassane Keita, a 74th minute substitution for Webó, was the only Mallorca player that constructed some positive moves toward goal, including a one on one with Palop that eventually fell apart because Keita looked for contact inside the box by oncoming defender Escudé rather than focusing on the shot.

A 2-0 full-time score flattered Mallorca, but nevertheless, Sevilla continued their good run of form heading into a crucial three games, which include a trip to San Mamés to go against resurgent Athletic Bilbao, a journey to Ibrox Stadium to face a robust Rangers side, and a home fixture against high-flying Real Madrid.  In the Sevilla season preview, the question was asked if Sevilla could break the Barcelona – Real Madrid duopoly and finish in the top two.  Barring injury, Sevilla should definitively finish in a Champions League spot.  If they continue to keep the discipline and shape in the back four, maintain the defense that gave up the second fewest goals in La Liga, and create numerous goal-scoring opportunities that was lacking in the previous season, do not be surprised to witness a split between Barcelona and Real Madrid at the end of the campaign.