La Liga Loca

Atlético’s first (and last) taste of success

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Monday turned out to be a very happy start of the week indeed for Atlético Madrid.

The rojiblancos lifted the world’s most insanely heavy trophy and also managed to ruin their cursed neighbour’s start of the season.

Abel ‘dead man walking’ Resino’s men were taking part in the annual Teresa Herrera match in La Coruña, where a carefully selected Spanish side travels to the north coast and gains a confidence boost ahead of the new season by beating Deportivo.

This time around it was Atlético who lifted the nine-feet tall, 8,000 kilos lighthouse-shaped trophy after a penalty shoot-out win in front of a packed, enthused 8,000 strong crowd.

“Clearly we’re still lacking something to be at the required professional level,” admitted the Atleti boss realising that a 1-1 draw at the end of normal time is a tad embarrassing against a team fielding Riki.

The rojiblancos will now begin their preparations for the upcoming Champions League qualifier double-header against Panathinaikos.

And this is where the second part of the side’s magic Monday cruises into port.

The second leg tie will be taking place at the Vicente Calderón on Tuesday August 25. That happens to be the same day that Real Madrid had planned their Santiago Bernabeu trophy tie against AC Milan.

UEFA’s regulations state that two big teams cannot play at the same time in the same city, so it is the Castle Greyskull club that have had to move the date of their gala game.

But gone are the days when Ramon Calderón could just ring up his buddy Michel Platini and ask for a favour with a rule change, as he did during the Huntelaar / Lassana Diarra Champions League foul-up.

Not that his cunning plan worked that time, mind.

So instead, Real Madrid have moved the date of the match back to Monday August 24. Unfortunately, AC Milan are hot property it would appear and are unable to attend.

But after some rapid telephoning around the world of football to find a replacement, Norwegian side Rosenborg replied by saying that they were going to rent a DVD and maybe paint their nails but could come along to the Bernabeu instead.

“It’s possible that there isn’t a worse team in Europe,” sighs Roberto Palomar in Marca in response to the selection.

“Perhaps Real Union are available?” is the helpful suggestion from one particular poster on Marca’s website on the side that knocked Madrid out of the Copa del Rey last season.

Atlético Madrid were also buoyed by the news that, lead hate figure, Luis García looks set to be on his way to Racing Santander having spent last season being booed by the Vicente Calderón collective whenever he set foot on the pitch.

All-in-all, it was a fine day for Atlético full of joy and success.

La Liga Loca suspects that it’s not a phrase that is going to be repeated too often once the season gets going.

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Espanyol mourn loss of their Perico prince

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:00:00 GMT

In 2007, Sevilla took on Espanyol in an all-Spanish UEFA Cup final in Glasgow. Two of those players who took part in that dramatic game have since been lost to the world of football.

Just under two years ago, Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta died in hospital days after collapsing on the pitch in the Andalusian side’s season opener against Getafe.

On Saturday evening, Espanyol captain Dani Jarque suddenly fell unconscious after suffering suspected heart problems.

At the time, he was talking to his girlfriend Jéssica from his hotel room in Florence, where the Espanyol squad were staying as part of a pre-season tour.

Frightened by what had happened to her partner, Jéssica called Jarque’s room-mate and best friend, Ferran Corominas, who alerted those at the hotel that there was a problem.

Despite attempts by the club’s doctor and an ambulance crew who rushed to his aid, Dani Jarque’s life could not be saved.

It should have been the best year in the personal and professional life of Espanyol’s number 21.

His girlfriend is due to give birth to their first child in three weeks time and he had just been made captain of the club.

What’s more he was to set to be leading his players through the upcoming campaign in their brand new stadium.

“Putting on the armband is a dream come true for me,” said Jarque when told by manager Pochettino that he would be taking over the role from Raúl Tamudo.

Local lad Jarque joined the Pericos at the age of 12 and made his top flight debut in 2002.

In his spell at the Barcelona-based side, the central defender won the Copa del Rey in 2006 and was a runner up in the 2007 UEFA Cup final against Sevilla.

His new responsibilities at Espanyol made many feel that an international call-up to Spain was due any day.

Instead, it will be promise unfulfilled for a player Tomas Guasch describes in AS as “kind, polite, a really great person. An exemplary kid and footballer.”

“I shared some great moments with him, when he showed his true quality,” said Fernando Torres.

Tributes have been pouring in from all over Spanish football throughout the weekend, with 50,000 fans going to gate 21 of Espanyol’s new home to light candles and leave messages.

As well as shock at the news in the Spanish press over the weekend and on Monday, there is a great deal of debate as to how such a tragedy can have happened once again.

How the game has lost another player at the peak of his powers to a heart condition.

“Jarque’s death must be the last,” is the demand from Marca who call for a full investigation from FIFA and UEFA.

A footballer who seemed to come terrifyingly close to suffering the same fate as Antonio Puerta and Dani Jarque is Rúben de la Red.

The Real Madrid midfielder collapsed on the pitch during a cup game in October of last year has been speaking about the sudden death of his footballing colleague.

“I guess he didn’t have the luck I had,” said De la Red who still doesn’t know if he will ever be able to play football again.

La Liga Loca was at the Vicente Calderón in May to see what turned out to be Jarque’s final goal for Espanyol.

As it happened, it wasn’t enough to prevent defeat on the day against Atlético Madrid, but his leadership and commitment helped get his club out of an extraordinarily tough spot last season and lead them out of the relegation zone.

But someone who has got to know Jarque a whole lot better than the blog is Paul from Barcelona, who must now spend next season watching his side battle on without their captain, who died on Saturday night at the age of just 26.

“I remember him making his debut at right-back and he did OK. Then he played occasionally as a defensive midfielder and he did OK. The move to centre-back made him.

"Tough-tackling, strong and a good reader of the game. He blossomed by working first with Lotina, then Valverde who turned him into a defender who was as good as the competition (Marchena, Puyol etc.).

"Loved by the fans for his attitude. If it wasn't for his occasional blood rush to the head by giving the ball away on the edge of the area he surely would have moved to a bigger club.

"Rumoured interest from Barça, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Spurs should have been followed up as he would have graced any of these teams with honour.

"From 13 until his sad death he was Espanyol through and through and his being made captain was the highlight.

"He will be a massive loss to the team, especially his best friend Coro and defensive partner Pareja, who has taken his death particularly hard according to reports.

"Hopefully Espanyol will retire his number (21) and we will all pay our respects at the first home game of the season. R.I.P Dani Jarque.

P.S - a salute to Barça,Valencia and Sporting for their tributes and actions.”

Paul, Barcelona

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Andy Mitten: Barca & Espanyol unite to honour Jarque
NEWS: Players plead for better tests after Jarque death

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Young guns and old bikes star in la Liga

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

La Liga Loca is not sure how long it has to complete today’s entry.

You see, it made a bit of a boo-boo this morning, and suspects that the t’internet police will be bursting in through its (already open) windows Minority Report-style at any moment.

However, it may be lucky and find that they too are taking their August break along with the rest of Spain.

All the blog was trying to do was catch Thursday’s Europa League pre-pre-pre-pre qualifying action between Joaquín Caparrós’ merry men and their Swiss rivals.

It appears that La Liga Loca’s request to gaze at “Athletic Young Boys” on YouTube may well have been misinterpreted.

Had the blog managed to catch the Wandkorf action, it would have seen the Basque club saving their separatist skins thanks to a strike from the club’s youngest ever goal-scorer.

Athletic were going into the match against Young Boys 1-0 down after a disaster in San Mamés last week.

However, a 2-1 victory sees them through to yet another qualifying game, this time against Norway's Tromso.

And the northern side owe everything to the 16-year-old Iker Muniain for the winning goal, after he came on as a second-half substitute and scored two minutes later.

“We’re back to showing that we’re a group of winners,” boasted Joaquín Caparrós about a team that qualified for the tournament as Copa del Rey losers.

The rest of the Spanish contingent will be joining Athletic in further Europa League action with Valencia playing Norwegian side, Stabaek, in another play-off round and Villarreal - a side slumming it in the contest this year - taking on Dutch outfit NAC.

In the grown up Champions League, Atlético Madrid will probably be feeling fairly pleased with themselves having been drawn against Panathinaikos in their pre-qualifying clash.

The first tie is in Greece and the second back at the Vicente Calderón. However, Abel Resino, has done his duty by promising that the game “isn’t going to be easy.”

But, as ever, it’s impossible to tell what will happen with the Spanish side who are “alone in the universe,” according to club president Enrique Cerezo, who told French magazine ‘So Foot’ that “we’re capable of winning the hardest game and losing the easiest.”

La Liga’s big two are currently on North American shores with Barcelona having given Freddie Ljungberg’s Seattle Sounders a 4-0 tonking in a match that included two fine strikes from Leo Messi.

However, the highlight - and perhaps the biggest disappointment of the trip so far - was the squad’s special visit to the Microsoft headquarters, a visit made by all but three of the Barcelona players.

But rather than having any interest whatsoever in Bill Gates’ world-conquering company, Marca giggles that the footballers were instead expecting a freebie in the shape of a brand-new, state-of-the-art games console.

Instead they all received a pen.

La Liga Loca can only imagine that only about three of the Barcelona squad will know what to do with it.

Real Madrid are in action in the early hours (Spanish time) of Saturday morning against Toronto.

But the blog couldn’t give two hoots as the tabloid titillating of Cristiano Ronaldo is set to start in earnest a few hours earlier with his publicity-shy ex, Nereira Gallardo, revealing all about their relationship on a ‘prensa rosa’ Spanish TV show.

Ronaldo’s former fling is currently big news in Spain, having been very publicly blanked by Madrid’s Mr Loverman as he came out of a nightclub in Mallorca - a nightclub she was desperately trying to get into along with an army of photographers, no doubt.

‘Stuff Kaká and co’ is the message from the blog.

This is where the big fun is to be had this pre-season, as La Liga Loca joins the rest of the country’s tabloid press popcorned-up in the gutter and splashing about in the sleaze.

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Getafe’s goal to be big boys again

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Today’s update from la Liga Loca begins with a short competition.

One of these scenarios has never been used by Getafe as part of an advertising campaign to boost season ticket sales ahead of a new campaign. Three of them have.

a) A teenage boy changes into his transvestite alter ego while his dad watches in the background. “My father’s proud of me. I’m a Getafe fan,” he says.

b) A pot-bellied Madrid taxi-driver type sits in the stands at Getafe’s Coliseum stadium while two blonde lap-dancers bump-and-grind over him as a match takes place below. “Life doesn’t get any better than this,” he grins.

c) A series of religious figures including Joan of Arc, Moses and Jesus give up their spiritual paths and turn their back on God to become Getafe fans.

d) A despondent looking man in his dressing grown gives birth to an egg. Out of the egg jumps a dwarf dressed in a muscle suit. The tiny person then proceeds to leap around in a feverish, excitable manner.

The odd one out is answer b) - although the idea is probably being lined up for next summer.

Answers a) and c) were concepts used in previous years, causing an understandable number of complaints from a whole range of organisations from gay groups to the Catholic church.

“It is true that some of our campaigns have not gone down too well with some people in the past,” admitted Getafe president Angel Torres this week.

But Getafe have decided to plant their wicket on safer grounds this year with the very surreal d) - an advertising spot that also features a car park attendant growing a poorly CGI’d face on the back of his head.

The general aim of these adverts is to help fans move on from the disastrous campaign of last season when Getafe avoided relegation by the slimmest of margins.

“Prepare to be big again,” says the new slogan on the club’s bright new future.

Unfortunately, La Liga Loca has some doubts that this can ever happen with Michel in charge.

The former Real Madrid man took over at the end of last season but is very much Spain’s version of Bryan Robson - someone who lived off his reputation as a footballer to get managerial gigs.

This sounds harsh, but the Getafe trainer’s managerial record has been less than sterling up to now having failed to take Rayo Vallecano out of the Segunda B during his spell in charge.

Michel then managed to relegate Real Madrid’s second team, Castilla, from the Segunda A division - something that has caused those at Castle Greyskull no end of bother over the past few seasons when it comes to keeping hold of their younger talent.

Nevertheless, Getafe’s squad has seen some reshuffling over the summer with defensive midfielder Eugen Polanski joining Mainz on loan.

Striker Ikechukwu Uche has joined the fun at Zaragoza while Esteban Granero was put out of his sulking misery by hooking up with Real Madrid, once again.

Going in the opposite direction from the Bernabeu, it’s young Brian May lookalike, Dani Parejo, and the rather nifty Mané coming into the full-back position from Almería.

But perhaps the biggest change at the Coliseum over the summer has been a change of shirt sponsor with the name of fast-food giants, Burger King, now emblazoned across the footballers' chests.

“We were predestined to find each other,” blathered company suit, Elias Díaz Sesé.

“On the one side, the cheeky or ‘jeta’ character of Geta and on the other, the blue blood of our king of hamburgers.”

It remains to be seen if the fans will be relishing the season ahead or telling Michel the manager to burger off.

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Who will be the first to fall in la Liga?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:00:00 GMT

August in Spain means three things.

La Liga Loca’s pale, delicate, Victorian child miner skin turns that one shade redder in the sun.

The holiday-bound locals finally clear out of the blog’s city and let it get some much needed peace and quiet.

And bored club presidents in la Liga check their calendars and realise there is still plenty of time for a cheeky sacking or two before the season kicks off at the end of the month.

So far, there has been no activity in the firing or quitting department in Spain’s top flight, but August is still oh-so young.

However, this has not stopped La Liga Loca being all with the proactive and predicting which Primera prime-movers will be Primera paté either before or after the start of the new season.

Although it has been coming out with the same tired prediction for a good year now, it is hard to dislodge Sevilla’s Manolo Jiménez as one of the front-runners to be dispatched to the dole queue.

Yes, Juande Ramos’ former number two led Sevilla to a third-place finish in the last campaign. And boy, it was a torturous experience to watch, and yes, he has only just had his contract renewed.

But the feeling from club president José Maria del Nido on announcing his extension came with a heavy 'can’t be arsed to replace him' vibe.

Sevilla’s early exit from July’s Peace Cup tournament was enough to trigger another round of rumours that Jiménez was to be moved out, with Del Nido calling for everyone to “not start the whole debate about the coach, already.”

Sorry, but old habits die hard, José.

As one colleague of La Liga Loca noted, Atlético Madrid’s Abel Resino has a “dead man walking” look about him.

The club’s former goalkeeper was only supposed to lead the side until the end of last season after the firing of Javier Aguirre, but accidentally and with enormous flukiness led the rojiblancos into fourth spot.

However, a failure in the Champions League qualifiers and another squabble between those oddballs running the show at the Vicente Calderón could see Resino told to sling his hook and replaced by a considerably sexier managerial model like a Quique Sánchez Flores or a Juande Ramos.

Or, if there really is a merciful god out there, Luis Aragónes.

Xerez coach, Cuco Ziganda, may not be fired before the season’s start

His club’s bosses may be mad, but not that mad, but the former Osasuna man could well look at his threadbare four-man squad of misfits he looks set to be leading and leg it before he is pushed.

Or shot at, if the club’s former president and his chauffeur has anything to do with it.

An outside bet for someone to quit his post prematurely could be Unai Emery at Valencia.

A late decision to flog a bunch of his big stars despite the promises of the Mestalla bosses - and a total financial meltdown in Mestalla - may well see him take his ball and play somewhere else.

But for decent longshot, it’s always worth looking in the direction of Castle Greyskull and Real Madrid.

After all, the club has only had the three managers this year, which still leaves plenty of time for one more.

Poor results, early infighting and an arms-folded, pouty lip rebellion from Raúl could well see Manuel Pellegrini ousted with the third choice Chilean replaced by a ringer until Arsene Wenger and José Mourinho move next summer.

But with the blog having faith in the great man’s abilities, it suspects that the Chilean may just wake up in the morning, scream “oh God! What have I done!” and head for the hills.

He may not be alone in doing so, as the new season approaches like a giant jellyfish of doom.

Someone has to be the first to go, so who will it be?

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The forgotten man of Spanish football

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT

A large chunk of the transfer talk over the summer has been David Villa’s ‘will he, won’t he, loves me, loves me not’ move to either Real Madrid or Barcelona.

But it seems that this particular chapter in the year long saga has been closed - until at least Christmas - with the Mestalla forward’s declaration on Tuesday that “I was told I should leave Valencia for the good of the club, but then soon after everything changed.”

But there is a curious case of another Spanish striker who was also pushed and prodded onto the transfer market - a striker who is a Euro 2008 winner, a former top scorer in la Liga and a footballer who is guaranteed to bang the ball into the onion bag wherever he plays.

But there has not been a single iddy-biddy story linking this mystery man to club in la Liga - a fairly astonishing occurrence for the gossip-crazy local press.

That footballer is Dani Güiza.

At time of writing, Güiza is on the brink of a move from Fenerbahce to Lyon for 12 million euros.

And it looks like a smart move from the French club who are looking to the Spaniard to replace the lost goals of Karim Benzema - last seen hobbling past the blog at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night pretending to talk into his mobile - and partner the ex-Porto striker Lisandro Lopez.

So the big, burning question to be asked is why Spanish clubs, to coin a phrase, “wouldn’t touch him with yours.”

After all, the 28 year-old knows la Liga inside out and is a proven scorer at club and international level.

Güiza popped in 20 goals for little old Getafe in 61 games, but it was at Mallorca where he really shone by becoming la Liga's ‘Pichichi’ with an astonishing 27 strikes in 2008.

But even that wasn’t enough to keep him in Spain, with Fenerbahce bringing the Andalusian to the Turkish league.

Although not as prolific as in previous seasons, Güiza still managed 11 goals in 31 under the stewardship of Luis Aragónes.

So what has stopped a Spanish club bringing the Jerez-born forward home?

The 12 million euros fee is certainly too steep for most cash-strapped clubs in the league, but the likes of Atlético or Villarreal could probably scrape together the funds for a player who is guaranteed to bring in a good 20 goals.

The blog has spent some time asking the movers and shakers in the world of Spanish footie what’s going on with Güiza.

And the answer that came back is that he always brings more baggage with him than Maniche heading to a picnic.

It won’t take more than a second for the FourFourTwo lawyers to agree with the statement that Güiza has always enjoyed the excellent social life offered by Spain.

During his time at Getafe, club president Angel Torres complained that the forward would ring him up in the early hours of the morning completely lost in the mean streets of Madrid and asking for help in getting home.

This is partly due to the fact that - as the other half of La Liga Loca admitted in somewhat cruel fashion - Güiza is “the thickest person I have ever met.”

Even the forward himself famously admitted that “the night confuses me” - so much so that Getafe were forced to put him on special diet of pureed food after he picked up stomach problems having enjoyed one too many, too many times in the Spanish capital.

Güiza’s tales of tabloid woes are legendary, and include the time when he was very nearly dropped from the Spain squad after breaking the rules by having his ex-wife spend the night with him in the team hotel before the recent friendly against England.

In his defence, the international forward claimed that the nookie-free night was a chance for him to catch up with his son.

Güiza’s relationship with his on-off partner, agent and boob-outer, Nuria Bermúdez, is also an issue for many potential suitors.

And that’s not even mentioning his mad old mother.

All-in-all, it seems a tad harsh that no-one in Spain seems willing to take a chance on Güiza.

The forward seems like a simple but misunderstood soul, from very humble origins but perhaps a player who needs a prison cell to live in when the sun goes down.

But the message on behalf of anyone living in sizzling Spain is “don’t we all?”

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Spain unites over Barça’s new Supercrack

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

As with the transfer itself, the eventual presentation of Zlatan Ibrahimovic was stumbly, bumbly and all a little bit late.

On Monday night, some 60,000 had gathered in the Camp Nou to welcome the Swedish striker to the Catalan capital.

But they were kept hanging around for two hours before the gathered girls got the chance to show their new hero their breasts with the letters I B R A scrawled onto them.

The delay was due to the Italians back in Milan being a tad slack in faxing the required paperwork confirming the Mad Sammy Eto’o deal was done and dusted.

The stereotype-loving La Liga Loca likes to imagine a couple of chuckling Inter suits standing over the machine saying “Eh!- lets-ah make-ah the Spanish wait a bit-ah! Eh!” before going off for the longest of lunches.

Before the contractually obliged ball-juggling and arm-waving from Zlatan took place, there was a press conference from Barcelona’s new signing.

He answered hard-hitting questions such as “are you looking forward to playing with Messi?” in English, which were then translated into Catalan and Spanish by a rather clever multi-lingual lady, making the whole process rather long.

Before that could take place, Joan ‘Joan’ Laporta, King of Catalunya, engaged in his very bestest hobby - hearing the sound of his own voice - with a speech that was typical of the Barcelona president in that it was loaded with examples of insecurity and paranoia.

“We did not use a single euro of our bank debt,” claimed Laporta, making a jagged reference to the cursed Real Madrid.

“This makes Barcelona a serious club who respects the rules.”

Once the formalities had taken place, Ibrahimovic went onto the pitch for a kick-about before having to leg it down to the dressing rooms sharpish having sparked a pitch invasion where some fans scooped up large chunks of the newly laid pitch to take home as souvenirs.

A day later, and the Spanish press have come together as one in thinking that the former Ajax man’s arrival at Barcelona is a very good thing, indeed. But for different reasons.

Sport blast “Ibrapasion!” as their headline with Joan Vehils backtracking on all the vulgar Galactico attacks by writing that “sure, he’s expensive, but is there such a thing as a cheap supercrack?”

In Mundo Deportivo, J.M. Artells is happy to announce the birth of Ibramania but is another who cannot resist the opportunity at a pop at those up in Castle Greyskull.

“Whilst Guardiola’s Barcelona manage these times with tact,” continues the columnist, “Real Madrid market their stars as infallible gods to forget their recent miseries.”

Marca are happy to welcome Zlatan to Spain and note that the forward is “exactly what a team who have won everything need, a footballer with hunger.”

AS chose to attack what they see as hypocrisy from Laporta over his recent accusations over Madrid’s “thievery and imperialism” but praise Pep for using his sense of “feeling” to ditch Eto’o and swap him for the Swede.

Even Florentino Pérez has joined in the fun and says the Zlatan’s arrival is a positive point for the Spanish game as it “is good for the league and shows that the best in the world want to play here.”

The 60,000 attracted to the Camp Nou and the media interest sparked suggests that perhaps Pérez’s most important criteria for any player has also been fulfilled.

At a sports forum held on Monday, the Real Madrid big cheese commented that “you have to be convinced that the player you are betting on has a profit value that will improve income on the gate with TV rights and marketing.”

Being a decent footballer is less of priority for the Real Madrid president, it seems.

But that’s not a problem for Barça’s new signing - someone that La Liga Loca has already taken a shine to.

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Will Real Madrid be Peace-ing off early?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

A concerned La Liga Loca can only hope that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon hasn’t been keeping his all-seeing eye on any football related shenanigans in Spain over the past weekend from his giant palace of light (where the blog imagines him to be living).

Otherwise he may be one unhappy Messianic bunny.

For those already confused by Monday’s meander, the good Reverend is the head of the Unification Church - or the Moonies, as they are often called - who are the organisers of the most peculiar Peace Cup jamboree currently taking place in a very sweaty Madrid and Andalusia.

“We are creating the peaceful world we have been dreaming of,” declares the Peace Cup’s official website - a website that also includes a section where you can pick up a “solidarity T-shirt’ for a cheeky 10 euros.

This perhaps demonstrates that the Reverend’s prediction from his own site that “this present materialistic age will soon yield to a new age of spirituality,” still has some way to go.

The reason why Mr Moon may not be completely happy with his tournament so far is that the good people of Spain have been turning their noses up at the whole concept of world peace, football and all that jazz by wisely staying away in their droves.

Just 300 turned up for the clash between Liga de Quito against Al-Attihad in Jerez. Only 2000 bothered to come and watch Sevilla get kicked out of the tournament on Sunday night.

While Real Madrid - a club who managed to pack 70,000 fans into the Bernabeu to watch someone put a football shirt on - could only tempt about half that number to watch their icon kick do needless stepovers.

Part of this reason must be the fact that Sunday night’s game kicked off at the ludicrous time of half-past-ten at night.

And the fans who were there were treated to perhaps the worst football song ever recorded before the players of Madrid and Al-Attihad trundled onto the pitch. Twice.

It was an abysmal mix of flamenco and inane Spanish pop, and concerned the world gathering in Seville in the name of peace.

For those wondering, the finest football song in la Liga - in the blog's humble opinion - is Getafe’s match-opening number, surely the theme tune to ‘It’s a Knock Out’ should the programme ever come back from the dead.

Being a pre-season friendly the match was quite naturally a total waste of time and mindnumblingly dull.

However, the Madrid fans got to boo their players off the pitch after a 1-1 draw - a game where the home side were spared defeat after Manaf Aboshgair and Hicham Aboucherouane missed two second-half sitters for the opposition.

La Liga Loca probed Jerzy Dudek thoroughly after the match to see if the Madrid ‘keeper for the night agreed with the blog’s frequent moan that Spanish football is played at the same time as people should be tucked up in bed.

“It’s very late for the supporters,” agreed the yawning Polish legend. “They should be playing the game at least an hour earlier.”

As well as the poor crowds, the other concern the Peace Cup organisers must have is holding the tournament in the highly hedonistic land of Spain.

After all, the Reverend Moon himself said in a speech in January 2008 that “those who drink and smoke cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The fish of heaven may spit on them.”

Bad news for Sergio Ramos for starters.

And very bad news indeed for the folks down in Andalusia, where drinking and smoking tends to be obligatory, rather than an optional pastime.

While Barcelona’s ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams classily oozed their way through their friendly games against Spurs and Al Ahly over the weekend, Madrid’s bloated squad has yet to click.

AS-man, Tomás Roncero, writes on Monday that “if Pellegrini was an astronaut and called Armstrong, then he would be calling Valdano Houston and telling him he had a problem.”

“Madrid have got to improve a lot,” warned the paper’s editor, Alfredo Relaño, “because if they don’t...”

Marca, on the other hand, prefer not to talk about the unmentionable performance of Sunday night and spend a large chunk of Monday’s edition moaning about a long list of targets, including:

The person responsible for playing the Danish national anthem during Alberto Contador’s podium session after winning the Tour de France...

The judges at the World Swimming Championships for not giving the Spanish synchronised swimming team a bunch of gold medals...

The gentleman who installed Fernando Alonso’s wonky wheel...

... and Franz Beckenbauer for no good reason at all.

If Real Madrid fail to beat Liga de Quito on Tuesday night, then Marca will have something to complain about, once again, as that will be the first tournament failure for Real Madrid of the season.

The first of how many is the big, mischievous question for the day.

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Man United lose another 40 goals-a-season star

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

To lose one gargantuan goal-machine of a footballer over the course of the summer, as happened to Manchester United with the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, can be considered unlucky.

To lose two is just plain daft.

But that’s the unfortunate fate suffered by Sir Alex in this close season. That’s according to former Red Devils striker Manucho, anyway.

The Angolan forward was being presented by his new club Valladolid earlier this week and was keen to announce what targets he had set himself in his first campaign in la Liga.

“My aim is to score between 30 and 40 goals,” boasted the confident newcomer.

After the giggles and sniffles had died down, his manager José Luis Mendilibar was forced to take the wind of his happy hitman’s sails by asking if “anyone has told him that last year we had a lot of games where we didn’t see the goal.”

But the Pucela coach had to apologise soon after, when reminded that a league where Deportivo’s Riki can find the back of the net on regular occasions can't be all that.

"Get off, Rooney, I'd've scored four by now"

The capture of the former United man is another sign of how Valladolid have been the busiest of beavers over the summer as they look to reduce the average age of their squad from somewhere in the fifties to the low thirties.

Although the side lost star keeper Sergio Asenjo to Atlético Madrid, Valladolid have picked up the might-be-handy-one-day striker Alberto Bueno from Real Madrid’s second side, Castilla, and have taken defensive midfielder Pelé on loan from Porto.

Some of the more pensionable players in the squad have either retired, been booted out or simply shot round the back of the training ground shed as the club looks for a safe mid-table berth next season and avoid the dramatic collapse of the last campaign, which saw them a nanobot’s knickers away from dropping into la Segunda.

Mallorca are another side who have been up to all sorts in the transfer market, but not necessarily in a good way.

The cash-strapped club are currently in the process of being bought out by businessman Carlos Gonzalez, but this has not prevented them from losing large and rather important chunks of their squad.

José Jurado and Cleber Santana have returned to Vicente Calderón after loan spells whilst keeper Carlos Moyá has moved to Valencia.

But most crucially of all, tasty playmaker Juan Arango has left Spanish shores for Bundesliga side Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Although some youngsters have been promoted to first team football, Mallorca's squad is looking 'waffer' thin and must be thrown into the same lobster pot of doom as Xerez as early favourites for the drop in the new campaign.

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Is Zlatan worth the bother for Barça?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

If Joan Laporta had known what a blooming ball-ache the Mad Sammy Eto’o for Mad Zlatan Ibrahimovic transfer was going to be, then the tantrum-throwing titan of the Camp Nou probably wouldn’t have bothered with the swap.

Not only has the ceaseless saga irked Pep Guardiola, the local press and a good chunk of the Barcelona faithful, but if the details of the reported deal are correct, then it could also turn out to be the biggest waste of money since Jesus Navas splashed out on a round-the-world air ticket.

Laporta has even handed the opportunity to the Madridista papers of allowing them to take an evening stroll along the moral high ground - no mean feat - by throwing them the raw meat of a deal that could be worth 45m euro, plus Eto’o, plus Alexander Hleb - rounding things up to an estimated 90m.

“Each club has the freedom to pay what it considers right for a player,” grinned an immensely smug Barça-supporting editorial in Marca last week, in response to club director Xavier Sala i Martin insisting that “we will never spend 60m on one footballer,” and Laporta’s constant grumblings over Madrid’s ‘imperialistic’ spending.

The problem for Barcelona is that sealing this Swap Shop style deal has been like trying to understand José Antonio Reyes eating a mouthful of meatballs - almost impossible.

Apparently, the easy part of the transfer has already been tied up with both Inter Milan and Zlatan himself agreeing to the terms of the deal. The trickier part has been manoeuvring Eto’o over the Med to Milan.

The Cameroon striker is currently in a win-win-win-win situation.

If Eto’o stays at Barcelona he sees out the final year of his contract at the best club in the world where he remains popular - not that he's fussed about things like that - and can then pick and choose his next destination.

If he gets a move to Inter Milan, within the next few weeks, then it will be for big bags of cash.

Eto’o’s agent, José María Mesalles, returned to Barcelona on Tuesday night after another negotiation session with Inter, with Marca reporting that the Milan club are reluctant to fork out all of the 10-15m euro signing bonus that Eto’o is said to be demanding.

And that’s not even mentioning his supposed wage demands.

Despite Pep saying that Mad Sammy’s departure would be “better for the team and better for him,” Eto’o is in no hurry to go anywhere.

And this is causing some problems for Sport who are printing headlines nearly every day that the deal is on the brink of being done.

The other thorn in the backside of the move, as some of La Liga Loca’s fine Barça-supporting posters have been pointing out, is that it doesn’t seem to make sense on a football level.

On his day and as seen by his form in Serie A, Zlatan is a fine, fine player. And La Liga Loca would, of course, welcome another loon joining in the fun of la Liga.

But the Swede has done little for club and country either on an international or Champions League level to demonstrate that he is worth the reported figures that the Catalan club are willing to hand over.

Pep Guardiola is clearly in the hunt for a replacement for Eto’o, either for this season or next and still doesn’t rate the striking prowess of the GCSE-taking Bojan.

However, according to Valencia Vice President Javier Gómez, the club’s efforts to sign David Villa were somewhat lethargic with the Mestalla man admitting that “there were never continuing talks with Barcelona.”

But with Villa now apparently off the market, it seems that Barcelona are stuck on the current path of bringing Zlatan to the Camp Nou no matter what the cost - both footballing and financial.

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Blarney and bluster after Madrid’s Irish outing

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:00 GMT

By and large, pre-season friendlies are rubbish.

They’re something to watch when you’re too hungover to move, out of DVD boxsets or – if you're unfortunate enough to live in Britain – when it’s peeing down with rain.

Pretty much nothing can be learned from them, neither positive nor negative.

Unless you're Villarreal, perhaps, and thrashing third division sides 27-0.

However, ahead of a certain side’s summer debut against Shamrock Rovers on Monday night, this shoulder-shrugging attitude simply wasn’t an option for the maddest of Madridista media – media that had invested gallons of fawn and grovel in the team over the past two months.

For Marca, the game was the debut of the bizarrely named ‘FlorenTeam’.

The chance for the world to see where a good 120 million euro of the Real Madrid members’ money had been spuzzed with the first outings of Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

The Spanish sports daily, which has become a panting Florentino Pérez fanzine – complete with an article from gormless editor Eduardo Inda comparing the club president to King Midas – needed a big, big win over their Irish opponents to maintain the noisy knicker-wetting over the birth of the best team on the planet, ever.

CR9, the split-second before the accident

And what did the finger-crossing paper get in the end? As to be expected, not a great deal for what was essentially a kick-about on a Monday evening.

Benzema certainly looks like he could be a bit tasty next season, while Fernando Gago clearly hasn’t spent his summer holidays learning to pass.

Still, the late 1-0 win didn’t stop Marca purring over the debut of Cristiano Ronaldo.

“It’s not a dream anymore,” blubbed Tuesday’s front cover with the match report detailing how “Cristiano, a total footballer, went out to enjoy his debut and didn’t disappoint.”

However, despite Florentino’s fearful presence in the Marca offices, the paper’s editorial did have to admit that “the new Real Madrid is a puzzle which still lacks pieces.”

Life was a lot tougher for Spanish TV station La Sexta, which broadcast the game live to much of the country.

The channel, which is to football coverage what Maniche is to Lycra, did not hide for a second from the fact that it was firmly in the Madridista camp with the commentator marking the kick-off by screaming “This thrilling project has now begun!”

The blog can only say that had the BBC given the same treatment to Manchester United, then questions would probably have been asked in parliament.

“Will this be Cristiano Ronaldo’s first goal in the shirt of Real Madrid?!” yelled Madrid’s cheerleader. "No" was the quick response as another free-kick flew wide.

"Over the line, mark it zero"

As the game dragged on and the commentary team’s wag started to flag, they sounded more like overly-cheerful English people pretending to enjoy a BBQ in the freezing cold.

Instead, they decided to have a pop at Rafa Benitez for selfishly forcing Xabi Alonso to stick to his contract at Liverpool and not let him move to Madrid. “He’s the guilty one in this!” grumbled one pundit.

In the topsy-turvy world of the Spanish media, for any kind of bubble-bursting of the Madridista dream one must now turn to AS. And that’s never a healthy situation to be in.

And the paper was in a fairly mellow mood on Tuesday, by suggesting that “Benzema left a good sensation” but with Alfredo Relaño more than a little sniffy over the performance of Cristiano Ronaldo.

“He lacked a bit of the shine of his presentation,” sighed the paper’s editor forgetting that all the Portuguese player had to do on that occasion was grin like an eejit and yell "Hala Madrid" at regular intervals.

With Marca now starting to lower the expectations of what pre-season friendlies mean after Monday’s events, La Liga Loca can only hope a Barcelona side with just four days of training can tear Tottenham a new one, just to give the Madridista press something to chew on for a while.

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Villarreal start their pre-season in style

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Right about now, nearly all of the siesta’d-up squads of la Liga will have gathered together for pre-season training.

400 word assignments on “Wot I did on my holidays” will have been handed out and those having failed to return from Brazil will be offering up “when you said Monday, I thought you meant Thursday” as their excuses.

Xerez manager, Crackers ‘Cuco’ Ziganda, will be standing and Mad Eye-Moodying at just 13 first-team players.

This is certainly not an issue for Real Madrid’s Manuel Pellegrini whose daily head count alone takes up half of the squad’s training session.

One of the first sides to go back to business were the Europa League-qualifying Athletic Bilbao.

They have spent the past couple of weeks being pictured enthusiastically sprinting in and out of the sea, Mitch Buchanan style, surrounded by gawking bikini babes before underperforming in pre-season friendlies against the likes of Anderlecht.

Or so says Joaquín Caparrós. “They lacked intensity,” remarked the Athletic coach on the difference in his footballers performance levels when not surrounded by scantily-clad floozies.

Those silver-spoon clutching, laurel-sitting dilettantes at Barcelona are one of the last sides to saunter back from their summer holidays all with the coolness and thinking the world owes them a living.

Following the established pre-season tradition for all football clubs, Barça’s opening encounter of the summer will be an easy run-out against some hopeless ringers, carefully selected to make them look as good as possible.

In the Catalan club’s case, its Tottenham who will be taking on Pep’s Dream Boys at Wembley Stadium on Friday night.

Over in the surroundings of the Spanish capital, Atlético Madrid gave local villagers, Colmenar, something to think about with a 3-0 thrashing - a match which saw the participation of both José Antonio Reyes and José Jurado - while Sevilla struggled to squeeze past Conil with just a 1-0 winning margin.

However, it’s Villarreal who kicked off their summer in sensational style with a match against what the blog assumes to be a collection of local village idiots.

And no, it wasn’t Real Betis.

A Sunday evening encounter saw a 27-0 victory over Navata, the kind of result last seen back in the 1890’s involving sides named after railway stations.

New Villarreal coach, Ernesto Valverde, chose to use two separate XIs in the encounter to deliver the pain with Jonathan Pereira returning from his loan spell at Racing to chip in seven of the goals.

Even ignoring this fluke of a football game, La Liga Loca fancies Villarreal to be a handy bet for a third-placed finish next season - or even second if something very, very funny happens to one of the Big Two.

The shrewd former Espanyol man was a very smart choice for Judas Pellegrini’s replacement and has already shifted some deadwood from the side with the removal of Nihat, Matigol and the hapless forward, Guille Franco.

The defence has been strengthened with the arrival of defender Ivan Marcano from Racing, although some experienced replacements in midfield to boost the fading Robert Pires and Marcos Senna are a bit of a must if the east coast side are to fulfil their potential in the new campaign.

“We should be able to finish a lot higher than that,” predicted striker Joseba Llorente reflecting on last season’s fifth-placed finish.

In the first of La Liga Loca’s doomed-to-failure summer predictions, the blog strongly agrees.

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Will David Villa be left stranded in Valencia?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

The polymathic genius that is La Liga Loca used to think that it had a decent grasp of economics.

In its seven years teaching the subject at Rutland Poly, the blog would always opine that the standard operating procedure for something or someone in debt was to sell assets.

But this crazy notion has been made to look outdated and distinctly fuddy by Valencia, who have chosen to follow the theory that the best way to face a crisis is to do nothing and hope it goes away.

Despite the predictions from the blog over the past few months that Valencia would be stripped bare of its playing talent due to the club’s 500m Euro debt, the main departures from the club so far are the eternally injured Edu and Teresa the Tealady.

The terrific trio of Juan Mata, David Silva and David Villa are still Mestalla men, although the latter doesn’t sound very pleased about it at all.

"Someone get me out of here!"

It was widely expected that the Spanish striker would be shipped out to either Real Madrid or Barcelona over the summer, especially as both clubs are reported to have made hefty offers to Valencia for his goalscoring services.

Madrid made a 'multimillion Euro and Alvaro Negredo thrown in' bid only to see it being snook-cocked by current club president Manuel Llorente.

Meanwhile, the Catalan papers advise that Barcelona offered to pay Valencia 42 million Euro for Villa.

According to El País, this was eight short of what Valencia were demanding, but Villa was so desperate for the move that he offered to pay the difference himself.

But Valencia will only accept a “scandalously scandalous” bid for the prize, says Llorente.

It may be that the various suits supposedly running the club know more than they are telling in regards to Valencia’s immediate financial situation.

Or it may be that the mysterious Dalport group will hand-over the half-a-billion Euro of investment that it claims to have.

But considering nothing has been heard from them in nearly two weeks and that the company’s logo was taken from a children’s colouring book, it seems unlikely.

And it also seems unlikely that David Villa will be going anywhere this summer, especially as he has always turned down the chance of playing in the Premier League, the only place containing clubs with the means to buy him now.

Madrid’s interest in Villa ended when they made their move for Karim Benzema, while Barça have apparently grown tired of Valencia’s obstinacy and are on the brink of replacing Mad Sammy with Mad Zlatan.

And this leaves poor old Diego Forlán sobbing by the wayside at the Vicente Calderon screaming, “you can’t leave me here!” to his agent.

"Can I go now please?"

All this is not to say that there isn’t some financial activity to be found in Mestalla.

A group of current and ex-footballers have got together to buy some shares in the club. Around 2,400 Euro worth, in fact, per player.

“We are part of Valencia and are in a position to help the club,” announced David Albeda, whose last major contribution to the side was to take it to court last year, when dropped from the squad by Ronald Koeman.

Whether or not this laudable if not substantial contribution to the club’s accounts is enough to cover the shortfall left by the non-sale of Villa remains to be seen.

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Espanyol unveil their own Kaka

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

While the Head of Player Presentations at the Camp Nou has spent the past few months hitting the refresh button on their Facebook page every three seconds in a desperate attempt to pass the time, their counterpart in Espanyol’s Pratland - or Cornella el Prat to use the correct title of the club’s new home - has been doing the rarest of things for a Spaniard during the summer.

And that’s working.

And not just lazing about, moaning about the hot weather AS IF IT ISN’T LIKE THIS EVERY FRACKIN’ YEAR!

Anyway. Monday was a big day in the blue-and-white-stripey part of the Catalan capital as it saw the public unveiling of Espanyol’s latest trinket, Shunsuke Nakamura, who arrives on a freebie from Celtic.

"So, what's Gary Caldwell really like?"

With La Liga Loca not having seen a game of Scottish football since 1967, the blog has no idea if the midfielder is any good - not always an issue for an Espanyol signing - but he certainly brought the locals out of their hovels with 6,000 turning up to see him kick a ball around and say that he had already eaten some tomatoes on bread - a prized local snack.

But more importantly, Nakamura’s presentation attracted 300 journalists, with a large chunk of them coming from Japan, where the event was broadcast live.

The former Celtic man was wheeled out again on Tuesday and was seen fannying about at the airport with a couple of team-mates to advertise the new Espanyol home and away shirts.

Wheeze-bag Espanyol president, Daniel Sánchez Llibre compared the signing of Nakamura to that of Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo.

But aside from being completely wrong on this point, the Perico big-cheese was also completely right to a certain extent.

La Liga Loca is no expert in anything - aside from Zombie warfare - but it imagines that the interest in Japan in all things Espanyol was fairly limited until now.

However, the signing of Nakamura massively increases the club’s profile in a potentially lucrative market.

Nakamura’s arrival is another small sign that those lesser mortals living in la Liga are finally realising that there is money to be made in them there hills outside of Spain.

Joan Laporta and Florentino Pérez have both mentioned the importance of paying more attention to the wider world, with the latter chewing over the concept of 3pm kick-offs to compete with the Premier League and to attract more viewers in Asia.

And when both these clubs both want the same thing, it tends to happen.

Laporta and Perez ponder

While La Liga Loca is always the first to moan and whine about midnight matches and games that start on one day and finish on another, it is not sure that the league wouldn’t lose a bit of its magic with early afternoon start times.

There is also the inconvenience to Atlético Madrid fans who would have to get up very early indeed to start the beer-boozing and ciggie-rolling to reach their normal levels of high-as-a-kiteness for their home games.

However, any radical changes are likely to be a long way off for the simple facts that the game in Spain continues to be run by prongs and that the TV dispute that has caused so many problems to the sport has yet to be solved, despite a truce being called for the new season.

While some of the clubs in Spain may be thinking about the wider world and the riches to be earned, those running la Liga will always be several steps behind.

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Tough-talking needed in la Liga

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:00:00 GMT

High-trousered dream-shredder, Simon Cowell, is a lily-livered wimp of a man compared to his infinitely nastier and hard-bitten counterpart on Spanish television, Risto Mejide.

For a number of years now the the world-weary judge on Spain’s version of Pop Idol has hidden behind a pair of dark glasses and merrily ripped to shreds an endless roll-call of self-loving but hyena-esque hairdos.

Just last week, Risto asked one tone-deaf song-slayer how many shows were left in the series.

When advised that there were four, he snapped back that “I’m told you’re the favourite. If that’s true and you sing like that, then I’m warning everyone to watch Antena 3 (a rival channel) for the rest of the season.”

Cowell: Not a patch on moody Mejide

Risto is cool, cruel but extremely effective in telling people to give up and get out of his sight. And this is someone that a number of clubs in la Liga could do with right now.

Signing footballers is easy-peasy, as most clubs will tell you. Even Valencia have done it, breaking all known laws of economics in the process.

But getting rid of those money-wasting winos is the really tough part.

Atlético Madrid, for one, were relatively successful in getting rid of the likes of Georgios Seitaridis and Maniche, but have not had the same luck with tossing the rest of their footballing bycatch overboard.

Currently on the rojiblanco books and blocking up the club’s transfer chimney are José Jurado, José Antonio Reyes, Cleber Santana and Maxi Rodríquez - four players that are either struggling to find new stables or are unwilling to leave the Vicente Calderón.

Sevilla have managed to offload Aquivaldo Mosquera to Mexico’s Club America and the whiny Enzo Maresca to Olympiakos, but are still stuck in the middle with the eternally dithering Luis Fabiano who can barely decide what colour socks to wear in the morning, never mind whether he wants to stay with Sevilla or go to Manchester City or Milan.

Barcelona seem to have no idea whatsoever over what is going on with Samuel Eto’o - possibly because he is not answering their calls - but have poked both Catalan sports papers into calling for the Cameroon striker to leave.

But the real log-jam in la Liga is up at Castle Greyskull, where Director General Jorge Valdano is having a tough time shifting the vast amount of Ramon Calderón’s clutter from the side’s overstuffed attic.

Although Javier Saviola was sold to Benfica for five million euro, Barcelona daily Sport comment that this is roughly how much that Madrid had to pay to the Argentine striker for the remaining two years of his contract.

Karim Benzema was presented to the masses last week, but without a squad number as the club are hoping to hand the French striker the number 10 or 11 shirts.

Unfortunately, these belong to Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben respectively, and neither are in a hurry to leave anytime soon.

Especially as the latter would probably injury himself in the process.

Indeed, Manuel Pellegrini has gone against the prevailing grain in Madrid by telling the press that “it’s not true that all the Dutch players are going to leave” and saying that “Sneijder is a very good player for the Real Madrid squad.”

The Chilean coach even went as far as naming Ruud van Nistelrooy in his list of strikers for the new campaign, showing that he is a very smart cookie indeed.

Pellegrini: "I love the Dutch, me"

Despite Valdano baiting a giant mantrap with weed and mucky mags in a desperate attempt to lure the Dutch contingent away, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is leading a fightback by reportedly refusing to accept an offer for a move to Stuttgart.

But his back-up plan of threatening to read every one of his insufferable articles written for Marca to the Dutch forward may have more success in forcing him to skidaddle.

If all else fails, there is always the option of Spanish TV’s Mr Nasty to tell a few home truths to the Whites' collection of unwanted.

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A big pat on the back for Pennant

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Well, Zippity-do-dah! Ding Dong Merrily on High! and Pah-Pah-Poker Face!

A footballer from the UK and Ireland has grown some cojones and plucked up the courage to pack his knapsack and give the Spanish game a good old go.

Late on Thursday night, Real Zaragoza made the happy announcement that they had snared bad boy midfielder, Jermaine Pennant, on a freebie for the next three years.

“I wanted to go to Spain and turned down offers from some important teams in Europe to sign for Zaragoza,” grinned the former Liverpool man as he breezed into town for his medical and a cheeky photo with his new, shiny shirt.

Zaragoza may not be the sexiest of cities to spend time in with its slogan of:

“We’re between Barcelona and Madrid! And a bit industrial. Stop by! Please? Fine! Screw you! Didn’t want you to come anyway”

... but the club is an astute choice due to their canny manager in Marcelino and fans who are already very excited indeed by the arrival of the Englishman.

“Good God,” cries one poster on Marca’s message boards, “at last, we have a great player at our Zaragoza!”

Zaragoza? Really?

It is still too early to say whether Pennant is going to find himself in a relegation battle or a push for the Europa League next season - one of the joys of following la Liga.

But it is a breath of fresh air to see a footballer with the imagination to turn down the safer but infinitely duller moves to the likes of Bolton or Wigan to come to a pimped-up Primera.

Although the blog began Friday on a happy note, if must move to the distressing news that Atlético Madrid’s Mariano Pernia very nearly met his maker earlier in the week after a car crash that also involved his daughter and nephew.

Fortunately all are expected to make full recoveries despite his car looking like a complete write-off after the incident and ending up on its roof.

The rojiblanco defender suffered a broken collar bone, a broken vertebrae and a punctured lung.

But Marca reports that the first thing Pernia said when waking up was: “I’ve got to go back to Spain tomorrow for training.” Another blog hero for Friday.

Xerez have finally found their man to lead the club back to the second division next season.

And it’s former Osasuna boss, Cuco Ziganda, and perhaps the scariest looking boss in the Spanish top flight.

Except maybe Atlético’s Abel Resino. However, La Liga Loca has the impression that it could outrun the rojiblanco tough guy, if need be.

Ziganda: "You really don't want to make me angry"

Despite the club having only 14 players on its books at the moment, Ziganda is claiming that Xerez would not be “signing for the sake of signing.”

In a busy week, the Andalusia-based side were also linked with a buy-out by a certain Ramón Calderón, but the former Real Madrid president denied the story saying that he “didn’t have the money to buy Xerez.”

That and being a little tied up with appearances in front of judges and drunkenly waving his firsts outside Florentino Perez’ house every night. (This last part may not be entirely true. The first definitely is).

The third of the promoted sides, Tenerife, gets its first blog “Hello!” of the summer with the news that it was forced to open its ticket office for 24 hours on Wednesday night to deal with the demands from supporters looking for their passes for the new campaign.

But to end the week, here’s yet more intrigue from the mad, mad world of Mestalla.

Marca are reporting that the rumour running around town - started by Valencia bigwig José Garcia Roig - is that the man behind the mysterious Dalport organisation that has bought a 51 percent stake in the club may well be Juan Soler.

The man who was the majority shareholder at the club until Wednesday and who is largely seen as the person responsible for getting Valencia into the mess that it finds itself in today.

Welcome to La Liga Loca Jermaine!

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Mystery men buy out Valencia

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

With Valencia not so much flirting with bankruptcy as leering at it with wedding tackle in-hand, gags and giggles have been hard to come by in Mestalla in recent months.

Which was why a press conference called on Monday by the sometimes president and minority shareholder, Vicente Soriano, was so eagerly awaited by local hacks looking for a bit of light relief after the media uber-dominance of Cristiano Ronaldo’s arrival in the Spanish capital.

And, true to form, Soriano did not fail to deliver wisecrack after wisecrack, belly-laugh after belly-laugh in a presentation on his plans for the future of the no-pot-to-pee-in club.

But Vicente had a tough reputation to keep up for delivering top class comedy performances.

Last year, he was promising to bring 300m euro into Valencia to the enormous amusement of those gathered listening to his routine.

In early 2009, Vicente was claiming that the sale of the old Mestalla land was just days away. Sadly, the club’s board and creditors did not find the gag so funny and moved him out of his presidential role when diddly-squat happened.

However, on Monday, Valencia’s version of Dr Evil was back promising to bring in... half-a-billion euro to the club in new investment!

"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"

Unfortunately, all he had to back up his claims was a battered looking copy of a letter from a mysterious organisation called Inversiones Dalport, a group based in Uruguay but listed in the Madrid suburb of Boadilla, who would be handing over the enormous sums required to drag Valencia off the rocks of doom.

Once the laughter had died down and the local hacks had sowed their sides back up again, Soriano explained that Dalport was in the process of buying both the shares of himself and Juan Soler to bring the group’s total up to 51 percent and thus give it the control of the club with Soriano as president.

“An injection of capital is vital,” explained Soriano over the sniggers. “With a investment of 500m euro, we can bring the debt back down to zero.”

“We won’t have to sell anyone!” promised Vicente, getting the biggest laugh of the day, as he promised that the group would buy the land of the old Mestalla and fund the ongoing construction of the new stadium.

The reason why absolutely no-one takes the ex-president seriously is that he refused to explain who is behind the mysterious Dalport organisation.

“He went back to the same film as last summer,” sighed Pedro Morata in AS. “The stars will stay, the new stadium will be completed, and Valencia will be one of the healthiest clubs in Spain.... but until I see the money, I won’t believe anything.”

In a fine piece of investigation, Marca discovered that the eagle logo for the Dalport organisation was lifted directly from a children’s colouring book, while AS headed out to Boadilla to visit the supposed HQ of the group in the Madrid suburbs only to find naff-all.

"It looked a lot different on the website"

Wednesday’s AS does say that the group are in the process of buying out both Soler and Soriano, but in very, very bizarre circumstances.

The paper writes that Dalport have spent 200m euro on shares which are worth just 51m. What’s more, Soler is reportedly receiving 85m for his 35 percent stake, whilst Soriano is getting 115m for his 13.4 percent.

“Why are they overpaying so much? What is the logic of paying 200m euro for 51 percent when you can get the same for 50.6m?” asks the baffled sport’s daily.

On Wednesday afternoon, the current Valencia president Manuel Llorente said that if Soriano and his group “bring bank guarantees then we will welcome him with a guard of honour.”

However, the current big cheese argues that the project unveiled on Monday “creates reasonable doubts concerning its solidity, viability, but above all, its solvency.”

La Liga Loca suggest that this may be the biggest understatement of the summer, so far.

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Will Sevilla’s president be going stir crazy?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:00:00 GMT

If you are the president of a football club located in the wacky world of Andalusia, then standing up to your eyeballs in some kind of dodgy deal or saucy scandal forms part of the job requirements.

Indeed, the minority of this money-obsessed mob who remain clean as whistles are probably jeered by the others for being big girl’s blouses and made to sit on the naughty step at the group’s annual ten-pin bowling booze-up.

To silence the thump-thumping of FourFourTwo’s crack legal team pounding their foreheads on their desks, the blog should probably explain itself.

As reported last week, the ex-president of Xerez was forced to step down after a fight with a Russian bouncer and an incident involving a gun and the door of a knocking-shop.

(And on a side-note, Tuesday’s Marca sighs that the club is still without a manager, new signings, the location of a training camp or a date for the players’ return to work.)

BLOG: Zombies, bouncers, shooters and a sea-lion

Lorenzo Sanz, former Real Madrid president and current owner of Málaga, always seems to be in some of kind scrape.

The latest two, for example, saw him being questioned by the local plod over his involvement in an iffy money transfer as well as the outstanding investigation that was opened after accusations of match-fixing were hurled in his direction by Real Sociedad president Iñaki Badiola.

Sanz: "Malaga 2..."

Darth Manuel de Lopera at Betis is no stranger to the authorities poking their noses into his handling of the club’s accounts.

But all this is small-fry compared to the accusations of wrongdoing that Sevilla president José Maria del Nido is now facing – accusations that could eventually see him running his football club with a cell-mate called Big Bernie for company.

As well as being the introverted president of Sevilla football club and the self-proclaimed second most important man (after the Pope) in the city of Seville, Del Nido is also a lawyer.

And believing in the perfectly valid concept of justice for all – even the most questionable characters in Spain – Sevilla’s big cheese has served as the lawyer for a whole number of delightful specimens of humanity such as former Atlético Madrid president, Jesus Gil.

Jesus Gil was eventually found guilty of all manner of corruption charges dating back to his time as mayor of Marbella, arguably the region's Ground Zero of dodginess.

With Gil having died – before he could serve out his prison sentence, unfortunately – Del Nido then went on to do legal work for the Marbella city council and even defended the next mayor, Julian Muñoz, after he too was hit with a vast number of corruption charges that saw his moustachioed face poking out from behind bars.

Unfortunately for Del Nido, as El País write on Tuesday, this close involvement with organised crime has “catapulted him into the first category of suspects” in a new investigation.

A report issued by the Fiscalía Anticorrupción (an official body with the role of investigating and bringing cases of corruption before the courts) has accused Del Nido of an impressive number of crimes including illicit associations, fraud, and the false documentation of public and private records.

The agency is calling for twelve-and-a-half years in prison for Del Nido, along with a 20-year suspension of his ability to practice law.

Del Nido’s response to the charges was a cheery open letter on the club’s website thanking the fans for their ongoing support and calling on them: “to be calm. The president is with you. We will walk on together.”

Del Nido: "You'll never get it to stick, d'you hear..."

There is considerably more response on Marca’s message boards, where more than 700 posts react to the news with comment-makers taking advantage of Spain’s extraordinarily lax libel laws to post their thoughts on the guilt and overall character of the Sevilla president.

Despite the seriousness of the situation that Del Nido finds himself in, El País does not think that the accusations will affect his situation one tiny bit at Sevilla, unless the club has a poor summer in the transfer market.

After all, as Tuesday’s edition notes, “De Lopera was being investigated for irregularities in the running of Betis and that did not send a single Betico into the street. The demonstrations only came when the club was relegated.”

As La Liga Loca has written on a number of occasions, Andalusia is a most peculiar place.

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Barcelona natives getting restless

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

While January's presentation of poor old Julien Faubert attracted around 70 people and a couple of pigeons, Cristiano Ronaldo is expected to get a whopping full-house crowd of 80,000 turning up for his coronation on Monday night, a total equalling the number who welcomed Maradona to Napoli.

And knowing what a shy and retiring, limelight-dodging gentleman the former United man is, Cristiano will no doubt be horrified by the prospect of the hysterical, pant-wetting adulation he is about to receive.

And not just from La Liga Loca.

For the Barcelona press, Ronaldo continues to carry the mark of the Antichrist with legions of photographers from the city attempting to take pictures of his scalp as proof.

But for the increasingly merry Madridista brigade, the midfielder is the second coming and his arrival gives the likes of Marca and AS the chance to wave a middle finger in Catalunya’s direction and ‘nah-nah nah nah-nah’ to their heart’s content.

At least until the season starts, that is, when the pair discover that getting all these players to work together - and more importantly with Raúl - may not be so much fun.

After suffering a month of snooty sulking from Sport and Mundo Deportivo, the Madrid papers have used Cristiano’s coronation as a chance to hit back at Barcelona with some Loadsamoney taunting towards the Catalan club, suggesting that the league and European champions are more than 400 million Euros in debt, despite the record-breaking year the club just enjoyed.

Message from Anglophile Madrileño sitcom fans

Although the likes of AS are happily ignoring the fact that Madrid themselves may now have an overdraft of several billion Euros, there is some truth to the story that Barça are not going to be able to splash the cash this season.

But it’s not just the Madrid press writing that the treble-winning campaign seems a very long time ago

The Barcelona-based natives are getting very restless indeed with Sport’s headline on Monday demanding “Signings now!” having realised that there are only a limited number of weeks that the paper can run titles such as “Villa’s coming!” “No really, he is!” and “Sod it, he’s not coming at all, is he?”

Mundo Deportivo has followed a similar theme with Xavi Muñoz grumbling that “although it’s better to sign nothing than sign badly, there does seem to be some impatience with the culés.”

Over the weekend, AS ran what appeared to be a doodoo-stirring story of a whopping fallout between Pep Guardiola and president Joan Laporta. “The relations between the pair are non-existent,” trumpeted the sports daily, failing miserably to hide its glee.

This being AS, the immediate instinct was to ignore the story completely assuming it was total nonsense. But then Monday’s Barcelona papers followed the same line with Sport’s Lluís Mascaró telling readers that he “understands that Pep Guardiola is not ‘triple-calm’ with Joan Laporta.”

The reason for their reported - and potentially non-existent - bust-up is Laporta’s inability to move Mad Sammy Eto’o out of the club, something that is apparently greatly desired by Pep. But that's easier said than done as the Cameroon striker seems quite happy to sit on the remainder of his current deal, which would see him go for free next summer.

"Some people think I’m bonkers, but I just think I’m free..."

Pep also instructed his bosses at the end of the last campaign to bring him Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Franck Ribery, something that has yet to happen so far.

However, despite the current gloom on the east coast, one historic event did take place at the Camp Nou last week. The stadium’s noise level went above the normal 15 decibel average. In fact, the U2 concert upset the peace-loving neighbours so much that the local council has decided to fine all those involved.

So by hosting Bono, Barcelona briefly had an attention-seeking, egomaniacal paparazzi-magnet. On Monday night, it's Real Madrid's turn.

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La Liga Talentspotter

All quiet on the Atlético front... for now

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

La Liga Loca’s Atlético Madrid-loving acquaintances – the blog has no friends, friends make you weak – have been doing their very best to avoid the ongoing Galactico parties at the Bernabeu.

But the lack of activity at their own club has made this a tough task. Like the thousands of sleep-starved Madrileños, Rojiblanco supporters have been scowling and growling at the Florentino fiesta with pillows clamped to ears.

With the duelling duo of Enrique Cerezo and Miguel Angel Gil all with the Speedos on their holidays and unlikely to be sending each other postcards, the main news in Atleti’s wacky world has concerned a number of departures and the not-that-surprising arrival of the out-of-contract Juanito from Betis.

Midfielder Miguel de las Cuevas has moved to Sporting without anyone giving a flying fig, while goalkeepers Leo Franco and Gregory Coupet have done one on frees to Galatasaray and PSG respectively.

And with third-choice goalkeeper David De Gea wanting to bunk off to pastures new to get playing time under his gloves, the club are looking to accelerate the move for Spain’s U21 genius goalie, Sergio Asenjo, from Valladolid.

However, the Pucela side are a tad distracted and recovering from the news that former player and ex-sporting director José Luis Perez Caminero has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering.

The former Spain international is currently on bail – and holidaying at Eurodisney, apparently – but has a good fortnight to come up with an explanation to a judge as to why he was changing large amounts of lower denomination bank notes into 500 Euro notes.

A change is as good as arrest

Overall, the Vicente Calderón has been silent apart from the shuffles and scuffles from the constant crowd gathered around the tethered and barcoded figures of Diego Forlán and Kun Agüero, with one of the two set to leave this summer to help the club out of its latest financial fix.

Indeed, an ever-expanding pile of debt and the need to fund the construction of a new stadium has seen the club indulge in a bout of belt-tightening the likes of which Maniche can only dream of. And it’s for this reason that Atleti will not be indulging in its annual summer advertising campaign, which is always good for raising titters or gasps of shock.

Previous years have included the famous ‘year in hell’ campaign after Atleti’s relegation to the second division and a famous spot featuring a depressed child asking his equally sad-faced father why they support Atlético Madrid.

“It’s strange that a club that has forever been anchored to sad acts of amateurism on a sporting and institutional level, has been an example to follow in the world of sports marketing,” writes Iñaki Díaz-Guerra in AS, lamenting the absence of more advert action from the Rojiblanco club.

But with Atleti still trying to shove a stubborn Maxi Rodríquez towards Tottenham and José Antonio Reyes to literally anyone who will take the whining waste of space, the world of Atlético Madrid shouldn’t be quiet for too much longer.

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Zombies, bouncers, shooters & a sea-lion

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

When last mentioning the Segunda-bound Real Betis in blog dispatches, La Liga Loca made the rather snooty suggestion that only a couple of lagered-up flamenco singers and some confused tourists would be participating in the march against club owner Darth Manuel Ruiz de Lopera.

For the kerzillionth time, the blog was shown to be quite wrong in its prediction.

An admirable 60,000 turned up in their green-and-white shirts to defy Darth’s zombie army and offer unrepeatable suggestions as to what Don Manuel could do with his club.

But since then, things seemed to have quietened a little in Seville. This is partly due to the fact that it is simply too hot to do anything down in Andalusia for the next three months, never mind go on a march.

However, many Betis fans may be thinking that there's no reason a club run by lobotomised loons can't get promoted to the Primera. After all, it happened last season for their fellow Andalusians Xerez.

Before becoming the newest champions of the second division ahead of Tenerife and Zaragoza, Xerez first announced their name to the wide world of sport when club president Joaquín Bilbao was arrested.

This being Andalusia, it was never going to be for something like tax-evasion or book-fiddling. Oh no.

Instead, Bilbao was nicked after a big night out that involved an ill-advised punch-up with a Russian bouncer and busting some caps into the door of a 'gentleman’s establishment' that had closed for the night.

"Yer name's not dahn... 'EE'S GOT A SHOOTAH!!"

Fortunately for Joaquín, his driver took the rap for the shooting business, but the global attention and a night behind bars meant that El Presidente was forced to step down from his role at the club.

Xerez then joined the ever-growing list of Spanish sides that have been unable to pay their players, but still managed somehow to finish top of the league and win promotion to the top flight for the first time in the club’s history.

Sadly it is likely to be a short stay, as Xerez have rather carelessly just lost the man who got them there.

After only being offered a one-year contract extension and a transfer kitty the size of Maniche’s brain, Esteban Vigo this week told his bosses to spin on it and moved back to the second division to manage the brilliantly-named Hercules.

Their own manager, former Real Madrid player Juan Carlos Mandía, has moved to Racing Santander.

That’s because the annoyingly long-named Juan Ramón López Muñiz has gone back to his former club, Málaga.

And that’s because their former boss Antonio Tapia has gone on to manage Betis.

While La Liga Loca was initially a little bit sad to see the back of Betis, it is now looking forward to spending the year with a club whose news-making prowess already includes brothels, drive-bys, economic meltdowns and losing managers before the season begins.

But there is one more addition to the story that could make La Liga Loca so happy it barks like a sea-lion.

Xerez are exploring the possibility of inviting one of their former coaches to take over the reins... a certain Bernado Schuster.

The blog is prepared to start a whip-round to make it happen.

*You can catch the more telegenic half of La Liga Loca on pundit duty on Real Madrid TV on Tuesday night from 19.00 UK time for their live coverage of Kaká’s presentation. Sky Digital channel 446.

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Ronaldo: Rubbish and ‘a bit gay’ say Barça press

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:00:00 GMT

In the fortnight between La Liga Loca leaving Spanish shores and being dragged back kicking and screaming, millions of protesters took to the streets of Iran, Jacko popped his clogs and the campaign to oust big loser, Vicente del Bosque, began in earnest.

But absolutely nothing has changed in the news bubble of Barcelona where local rag ‘Sport’ is still banging out on about the evils of Cristiano Ronaldo a full three weeks after Madrid’s latest footballing bling-buy was announced.

Continuing the assumption that their knuckle-dragging readers are subservient half-wits without the ability to form a coherent thought of their own - probably not far from the truth - the Barcelona daily ran four editorials on Friday alone ranting that Real Madrid / Florentino Pérez / Cristiano Ronaldo are funny-looking and smell of wee.

“Why has Florentino Pérez come back?” asks Joan Vehils without bothering to give an answer to his poser.

But it’s still the signing of CR7 that still has the paper’s panties in a bunch.

However, a campaign that started out as gentle rib-tickling over Cristiano’s supposed rompathon with Paris Hilton and tendency for wearing flowers in his hair has now turned into something considerably more unpleasant.

Friday’s edition saw the downright mean Lluis Mascaró having a whopping dig at the Portuguese midfielder for “showing his pimpish prowess with his appearances in night-clubs and his brainless bimbos.”

He also notes that one of Ronaldo’s ex’s called him “a bit gay.”

"He said she said I'm a bit what?"

The not-at-all-jealous columnist ends his rant by writing proudly that “it is the antithesis of what Guardiola has in his dressing room” - a dressing-room which appears to be planning post-match bible study classes from what La Liga Loca can tell.

But if that wasn’t a big enough boot to Cristiano’s very busy balls, his colleague, Josep Maria Casanovas, lowers the tone even further by sniffing that “the Camp Nou is interested in the goals of Villa rather than the controversial charisma of Ronaldo who is on his way to becoming a metrosexual icon.”

As La Liga Loca has been a world-famous metrosexual icon for some time now, the blog would like to know what Casanovas is really trying to say here - ignoring the moronic implication that the former Manchester United man is not really known as a goalscorer.

Not enough ham in his bocadillo for you Josep Maria? Someone who wears pink shouldn’t be allowed to play in la Liga? May not be man enough for the secretary-banging, hard-drinking, Mad Men of Sport?

"I know what you're thinking... the white t-shirt was a mistake"

Still, the blog must respect Casanovas’ opinion. A gentleman has the right to stick to his guns, etc, etc. Unless that man will write whatever he is told by his Barcelona bosses of course.

Take this example from our subject’s column in April 2007 when the Catalan club were reportedly contemplating a summer swoop for the Man United man.

“Barcelona cannot let him escape. He’s got everything - class, speed, skill, a great strike and a winning mentality. As a footballer he is unique and also as a media icon. Let’s not forget that in modern football, image and marketing are also very important.”

Or perhaps a little something from July of last year when Deco and Ronaldinho were moving on and the club was looking for replacements.

“We know that Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká appear to be untouchable, but Barcelona are famous for hunting down the best players.”

So, to recap, in Sport’s world a Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Real Madrid is a pimping, preening, waste-of-space who is a bit too effeminate for their tastes.

But wearing the shirt of Barcelona the midfielder would become a dazzling footballer, a goal-machine, and an important source of marketing income.

If this is just the beginning of an almighty war of words over the season to come, La Liga Loca feels that it's good to be back after all.

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The battle for the soul of Betis begins

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Andalusia is a land where out-of-tune wailing by battered old hags is considered music, where the locals speak as if their mouths are full of chorizo and where it’s always really, really hot.

But very soon, the region down in the sticky south of Spain will be playing host to the mother of all battles, a fight to take back the light from the forces of evil, a scrap to rival any trailer for a Lord of the Rings rip-off.

To tell you the truth, it will probably end up being a couple of hundred beered-up loons wandering down the street holding a very wide banner before going to the pub after about five minutes.

"Don't worry, I've got supplies"

Nevertheless, a very excited AS have spent many days bigging up a struggle that is now taking place for the heart and soul of Betis.

Now that the sobbing from the club’s fans has died down, along with the laughter from everyone else over their ejection from top-flight football, the supporters of the Seville-based club are as frustrated as Maniche facing a childproof honey pot and looking for revenge for their relegation.

Yet another movement has been formed with the goal of removing majority-shareholder, Darth Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, from the club by forcing Betis’ godfather to agree to sell the stake he has held since 1992.

But Darth de Lopera is in no mood to move his dirt-filled coffin to pastures new.

Indeed, he plans a bigger, brighter future for the second division side with the dotty old codger promising to turn Betis into the “Real Madrid of la Segunda.”

But probably not in the ‘humiliated by anyone half-decent’ sense.

“I will take the team to the Europa League, the Champions League and once again we will go to Madrid... and that is what Manuel Ruiz de Lopera is working for,” bellowed the biggest of Beticos, slipping easily into the third-person school of insanity.

Aside from several swarms of locusts, a 200,000 strong zombie army and Hugo the Husky, De Lopera stands quite alone in his campaign to keep control of the Betis helm.

AS reports that the rebellion against Don Manuel began a long way from Spanish shores with a small group of Betis fans in Kosovo walking to a UN building to protest against his leadership. No-one is quite sure what they thought that would achieve, mind.

Not even the appointment of former Málaga man, Antonio Tapia, as the new coach could stop this juggernaut of a campaign which has taken on the slogan: “for your dignity and future, Betis.”

Next to make their vexed voices heard were Seville’s local politicians.

“Betis deserve to be relegated, they have done things so badly,” complained José Antonio Grinan, president of the parliament of Andalusia and a man who now has to sleep with the lights on. And with a battle-axe in hand.

The next stage of the campaign to oust the local Lord of the Flies is a march that is set to take place in Seville’s city centre on Monday evening.

Marca report that it will be attended by 112 fan groups, some bullfighters (of course) and former Betis waster, José Mari.

But Darth de Lopera has continued to blame everyone but himself for the team’s recent failures.

“I brought in the coach that everyone asked for and the signings they asked for, because they wanted Betis in the UEFA,” complained the Beelzebub of Betisland.

Despite all the clamour, La Liga Loca feels that De Lopera won’t be leaving the club anytime soon.

Unless, perhaps, Monday’s protesters are armed with garlic and stakes as well as banners and chants.

Lopera: "I have a cunning plan"

**********

Competition winner

A big blog pat on the back to Phil Jones for his winning entry to help Florentino Pérez name a sponsor to brand the Santiago Bernabeu and raise a bit of cash for the club.

A year-long subscription to the world’s greatest footie magazine is on the way....

The FourFourTwo judges were most tickled by the idea of the “Laxostar Santiago Bernabeu - where not just the football flows freely - also the verbal diarrhoea. And Madrid are always loose at the back.”

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Galactic gush delivers delirium and disgust in Spain

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

“It’s insane! It’s obscene! What about the children! Frack me!”

Just four of the descriptions of La Liga Loca’s conceptualist art exhibition currently on display outside its penthouse apartment. And melting rapidly in the summer sun.

It’s also four of the descriptions plucked from Friday’s Spanish press to describe Real Madrid’s overdraft-straining, bank-busting attempts to reach the sparkling, promised land of the Champions League quarter-finals.

And maybe, just maybe, a decent Copa del Rey run too.

The double whammy of the Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo deals has split the battle-lines in the Spanish press in a fairly predictable way.

For those of a Madridista bent, the 180 million Euro spunkathon is unquestionably a Very Good Thing. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a heretic who deserves disembowelling.

For the Catalan papers, Florentino’s recent splurge is the work of Satan himself. As is the norm in this particular wacky world, there is no time or space allowed for any opinions in between.

Pérez’s back pocket-dwelling paper, Marca, blasts on Friday’s front page that Ronaldo is “the signing of the century” and gives 10 good reasons justifying Madrid’s outrageous outlay for his diving services next season.

One of them is that he is the new official hunk of the Real Madrid team. Something that Paris Hilton has also noted, according to tabloid titillation.

Roberto Gómez (whose love for Ramón Calderón has seen him severely sidelined at the paper) claims that Kaká and Ronaldo’s arrival in the Spanish capital means that “Real Madrid win, football wins, we all win!”

The paper’s editorial thumbs its nose up at those who doubt the financial sense of the double deal by arguing that it will generate more money than it costs.

Angel or demon?

The column also chooses to ignore the final years of the last Galactico age and David Beckham’s trophy-starved spell at the club by opining that “having a team with the biggest icon in world football is a guarantee of success.”

Over in AS-land, editor Alfredo Relaño writes that “in just one week, Florentino Pérez has excited Madridistas and appalled everyone else.”

Although he acknowledges the moral issues over such a big splash of cash bang in the middle of a recession and with four million unemployed in Spain, he too falls in step with the Pérez party-line.

(The paper also finds the space to print a letter from a Barcelona fan and AS reader claiming that Relaño is “the best editor of all four of the big sports papers that we have in Spain.” And the most modest, no doubt).

Inside, Emilio Pérez de Rozas writes in a tremendously sycophantic column that “Madrid owe 500m Euro and are spending 300m more. But it doesn’t matter. Pérez oozes power and credibility.”

La Liga Loca says "Get a room."

Those looking for moral outrage and more than a hint of fear need only go to the Catalan-crazy press for some self-righteously angry reaction to Ronaldo’s expected arrival in Madrid.

“It’s mad!” yells Mundo Deportivo on the reported 94m Euro transfer fee for Ronaldo.

“What message does this kind of behaviour send to the world and especially to children? What values does it promote? That everything can be bought?” rants Jaume Miserachs, getting his Puyol-patterned panties in a big old bunch.

Sport follow a similar theme, with Josep Maria Casanovas predicting the end of the world following Madrid’s latest move.

“An immoral and shameful sum... a provocation... a bad example in these times of crisis... Pérez is in love with the image that no-one can resist him and that he can do everything... the most scandalous signing in the history of football.”

As far as La Liga Loca is aware, Casanovas is already hammering away on Saturday’s editorial, entitled “WAAAAAAH!!!! IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!!”

With David Villa’s signing due any day now, the hyperventilating hyperbole in the Spanish press has only just begun.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Seedy stuff from la Liga’s lower reaches

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Now the fairly Philistine La Liga Loca is dimly aware of three great works of Spanish fiction - Marca, Don Quixote and, er, Don Quixote.

But it seems that a fourth may be added to this very short list.

And it goes under the somewhat cumbersome title of ‘The Spanish Second Division’.

Over the past few days an unruly gang of match-fixing stories have elbowed their way past the Kaká and Eto’o headlines like a granny in a supermarket queue.

Regular readers with long, long memories may remember the news from the end of 2008 of Real Sociedad president, Iñaki Badiola, producing a tape which he claimed had the then Tenerife player, Jesuli, admitting taking a 6,000 Euro bung to lose a game against Málaga at the end of the 2007/08 second division season.

BLOG: The New Perico Prince and Murky Malaga

“This is absolute nonsense,” blustered Málaga owner Lorenzo Sanz in response. “Badiola is the cancer of football.” Accusations then wormed out of the woodwork on fishy goings-on at other league games in the same season.

Unfortunately, La Liga Loca is unable to shed any light on whether any of these allegations turned out to hold water.

To date, naff-all appears to have happened in any investigations - if they ever took place, that is.

Instead everything seems to have been swept under a carpet the size of Portugal.

But the rancourous reek of rigging returned at the end of May with El Mundo publishing claims that members of Segunda A side Castellón were offered money to lose April’s league clash against promotion-chasing Real Zaragoza.

The paper reports that a player informed Castellón manager Paco Herrera about the attempt to buy his footballing favour. Herrera then told his club bosses, who passed the information onto the authorities.

El Mundo also published claims from fellow second division side Gimnastic that members of their squad had been offered fees to lose encounters - including one whopping offer of 300,000 Euro (promptly turned down).

There's yet more skulduggery afoot in the Spanish Segunda B division (a regional version of England’s Division 1) with allegations from Cadíz that offers were made to two of their footballers to help lose the play-off clash against Real Union, the side that shot to fame last season for knocking Real Madrid out of the Spanish Cup.

For the record, Cadíz prevailed in the two-legged tie and won promotion.

One of the squad members involved in the allegations, Dani Cifuentes, claims that he was offered 90,000 Euro to give away a penalty. The player says that the proposition was made through his agent (who is also, notes Marca, a Real Union shareholder).

“An unknown man called him with an offer that I told him from the beginning I would not accept,” says the right-back, who reported the incident to his club bosses.

Cadíz goalkeeper Kiko Casilla also claims to have been offered 120,000 Euro to throw the crucial promotion clash.

On Tuesday, Cadíz club president Antonio Muñoz confirmed the stories from the club camp and said that he had the name of the person trying to buy off members of his squad.

“We know who it is,” said Muñoz. "I spoke to this person and told him to his face that what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot say anymore. I can’t give names as I have no proof."

Stories of incentive payments are hardly new in Spanish football. But they normally concern sums of money paid to players of sides with nothing at stake to win games and are especially common during relegation battles.

Getafe president Angel Torres claimed last week that “We were the only team not to be given incentives on the last day – and we stayed up.”

Indeed, there are strong arguments at all levels in Spain that these bungs are no worse than standard win bonuses, paid for by a third party.

However, these stories of players being offered money to lose games is a different kettle of footballing fish.

While it is heartening to hear of honest footballers coming forward to report attempts to buy them off, there has to be concern over the number of players who may be less keen to turn down significant amounts of cash in encounters where there may be little else to play for.

The matter needs a thorough investigation by Spain’s footballing authorities. “Every year, you hear more and more about people buying or trying to buy matches,” complained Mario Bermejo, a player for second division promotion-chasers Xerez.

But strangely, La Liga Loca does not hold high hopes that an in-depth study into match-fixing will take place anytime soon.

After all, who knows what else it would uncover?

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Real Madrid finally end search for new Guti

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

With the briefest of announcements posted on their website in the wee small hours of Tuesday morning, Real Madrid had spread the word that they had doubled the number of playmakers who don’t really want to be at the club but would hang about for the cash anyway.

The arrival of Kaká on a six-year deal for a reported transfer fee of 62.7m Euro means that Madrid no longer have to rely on just the one fancy-pants footballer to pull out of nasty-looking clashes due to communions or ‘hurty’ legs - something that Guti managed brilliantly in the closing weeks of the last campaign.

"Oooh, it feels like a six-weeker"

“For a few seasons now, I know that Madrid have been looking long and hard for the new Guti,” explained the team’s Director General, Jorge Valdano, in an exclusive chat with the blog.

“With Van der Vaart we really thought we had a player on a our hands who had that same ‘show me the money’ mercenary streak of genius,” explained the former Argentine international. “But it never really worked out. Kept saying he was fit.”

But with Kaká announcing in a bustling press conference in Recife that “it wasn’t my plan to leave Milan but economic circumstances said it had to be,” pundits in the Spanish capital are certain that Madrid have finally got hold of the perfect player who can sulk through seasons long after Guti has become nothing more than a bad memory.

“The fundamental issue with Guti is that he’s a home-grown player who doesn’t want to play for the club,” explains Marca’s editorial on Tuesday.

“Every time he doesn’t fancy a game of football for one flimsy reason or another, it costs Madrid relatively little. Now, Florentino Pérez has bought a player who not only doesn’t want to be at Madrid, but is bankrupting the club due to his wages and transfer fee. That takes some skill,” praised the paper.

"Come and have a go if you think you're mardy, love"

As the clean-living Kaká was at Brazil’s training camp he was forced to deny reports that he was leaving Milan having grown tired of rejecting the constant offers from owner Silvio Berlusconi of "a fun time down at my villa" and explained that he was happy to be helping out his former club in a tough economic climate.

“A lot of companies are going through bad times and Milan is one of them,” explained Kaká on the motivations for his move to Madrid.

Real Madrid’s latest advertising hoarding is not expected to be unveiled at the Bernabeu until the end of June after duties with Brazil are completed, so it’s still not known what impact the former Balon d’Or winner will have on the squad at the capital club.

The most immediate reaction has been from Raúl, who was heard howling at the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning after discovering that a lower tax bracket for the Brazilian superstar will make him the best-paid player on the team.

At least until Cristiano Ronaldo arrives, that is.

Skint skipper stages stadium sit-in

Sergio Ramos is said to have low expectations as to whether the born-again, evangelical, teetotal, Jesus-owned Brazilian will be up for his traditional ‘drinkie Sundays’.

However, the man that Kaká is set to replace remained defiant over his role at Real Madrid over the next few years in a short chat with La Liga Loca.

“This just means that I’m going to have to up my game,” explained an unconcerned Guti. “I like challenges. Except physical ones,” added the midfielder.

“Family events are no longer going to cut the mustard when it comes to excuses. Next season I’m looking at bunions, scurvy, Yom Kippur. Nothing will be ruled out.”

Guti ended his talk with the blog by discussing his hopes for the new campaign. “I’m determined to prove that when people think of someone who really doesn’t want to play for Real Madrid, then they think of me straight away. Not some ponce from Brazil.”

Note: None of these conversations took place. Right?

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The former republic of Real Madrid

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Valencia - the ultimate community club

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

All over la Liga, Spain’s football clubs have been taking one for the team and helping out their most loyal supporters in these dark financial days.

Almería have announced that they will be dropping their season ticket prices by 30 percent for the new campaign. And this has nothing to do with a whopping 28 percent fall in attendances for the 2008/09 season from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Real Betis have decided to give their supporters a break from the old routine by swapping tedious trips to the Camp Nou for second division Sundays against Salamanca.

AS are reporting that construction king Florentino Pérez is contemplating the building of a Real Madrid Epcot centre - the third major infrastructure project being bandied about by a club president who appears to see cement mixers where fans see a stadium.

The paper enthuses that the family-friendly park will be stuffed with rides such as the Guti-themed ‘Spaced Mountain’ and an ‘It’s a Small World’-style boat-ride based on Real Madrid’s back four where you enjoy the sight of slow-moving figures repeating the same rib-tickling actions again and again.

Pellegrini switches to flat back three

But beating all these funtastic efforts hands down are Valencia, the club whose bold campaign allows everyone in the city a go at being president.

A busy weekend for the men from Mestalla saw the club appoint their seventh head honcho in just 15 months. In fact, a busy weekend for the men from Mestalla saw the club appoint their third head honcho in just four days.

The latest east coast eruptions began on Thursday when the then president, Vicente Soriano, was forced to step down by the club’s biggest creditors, Bancaja, for having failed to sell the old Mestalla or do anything whatsoever to improve the club’s disastrous financial position.

Psst! Wanna buy a ground?

In copying Ramón Calderón’s resignation speech, Soriano claimed he was leaving his position “with a clear conscience” but that he was also going “with a dagger in my heart because I have not been able to reorganise the club.”

(In many ways Soriano got off lightly, considering a number of his predecessors at this most viscous of clubs have left the post of president with actual daggers in their hearts).

Taking over from the second biggest majority shareholder was Javier Gómez, but he only lasted two days before Manuel Llorente moved into the hot seat.

Llorente was the club's Delegate General between 1998 and 2004 (and involved in a corruption scandal in this time, warn El País) and is the choice of Bancaja, who are the real trouser-wearers at the club these days.

“The role of president is not one that is a pleasant experience,” noted Llorente on taking up his new role.

Llorente has said that if the likes of David Villa are to be sold, then it will be for as much money as possible. But according to an article in Monday’s El País he is hardly in a position to make demands from any potential purchasers.

In a terrifying read for Valencia fans, the paper reports that the club’s debt at the end of June will stand at 547 million Euro with 70m having been lost this season alone. In the past six years the club has spent 300m Euro more than its total income from the same period.

"Come on lads, it's not that hard"

It makes one wonder why those in charge can't be thrown into the slammer on the grounds of complete idiocy. The issue with such an action is that it would set a precedent that would see a good 90 percent of those running the game in Spain doing time.

But then again, that might give a chance to those who may actually know what they are doing to have a go. A bold step forward for la Liga.

-----------------------

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Atlético go for Abel replacement

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

They may be completely unable to agree on the colour of ham or be in the same room together, but the terrible twins running Atlético Madrid have met in the middle over the appointment of Abel Resino as the side’s manager for next season.

Or the first few weeks of it anyway.

Club president Enrique Cerezo and the spawn of Jesus Gil, Miguel Angel, have decided to hand the former Rojiblanco goalkeeper a year’s extension to his previously very short contract for the admirable achievement of sneaking Atleti into a fourth-placed finish.

However, La Liga Loca’s Atlético man on-the-inside has nudge-nudge wink-winked that Cerezo wanted Juande Ramos as their sacking stooge for the new campaign rather than Resino.

El País joined in the conspiracy fun by reporting that Gil has been working behind his boss’ back on the Abel deal, in the same way that the Atlético Delegate General kicked Javier Aguirre out of the club without so much as an SMS to the out-of-the-loop Enrique.

And this perhaps explains Mr President’s ‘Hey, everyone, just chill’ attitude on the week’s contract speculation.

“I don’t understand why everyone’s in such a hurry,” shrugged Cerezo.

Cerezo: "What's happening?"

Incidentally, for those wondering whatever happened to Javier Aguirre, the flat-topped trainer is now managing the Mexico national side through its post-Sven season and has completely recovered from his excellent experiences down at the Vicente Calderón.

“I’ve been to a neurologist, a cardiologist, a dentist, a nutritionist, I’ve lost weight and back exercising,” beamed a fit-as-a-spaniel Aguirre after his 31 months running the Rojiblancos.

And Aguirre is now looking to bring his managerial stylings to the Premier League in the near future.

“My dream is to go to England. I’ve made some contacts there this year and I think my destiny will be to head there in 2011. I’m sure of it.”

Getafe have also made a move in the managerial market and made Michel their main man for the next two campaigns - the footballing equivalent of being stuck with Spanish gossip harpy Belén Esteban after a nuclear holocaust and realising she’ll have to make do for the survival of the human race.

(Ed: Parental guidance advised on an Esteban image search.)

Oop North, Osasuna have rewarded José Antonio Camacho for his efforts in keeping the club up with more of the same for next season.

And Villarreal have been fast-as-lightning kung-fu-fighting by appointing Ernesto Valverde – who took Athletic Bilbao and Espanyol into Europe before going to Olympiacos – as the replacement for Third-Choice Chilean Manuel Pellegrini.

Valverde to the fore as Pellegrini disappears

Just about everyone has gone to ground in Betis-land - probably for their own safety - although manager José Maria Nogúes admits that he will be stepping down after just a few short months in charge of the relegated club.

“I had the chance to show I could work in La Primera,” chirped the straw-clutching coach.

The unfortunate sap expected to bring Betis back to the big time is ex-Málaga manager Antonio Tapia, who stifled his giggles by describing the role as “an amazing job.”

The great news is that one of the managerial heavyweights of Spain may be returning to the peninsula for more action. And in a worse mood than normal.

Having been fired by Fenerbahce, Luis Aragonés was approached by an intrepid Spanish TV reporter who asked after his feelings over his dismissal.

The former Spain coach considered his options and responded: “Why don’t you f*ck off, you moron?”

And there was more bad language to be heard in what was an entertainingly awful week for Ramón Calderón.

First off, the former Real Madrid president was back in court to answer questions on his involvement (or otherwise) in the alleged vote-rigging at the 2006 presidential election.

And this is not to be confused with the court case investigating his involvement with alleged ballot-tinkering at the club’s AGM in December.

“I left [Real Madrid] so I would be left in peace,” complained Calderón. “But I’ve not managed it.”

On Thursday, Ramón got to fulfil one of his duties as the head of the Spanish FA’s centenary celebrations by opening an exhibition in a shopping centre - a speech that was drowned out by a booing and barracking 200-strong crowd.

La Liga Loca knew that megaphone would come in handy one day.

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Madrid go for "Third-Choice Chilean"

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Dash and darn it.

Despite La Liga Loca and millions of its readers praying long and hard to all things unholy that either Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho would be joining the jamboree in Castle Greyskull, Manuel Pellegrini was the chosen chump to claim that his new position as manager of Madrid was a dream come true.

Had either of the club’s first two choices come off, then the blog could have sat back with a big bag of popcorn and watched the frantic football fun unfold.

A bewildered Wenger would have been crying on the manager’s desk within minutes of his arrival at the Bernabeu, while Mourinho would have been banging Jorge Valdano’s head on it.

“I (THUMP) am (THUMP) in (THUMP) charge (THUMP) here! Are (THUMP) we (THUMP) clear! (THUMP, THUMP, THUMP)."

"Talk to the hands..."

On a side note, perhaps the best news of Valdano’s posting as ‘Director General and Assistant to the President’ is that the former Argentine international will no longer be writing his frackin’ awful columns in Saturday’s edition of Marca.

Spain is finally spared from endless pretentious prose on football being a beautiful game that must be cherished, etc.

If La Liga Loca snoozes for even a second at the Santiago Bernabeu next season, then the blog will be writing 'BORED' in big letters on a Post-It note and slapping it onto Valdano’s forehead.

But it’s Manuel Pellegrini who now holds the nominal role as coach for the next two years (or weeks) and the Chilean is just hoping that the same firing fate that has happened to his predecessors isn’t repeated.

"Remember, Manuel, we don't want to see sh*t on a stick"

Unfortunately, the Chilean coach is none too optimistic on the matter. “It would be absurd to think that it isn’t going to happen to me,” mused Manuel to Marca.

Despite today’s mischievous La Liga Loca headline, Pellegrini is a perfectly fine choice for Madrid. He has proven success at working with young talent as well as handling the more Riquelme-esque problematic players (yes, you, Señor Guti).

However, the role of Madrid manager is more about managing upwards and making sure that the buck of blame doesn’t stop with you when things go all Pete Tong. Something that Bernd Schuster failed to work out.

"We're right behind you, son"

After all, there’s a reason why the emergency signs on the walls of the Santiago Bernabeu are organisational charts rather than exit-arrows.

Real Madrid’s BAP (Blame Avoidance Plan) for this year sees Florentino Pérez as the big, fat fairy on top of the tree but with a number of easily disposable branches below him.

Such as the no.1 Vice-president, no.2 Vice-president, Secretary to the Board, Director General, Director General of the Presidency, Sporting Director and Chief Minion - a role played this time round by Zinedine Zidane.

As always, the thorny issue of who will be in charge of the hiring and firing of the footballers is still fairly fluid, with Valdano claiming that “we will only sign the players that the coach likes.”

The new sporting director, Miguel Pardeza, feels that “many of us will participate in making the decisions.”

Pellegrini himself isn't fussed either way: “Dude, I’m just in this for the payoff after six months,” he didn't say.

-----------------------

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The former republic of Real Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

To avoid a repeat of the deplorably dishonest presidential elections of 2006, a poll the local Colombos are still combing through - “One more thing before you go, Mr Calderón...” - Real Madrid’s bigwigs came up with a rather nifty plan... don’t have them.

And that’s pretty much how Florentino Pérez came to strut onto the stage at Castle Greyskull on Monday afternoon to announce the return of truth and justice to the “world’s greatest sporting institution,” making it sound more like a life insurance company rather than a club where men have fun kicking a ball about.

Although there was never any doubt over the outright winner of the Real Madrid rat-race, Pérez was reclaiming his place at the Bernabeu buffet a fortnight early, seeing as he was the only one whose candidature was accepted.

The seats held their own protest

That’s not to say there weren’t any other challengers for post. There were, but all failed to meet the exacting requirements listed in Madrid’s statutes.

Namely: must have been a member for 10 years; must be Spanish; must be stinking rich; must have the initials FP.

As president of the multi-trillion dollar ACS corporation, Florentino's not short of a bob or two.

And this is why he was the only presidential pretender who could come up with 57 million euro - or 15 percent of the club’s deposit - required to enter the official race.

The original idea of the cash deposit was the heart-warming notion that anyone wanting to stand in the race would have to be so rich that stealing from the club would not be a motivating factor for taking role.

And, to be fair, this statute has prevented a couple of shady characters getting anywhere near the Bernabeu this time round.

Juan Onieva’s presidential campaign lasted just one day after his electoral video featured a six-fingered JFK and he made the claim that Barack Obama became a Real Madrid fan by seeing the team playing in black during their ninth European Cup win.

"Real Ma-WhoInTheWhatNow?"

The last candidate to pull out of the poll was Eduardo García, a peculiar 29-year-old who was backed by an organisation for the disabled (OID) that has just been fined 120,000 euro for illegal activities.

Or, so say Marca, a pro-Pérez paper with an interest in making all other competitors look less than wholesome.

However, this ruling over a multimillion-euro deposit or ‘aval’ means that anyone who is not fortunate enough to be filthy rich or have filthy rich friends cannot be president of Real Madrid.

But despite this notion that Pérez and his posse are too rich to need to stick their paws into the Real Madrid cookie jar, the new president has reportedly forced his 15 buddies on the board to sign promises not to exploit the club for their own means.

Unless it involves selling off the training ground or other pieces of real estate, that is.

In fact, it's hard to know quite why he needs 15 greying old men on the club’s payroll to help him run the team’s affairs.

“It’s as if he is going to start a special journey into space rather than run the club for four years,” notes Roberto Palomar in Marca.

RM's new website editor reports for duty

In a five-minute acceptance speech only briefly interrupted by the Real Madrid anthem blaring out over the speakers, Florentino Pérez called for “the unity of the fans.”

To tell the truth, La Liga Loca feels that this demand is a little bit rich considering that not one of the 70,000 club’s socios were able to vote either for or against their new figurehead.

After all, even Ramón Calderón got a good 10 percent of the ballot in the 2006 election – the one that was suspended after accusations of vote-tampering.

While it is true that the whole changeover process was managed in a more dignified manner than three years ago, it doesn’t alter the simple fact that Florentino Pérez’s return to the Bernabeu was a coronation, not an election.

At no point did members get the chance to challenge the wisdom of potentially increasing the club’s debt by some 200m-300m euro, should all of the current transfer rumours come true.

There was no opportunity for supporters to cast doubt on his claims of wanting to ‘Spanishize’ the squad, considering the 17 purchases of his last tenure included just one Spanish player, Sergio Ramos.

Instead, Pérez has returned to Real Madrid with a cheesy smile and flashy names - Look, Zidane! Look, Kaká! - in the hope that everyone will forget that what was supposed to be a democratic institution has turned into a monarchy.

-----------------------

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - The Final Round

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Diego Forlán

By the end of his 32-goal campaign, the Atlético forward was scoring the kind of efforts that, had you pulled them off on your PlayStation, would have made your friends beat you to death with a lamp.

Atlético Madrid

The cathedral bells were ringing in a distinctly doomy way as La Liga Loca made its way down to the Vicente Calderón on Saturday night. There were thunderclouds quite literally gathering above the stadium.

As the game against a nothing-to-play-for Almería kicked off, streaks of lightning tore through the sky and the heavens opened onto the fans below.

Unfortunately, there is no spooky or supernatural ending to this particular tale. Unless you count Atleti playing out a fairly comfortable, Champions League-qualifying, drama-free, professional win as something worthy of The X-Files.

"This could be a case for Mulder and Scully... oh no, hang on..."

Getafe

It would have been a travesty had Getafe gone down, considering the side hadn’t spent a single minute in the drop-zone. In the end, they survived by the skin of Michel’s blindingly white teeth.

The former Madrid player is set to be in charge at the Coliseum next season, with club president Angel Torres saying a deal will take “about five minutes.”

Sporting, Osasuna

Two sets of brilliant fans helped push their sides to safety in games that they both had to come from behind to win.

Joseba Llorente

With Giuseppe Rossi and Nihat having spent recent months perfecting their impersonation of strikers – as in work-dodging picket-line refuseniks – it has been Joseba Llorente who has helped drag Villarreal into the Europa League places.

The double strike against Mallorca on Saturday night was the former Valladolid man’s seventh and eighth goals in the final seven matches.

Gonzalo Higuaín

About the only Real Madrid man who actually gave a flying hoot during their pathetic five match run of defeats.

Unfortunately for the Argentine striker, his 22 league goals won’t be enough to keep him up the Bernabeu pecking order next year, with the infinitely more marketable Kaka & Co. set to take his place.

To be blunt, if Higuaín isn’t a starter, then the new regime at Real Madrid are idiots.

"Clear off, we need the space for an advert"

David Villa

His two strikes against Athletic were surely a parting gift for a club where he scored 86 league goals in just four seasons.

Espanyol

After La Liga Loca witnessed a cat eating its own vomit in the stands at the Montjuic, Paul from Barcelona took a solemn oath to watch over the blog’s feline friends.

Unfortunately for Scratchy, our intrepid correspondent has now seen his last match in what is now Espanyol’s former stadium.

“They say some teams were already thinking of their holidays. Well. Málaga were on the beach with a bucket and spade and a large 99.

"They made as much effort as I do when 'er indoors mentions washing up. Saying that, Espanyol played really well and could have won by a load more in what was a meaningless match.

"Well that's another season done and dusted and your correspondent is a happy man for the following reasons:

1) That's Montjuic finished with. Happy memories but a new stadium awaits and it's cracking.
2) Espanyol finished 10th - yes, 10th. Top half. Two months ago Espanyol were five points adrift at the bottom. What a turnaround.
3) Hopefully we can shift some deadwood in the summer - Valdo, Lacruz etc.
4) Three weeks ago I put money on Betis going down (nothing against them, just good odds).

"Stray cats: 0.

"A good summer to all and I’m off to celebrate by attacking the police and smashing shop windows. That's what real supporters do, isn't it?”

Paul, Barcelona

A last look at the juicy mountain

BAD DAY

Betis

Wow. Not even in La Liga Loca’s wildest dreams – and they're pretty odd – did the blog think that it would be Betis going down on Sunday.

A stunning achievement for the Seville-based side, and worthy of pats on the back all round.

As to be expected after such an unfortunate event, the already frustrated fans went Bético ballistic with rocks and barriers being hurled at police and attempts made to burst into the dressing room area of the club’s stadium.

The players of both sides were unable to leave the ground until an hour-and-a-half after the game when the lynch-mob had been dispersed.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño claims that this was the inevitable conclusion to the Darth de Lopera era, a rule that “had pretensions of greatness but ended in failure.”

It's a similar message in Marca’s editorial - well, the bit that doesn’t discuss the brilliance of Florentino Pérez - with the paper noting that the club was treated as a simple family business or a third-division outfit by its ‘management’.

However, both papers have chosen to pull their punches over the whispers of corruption and incompetence that have dogged the second division’s newest members and something that may have played a part in Betis’ downfall.

Guti

The part-time Real Madrid midfielder spent the week complaining that no-one ever believes him when he claims to be injured, then pulled out of the squad for Sunday’s clash with Osasuna with a hurty ankle.

And this makes one particular letter to Monday's AS all the more entertaining with one enraptured reader declaring her love for Guti, someone who “will always be one of the best in the world. I admire you as a person and as a player.”

Florentino Pérez’s first act as Real Madrid president-again should be to strap raw meat to Guti’s body and kick him into the South Pacific from a helicopter.

"Yeah but how big's your house, Stannard?"

Antonio Tapia

The sight of Málaga’s end-of-season shrug of indifference was enough to make the manager leave the club after three seasons. “I’ve finished my cycle here,” said Tapia after the 3-0 defeat to Espanyol.

**********

End of Season Business

Throughout the year, La Liga Loca has been entertaining the masses with its weekend predictions which possessed all the accuracy and comedy factor of a shot from Fernando Gago.

So, with the end of the current campaign upon us, it’s time to see how la Primera would have looked if every one of the blog’s wayward guesses had been right.

All-in-all, barring a few glaring anomalies, La Liga Loca fared fairly well by getting the top six right - not necessarily in the right order, mind - and by predicting two of the bottom three. And who could have guessed Betis?

The final Weekend Predictions league table:

1. Barcelona
2. Valencia
3. Real Madrid
4. Sevilla
5. Villarreal
6. Atlético
7. Valladolid (!!!)
8. Sporting
9. Athletic
10. Getafe
11. Espanyol
12. Betis
13. Racing
14. Mallorca
15. Deportivo (wishful thinking)
16. Osasuna
17. Málaga
18. Almería
19. Recreativo
20. Numancia

**********

Competition Time

For your chance to win a year’s subscription to the greatest magazine in the universe, remember to enter FourFourTwo’s end-of-season competition.

New Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez is considering taking a sponsor’s name for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

All you have to do is send your helpful ideas on who they should be and why to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 4 (legal note: usual FFT terms and conditions apply), with the best suggestion winning the prize of a lifetime.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Fountain-Splashing Weekend Predictions

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Mallorca (9th) vs Villarreal (5th)

If the rumours swirling around the Spanish press are to believed, then Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini will be strapping himself into the Castle Greyskull ejector seat next week before being blasted into orbit some time in November.

But the wise and wizard-like Chilean coach - who looks a little like something living on Fraggle Rock but with Jedi powers - claims to know nothing about such trivial transfer talk.

“I know nothing,” confirmed Pellegrini.

AS’ clearly insane or quite sozzled Villarreal correspondent compares the Real Madrid-centred stories to receiving a telephone call from a friend telling you that Brad Pitt is getting married.

“I would take good care of a very angry husband,” warned the very random Javier Mata to no-one in particular.

LLL Prediction - Home win

"Que?"

Deportivo (7th) vs Barcelona (1st)

El Pais reports the city-centre carnage in the Catalan capital from Wednesday night’s fiesta of tomfoolery as 199 arrests, 238 injuries and 100,000 euro in damages.

“Less than 2006,” chirped a local council official looking back to the last time Barcelona won the Champions League.

Perhaps the best part of such behaviour - all deplorable of course - is the return of the word ‘antidisturbios’ or 'riot police' to the blog.

One of those who got on the wrong side of their big sticks, write El Pais, was a 55-year-old gentleman who decided to end the evening off by lobbing metal balls at the local constabulary.

In perhaps the funniest piece of writing La Liga Loca has read all season, Marca’s editorial on Friday is hopping mad at the 300 Barcelona fans who went to Madrid’s centre of celebration, the Cibeles fountain, to lark about in the water and sing songs.

“The insults to the goddess, Guti and Real Madrid are nothing more than a lack of respect to one of the symbols of Madridismo,” fumed the po-faced paper.

“They accused me of doing what with a what?” gasped Guti, the next day.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Atlético Madrid (4th) vs Almería (10th)

Atleti only need a piddling point to secure a knockout in the Champions League qualification stages in the summer, so La Liga Loca asked its rojiblanco insider if... ahem... the club would be... ahem.... making quite sure that at least the draw would be secured.

“Not a chance,” replied the indignant insider noting that Almería coach Hugo Sánchez would quite enjoy messing up Atlético’s big night.

“I won’t be helping anyone,” hollered Hugo on the suggestion that the infamous suitcases would be arriving at his club from Villarreal’s direction, the other team in the running for a fourth-placed finish.

LLL Prediction - Home win

EasyValencia (6th) vs Athletic Bilbao (13th)

While the hard-up board of Valencia were scrabbling around the local dumpsters for their dinners, AS is reporting that a bean-counter at the club has worked out that unless the land of the old Mestalla is sold by the June 8, payments to all the institution’s creditors will be suspended and proceedings for Spain’s equivalent of administration will begin.

Meanwhile, another arm of the club has approached a gambling company and asked them to stop taking bets on where David Villa will be playing next season.

Mainly because the enterprise in question, Unibet, is one of the club’s sponsors.

LLL Prediction - Home win

"Lies, it's all lies I say..."

Sunday

Numancia (19th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

It was confirmed this week that Sevilla manager Manolo Jiménez will be spending another season on the Andalusian bench.

Another year of somewhat limp football for the fans but endless speculation on his immediate future from the likes of La Liga Loca.

“We haven’t renewed Manolo Jiménez,” announced the not-exactly-endorsing-his-coach club president José María del Nido, “but he has renewed himself.”

LLL Prediction - Away win

Espanyol (12th) vs Málaga (8th)

While Sevilla may have their managerial business sorted for the season, Málaga are still haggling over the future of their coach Antonio Tapia.

It appears that talks remain at an impasse with the boss of the Southern side fancying a spell in the Premier League, rather than a relegation scrap in Spain next season with the club having sold all its brightest stars.

Meanwhile, Espanyol fans have a transfer story to rival any 'Ribery to the Camp Nou' nonsense being drummed up down the hill, with the rumour that Norwich City superstar Mark Fotheringham will be joining Steve Finnan on the Perico sidelines next season.

Watch those season tickets fly out of the club shop over the summer!

LLL Prediction - Home win

Osasuna (18th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

On Thursday evening, Florentino Pérez unveiled his board of directors set to take over the running of Real Madrid’s affairs next week.

And replacing 15 greying old duffers in suits are 15 brand new greying old duffers in suits.

It’s a portly posse without a single female face or anyone who appears to be under the age of 45. And it’s a group who’ve definitely had more hot dinners than you’ve had hot dinners.

In a busy day for Madrid’s new Dear Leader, Florentino popped into the office of his campaign HQ - sometimes known as Marca - where “he came, he saw and he conquered,” according to the paper.

During his visit, Pérez was probed thoroughly by Marca’s bigwigs and was asked seven questions on whether he thought his possible predecessor, Ramón Calderón, was a scoundrel or merely a cad.

One of the topics in a fairly fluffy piece that did raise the interests of La Liga Loca was the idea that the Santiago Bernabeu stadium would take on a sponsor some time soon.

“We can’t rule it out if a brand comes along that works for Real Madrid and produces income,” admitted Pérez.

And this has inspired FourFourTwo to dig deep into its pockets with a competition for you to win a year’s subscription to the magazine by suggesting the best brand possible for the club’s stadium.

“The Slumberland Santiago Bernabeu - for the quietest of nights” is just one not-that-good example.

Send your entries to laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk by the end of Thursday June 4. The most inspired entry will win a year of football fun from the greatest magazine in the world (usual FFT terms and conditions apply folks).

LLL Prediction - Home win

Over to you folks...

Racing (11th) vs Getafe (15th)

In a country where family feuds can carry over for generations, it’s no surprise that the heckles are still high from last season and a testy Copa del Rey clash between these two teams.

In a second-leg semi final affair, Getafe were accused of being big old cheats for continuing to play on - and score - after a Racing player had gone to ground.

It was a goal that saw Getafe safely through to a final where they were eventually battered by Valencia.

“It’s crazy to talk about what happened last year,” says Getafe keeper of the week Oscar Ustari.

La Liga Loca feels that this opportunity for perfect payback will be enough to bring nothing-to-play-for Racing the win over Getafe. And relegation for the Coliseum club according to the blog’s calculations! Oh no!

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sporting (17th) vs Recreativo (20th)

Recreativo club president Francisco Mendoza reacted in the traditional way to a tough time for his team by firing someone sharpish to cover his own relegated posterior.

Not wishing to sack his second manager of the season, Mendoza picked sporting director Oscar Arias as the man to carry the club’s can for a somewhat disappointing end to the season.

Taking over the still warm seat is Alfonso Serrano, who has already announced that the non-sacking of the coach was merely a postponement of the inevitable.

“It has to be someone who knows the division, this is vital,” says Serrano on his choice for new manager.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (16th) vs Valladolid (14th)

And so the worst team in Spain off the pitch, faces the worst team in Spain on it.

Valladolid have only picked up three points from 30, while Betis have fans who support their players by offering up death-threats, abuse and egg-throwing.

But this won’t stop the Betis players giving everything for the cause on Sunday evening as they seek a win and survival. That’s what green-shirted striker Ricardo Oliveira said anyway before wandering off with his mobile.

“We are playing for our pride, for our lives, for our... Atlético Madrid? Forlan going? How much?.... Really?”

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Spain in consensus over Barça brilliance

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:30:00 GMT

There were only two people in Rome who weren't completely sucked in by the enthralling action of the 2009 Champions League final.

The first was the very desperate housewife, Eva Longoria, who was caught flicking through a magazine during the second-half with the same look of disdain and despair as Maniche faced with a Caesar salad.

The other was the lead commentator for Spanish TV channel Antena 3, who spent much of the match apologising for the pesky encounter getting in the way of their broadcasting of crap cop show Los Hombres de Paco.

Indeed, as soon as the final whistle went on what was a fairly historic night for a certain Catalan club, the channel blocked the screen with a plug for the programme and went off for advertisements for a good 45 minutes. That’s how it felt, anyway.

NEWS: Brilliant Barça crowned kings in Rome

Fortunately for Antena 3, the ending of this season’s fantastic footballing finale means that the station can return to its normal, low-budget, wobbly-set, grubby little ways.

While La Liga Loca was all with the ire after yet another testing time in front of the television, nothing - bar the Spanish government renaming Catalunya ‘Raúllandia’ - can bring the Catalan press down from their cuckoo-land cloud on Thursday morning.

“Emperors of Europe!” yells the Mundo Deportivo headline, with the paper reporting that some 100,000 celebrating supporters turned up in the city-centre before the inevitable attacks on the local plod and the 134 arrests.

"Celebrate good times, come on!"

La Liga Loca has no idea what the paper’s website says, as the sheer volume of whizzing and popping from its numerous epilepsy-inducing logos and banners caused the blog’s struggling browser to crash repeatedly.

Sport's front page says “The best in the world!” in Catalan. At least that’s what La Liga Loca thinks it says. It’s either that or “The flour of your mother!”

“Barcelona is the best team in the world and only the Champions League was missing for this fact to be beyond discussion,” writes a hyperventilating Josep Maria Casanovas in a giant-sized gushing tribute to Pep’s Dream Boys.

Over in Madrid, Marca and AS are just as full of goodwill to all Catalan men - but ruing the fact that while Barcelona were celebrating the greatest day in the club’s history, the police were camped out at Castle Greyskull investigating corruption allegations.

“Barcelona’s football had no antidote,” writes AS editor Alfredo Relaño. “The Treble, exquisite football, local players, Guardiola... perfection.”

Pep reaches for the stars

Marca’s headline declares the current Barcelona team to be “a work of art” and praises the first ever Spanish side to win the trio of titles in one season.

“There can be no doubts,” opines the paper’s editorial. “Barcelona are the best team in the world.”

Bernd Schuster had been let loose on Manchester United’s tactical deficiencies during the game, with the former Madrid manager telling Sir Alex Ferguson that “you can’t play that away against Barça, so far back, with such fear, just waiting for them to come.”

After the game, a truly stunned Pep Guardiola joked that he would be “Leaving the club straight away. I can’t do anything to top this.”

In fact, that’s not entirely true. Next year’s Champions League final is being played at the Bernabeu - a final that Barcelona already have every chance of winning.

Now that would be a sight to see.

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The dream final: God's XI vs Wimbledon

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Cynical old La Liga Loca has been around for a few centuries now in one form or another and is all too aware that ‘dream finals’ rarely turn out that way.

So knowing already that Wednesday’s affair will be to football what Guti is to commitment, the blog has taken pleasure from seeing what Photoshopped front-cover Sport would produce ahead of the critical clash, instead.

And as ever, the Barcelona-based paper did not disappoint.

The pressure was definitely on after their splendid effort from two years ago which portrayed Joan Laporta as God and Frank Rijkaard as Moses handing down the president’s Ten Commandments before the new season.

"Here, take these tablets"

But Sport delivered the goods with some gusto on Tuesday with an effort that featured the Barça players as gladiators - or rather, the heads of Barça players jammed onto the bodies of gladiators.

To be fair to the paper’s art department, Messi and Piqué looked just fine thrusting their swords in the air.

But Thierry Henry resembled a Russell Crowe body-graft that had gone very badly wrong and poor old Xavi looked like the tiny-headed man from Beetlejuice.

Wednesday’s edition trumpets the ‘super final’ between Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo - Wayne Rooney appears to be completely unheard of in Spain - with what feels like 28 pages of drivel from the keyboard of Josep María Casanovas.

Much of his thesis portrays Manchester United as the vulgar plaything of evil capitalists unlike the pure-as-a-kitten's-trump Barça who “are completely the opposite, a local entity that strives to be a multinational of passion and feeling.”

Casanovas is also under the assumption that Barcelona will be facing a late-'80s Wimbledon side by huffing that Manchester United play “typical English football: the sooner the ball is with the strikers the better,” as opposed to the culé club's “quality, spectacle and good football.”

"Italy here we come!"

Mundo Deportivo are quite beside themselves, with Joan Josep Pallàs calling the Champions League clash “the most important that Barça have played in their 109 years.”

On its website, MD is updating a minute-by-minute account of the day with the first post at 07.23 noting that a large number of fans are flying to Rome that morning.

After putting up some links to opinion polls in the paper, the YTS student in charge of the column appears to have given up the ghost on the section at 08.55... or gone for the traditional second breakfast.

AS are getting into the spirit of the occasion with editor Alfredo Relaño poking his stick into camp culé for the evening. “Despite everything, I see Barça as favourites as they play good football, extremely good football.”

Barking mad Madrid fan Tomás Roncero will not hear of such crazy talk and claims that he and “99.9 percent of Madridistas will be with Rooney and Ronaldo tonight,” while scoffing that Real won their third European Cup – something Barcelona are trying to achieve tonight – some 51 years ago.

Third time lucky in 1958

Marca attempt to get into the Champions League mood with Wednesday’s editorial lauding “the best final possible between the two best teams in the world.”

But Marca being Marca, the paper also finds time to throw some praise in Raúl’s direction by berating the 11 percent of Madrid members who want to turf the club captain out of Castle Greyskull, according to the paper’s opinion poll on the topic.

“He doesn’t deserve that,” fumes the paper. “He is the most professional, most serious and most committed player in the side.”

Raúl was also the second best player in the last round of action, according to the paper’s season-long ‘Raul-award’ vote.

But despite the Madrid captain’s fine, match-winning performance against Mallorca in the awful 3-1 defeat, he is still one place behind Leo Messi in the overall rankings - a position that the judges may well be ‘adjusting’ at the end of the season.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world will be watching God's chosen ones vs Vinnie Jones's Crazy Gang.

Just don't blame La Liga Loca if the dream final's a disappointment.

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NEWS: Ronaldo - United have practised penalties
NEWS: Xavi - Barca have not practised penalties
NEWS: Thompson: Barca to beat United on penalties
NEWS: Carrick confident of conquering Catalans
NEWS: Sheringham tips Reds to reign in Rome
NEWS: Henry and Iniesta train ahead of final
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NEWS: Rijkaard: United have got no chance
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NEWS: All white on the night for Reds in Rome

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 37

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Good Day

Manolo Jiménez

In a truly massive win for the mediocre, Sevilla secured third spot on Saturday night after a last minute 1-0 over Deportivo.

But this achievement may not be enough to keep the side’s manager in a job mind, with Marca reporting that club president José María del Nido and his board will assess Jiménez’ future over the next few days.

The man himself fancies another season with Sevilla but will have little choice in the matter. “I’ve had other offers but my main aim is to stay here,” claimed the coach who appears to have the backing of his footballers but not of the fans.

Diego Forlán

Oh dear. The blog does sound like it has taken a big old bottle of downers today, but does the fact that the top three strikers in Spain have racked up a whopping 86 goals this season leave la Liga in the ‘Belgium’ category of divisions?

The kind of league that has coefficients to balance out its simplicity for strikers?

Diego Forlán’s hat-trick against Athletic moves the rojiblanco forward onto 31 goals, while David Villa and Mad Sammy Eto’o are on 29 and 26 respectively, suggesting that defences are fairly dire in la Primera.

To put things into a little bit of perspective, the top three goalscorers in the Premier League (Anelka, Ronaldo and Gerrard) only mustered a paltry 53 in comparison.

"Easy, easy, easy..."

Villarreal

The east-coast club has moved on from its Champions League sulk just in time with two battling wins over Real Madrid and now Valencia.

Villarreal are still two points from Atlético and may well be sending some suitcases in Almería’s direction next weekend, in the hope they can roger the rojiblancos and give Villarreal a sniff of a chance of moving into their fourth-place spot.

Ivan Alonso / Nikola Zigic

The anti-Julien Fauberts of la Liga. Two players who came in during the winter transfer window to save their respective sides as opposed to dozing and disappearing from training.

Alonso’s two goals for Espanyol against Almería saw the Pericos keep their Primera position for another year and Zigic’s solitary strike against Recreativo helped Racing recover from a worrying wobble to move into mid-table.

Sporting

Mmm. Interesting. Sporting’s survival plan appears to be panning out just as a local journo hinted it would a few weeks ago.

La Liga Loca’s spider-sense is definitely tingling. Or it could be wind from a dodgy bocadillo at the Bernabeu.

A quite ludicrous own-goal from nothing-to-play-for Málaga gave Sporting a win last weekend. And it was another victory for the Asturian side on Saturday with the same 2-1 result, but this time against Valladolid.

Mallorca

The only club to beat both Real Madrid and Barcelona this season. However, this statistic is coloured slightly by the fact that Mallorca were a little lucky to play the two sides when neither could give two honking hoots about their games.

Getafe

A 1-0 win over Numancia moves Getafe into 15th and three teams between themselves and relegation next weekend. Surely even manager Michel cannot mess this one up?

Bad Day

Marc Muniesa

“Get in!” thought La Liga Loca immediately warming to the young Barcelona defender.

The 17-year-old had come on as a second-half substitute and put in a crunching tackle on Antonio Hidalgo - the kind of meat-mangling murderholds Osasuna specialise in.

The challenge produced a red card from the referee - this being Spain and all - which was followed by what appeared to be a blub or two from Muniesa, sending the Catalan kiddie back down to the bottom rung in the blog’s estimations.

“The others told me that at least I got a standing ovation,” sobbed the tearful teenager after the game.

Guti

Dropped from Sunday’s squad for ‘technical reasons’ and for missing Saturday’s training due to attending a communion, said Juande Ramos - the same Juande Ramos who still found room for the 8 kilos overweight, bench-napping Julien Faubert.

Real Madrid

“Wenger! No... er... Mourinho!... er... Pellegrini... er Valdano... er Laudrup... er Ramos.... er...”

After Madrid’s fourth defeat in a row - and a really, really pathetic one at that against Mallorca - the list of candidates willing to take over at Castle Greyskull is a bit like Mariano Pernía - getting thinner by the day.

Osasuna

To beat Barcelona in the Camp Nou and still be in relegation trouble is very bad luck indeed.

However, the bright light on the Pamplonan horizon is the visit of, train-wreck in football form, Real Madrid to their ground next weekend in what is sure to be a bruising encounter.

Guti is already flicking through his medical encyclopaedia looking for new excuses not to play.

"I'm too sad to play..."

Betis

Things would have to go very wrong indeed for Betis to go down next weekend, but it would not be completely unthinkable.

After holding their own, as it were, against Málaga on Saturday night and being 1-0 up, the visitors were stunned when a cracking Albert Luque strike sent Betis packing with a measly point for their efforts.

Valencia

A terrible fortnight for Valencia included losing to both of their Champions League rivals and the publication of a sensational story suggesting that Silva, Mata, Albiol and Villa would be poached en masse by Florentino Pérez.

But the real blow for the very cash-strapped club is that the men from Mestalla will be left without Champions League football for a second consecutive season and the revenue it brings in.

Numancia, Recreativo

Gone, gone, gone.

TVE

A second week in succession for Spain’s state broadcaster in the Bad Day section.

Last time around the TV channel made the list due to a splendid effort in showing the Manchester United vs Arsenal title-decider some three hours late.

But that was nothing compared to Sunday’s sterling work.

With the channel flicking between the Newcastle and Hull relegation-tinged clashes, a genius decided to end the broadcasts with 10 minutes to go in both games to show handball instead.

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The Six-Fingered Weekend Predictions - Round 37

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Villarreal (6th) vs EasyValencia (5th)

And so two fine, upstanding, terrific teams must face the humiliation of a bruising barnyard scrap in their chase to overhaul... (sigh) ...Atlético Madrid in fourth place. Oh how low has la Liga sunk?

While Villarreal went about their business this week in their normal, quiet, professional, blatantly boring way, Valencia were buoyed by the visit of some fans to their training ground - supporters who came to lift the spirits of the side as they face the final two matches of the season.

Of course, what with Valencia fans being Valencia fans, this is absolute nonsense.

Instead, a potty-mouthed posse went to the club’s training camp to yell abuse at the squad and accuse them of being “a UEFA Cup team" - a wholly incorrect and unjustifiable statement. They meant “Europa League team," of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Barcelona (up top) vs Osasuna (18th)

La Liga Loca was planning to stay loyal to its adopted home - only by handy extradition loopholes, mind - and cheer Barcelona all the way in next week’s Champions League final.

But it simply doesn’t think it can handle the consequences of what would happen should Pep’s Dream Boys pick up the treble.

The puke-inducing Catalan press are already impossible to bear, so only Zeus himself knows what would happen should Barça win Wednesday’s Roman rumble.

“Never before has Barcelona been so respected, feared and admired,” writes Sport's Josep Maria Casanovas, a man who doesn’t seem at all concerned that he has a girl’s name.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Deportivo (7th)

Friday’s AS reports that Deportivo manager Miguel Angel Lotina has finally come to the realisation that his stable of ‘strikers’ are an absolute shower of, er, shame and is set to ditch a bunch of them over the summer.

Four of those set to be pushed out into the Bay of Biscay are Riki (26 apps, 6 goals), Mista (13 apps, 1 goal), Omar Bravo (9 apps, 1 goal, returned to Mexico) and Bodipo (19 apps, 4 goals).

What Deportivo need now is the phone number of a club willing to buy their hopeless, misfiring, waste of space cast-offs.

Quite possibly a phone number with a Newcastle prefix.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Getafe (16th) vs Numancia (19th)

Normally, when Vicente del Bosque talks one should listen. Except this week when he appears to have supped several bowls of silly soup.

When asked to comment on the latest names being thrown into the hat of those looking to be fired five months into a contract with Real Madrid - a hat that now includes Laurent Blanc, Michael Laudrup and Brian Molko from Placebo - the Spain manager suggested temporary Getafe coach Michel.

Molko: "We'll play four-four-two in four-four time"

“He’s the Guardiola of Madrid,” opined the man who was not sexy enough for Florentino Pérez some six years ago.

And it’s a fine theory apart from the small fact that Guardiola brought promotion to Barça’s B team after just one season in charge and is on the brink of winning the treble with the big boys.

Michel, on the other hand, managed to relegated Real Madrid’s second side and failed to promote Rayo Vallecano during his spell at the club.

Just like Guardiola, then.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (20th) vs Racing (12th)

A Friday wouldn’t be a Friday without La Liga Loca’s hopeless prediction on the weekend’s dog of a game that turns out to be a brilliant blinder.

LLL Prediction - Draw (and a goalless one at that)

Valladolid (13th) vs Sporting (17th)

Goodness grief, this match has caused all manner of trouble and strife this week.

It all began when Valladolid sent just 1,859 tickets to the institutions at Sporting, costing a rather steep 75 euro each.

“Gits!” was the reply from the club that generally takes the entire population of the town to every away game.

“We want the Zorilla to be full of Valladolid supporters and not Sporting fans,” explained the quite cool Pucela president, Carlos Suarez.

Sporting’s response was to threaten to send 4,000 to the match, with a good 1,500 of those without tickets.

“Fine!” said Valladolid’s city authorities.

“We’ll just stop you getting anywhere near the town,” was the stern message but “without overlooking the rights of the citizen,” explained local suit Cecilio Vadillo on Valladolid’s plan, which completely overlooks the rights of the citizen.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Málaga (8th) vs Betis (15th)

Betis - the Venus fly trap of la Liga - looks a tempting treat to those footballers that don’t know better.

But they soon discover that death or the loss of limbs is the only way to escape.

It appears that there could be quite a few departures from the club this summer, with Capi, Emana and Odonkor just three players who have all expressed their desire to get out of Dodge and the clutches of De Lopera.

Clambering over their bodies in the stickiest of scrambles will be Arzu, who’s had eggs thrown at his car and was booed for his goal celebration against Almería last weekend.

“It was dedicated to my grandfather and daughter,” explained the very unhappy bunny. “The situation here is insupportable. All the normal people have gone.”

LLL Prediction - Draw

Athletic (11th) vs Atlético (4th)

Having had three days off during the week, you’d have good reason to assume that the nothing-to-play-for Basque club will simply roll over and allow their tummies to be tickled by their visitors on Saturday night.

But shame on you for doing so, because Athletic have a very good reason to try their damnedest against Atlético Madrid - cold hard cash.

The end of the season in Spain has brought about the inevitable rumours of win bonuses being paid by teams C with an interest in the result of a match between A and B.

Suitcases: often stuffed full of Euro

In this case, it’s both Villarreal and Valencia looking for Athletic to do their Champions League chase a favour by stopping the current rojiblanco surge.

“It can’t be proved, but it’s no secret that Athletic will be on bonuses for this game,” nudge-nudged Jesús Hernandez in Friday’s Mundo Deportivo.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (10th) vs Espanyol (14th)

Espanyol are the winners of this week’s Grumpy Sourpuss Taking Themselves Far Too Seriously award.

Noemi Rubio is a young lady who plays for the club’s women’s team alongside Luis García. But she is also... gasp... a Barcelona fan.

Poor Noemi was outed on Facebook when photographed wearing the club’s colours and attending the Copa de Rey final.

When the images came to light, the female footballer was immediately suspended and it has been announced that her contract will not be renewed in June.

“She is conscious that she has damaged the feelings of members and fans of Espanyol,” wrote some idiot from Espanyol in a statement oblivious to the notion of freedom of expression.

LLL Prediction - Home win (and a heavy one too as blog punishment for petulance)

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Mallorca (9th)

The La Liga Loca curse continued this week with the withdrawal from the Real Madrid presidency race of Eugenio Martínez Bravo.

The blog had managed to have a chat with the candidate just a few days before and thought he would be a fine choice as the next Bernabeu bigwig on the grounds that he wasn’t a megalomaniac who wanted to stick a roof on the club’s stadium.

Unfortunately he’s not a billionaire either, which means he's unable to raise the 57 million Euro required to stand in the race.

But that left room for another candidate to announce his plans for the club should he win June’s presidential poll.

Juan Onieva was a VP under Lorenzo Sanz and fancies another crack at the club’s expense account.

In an entertaining presentation, Onieva revealed his plans to make Hugo Sánchez his manager, hand over 3 percent of Madrid’s budget to unemployed members who are struggling to pay their mortgages and make Barack Obama an honorary member of the club.

But most entertainingly of all, his slideshow featured a photograph of a cheery, waving JFK - with six fingers.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Ramón Calderón has his day in court

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

In general, La Liga Loca is not normally the jealous type.

But it must admit to being a tad envious of the easy-peasy world of Spanish sporting journalism, where libel law is scoffed at and how to make stuff up without a shred of evidence is a much-admired attribute.

It is a very different business in the no-fun, nitty-picky UK.

For example, La Liga Loca could tell you the completely true and well-known story in Spain of how ******* was caught ******* ** ***** *** * car bonnet and ****** ******* by ****** ******** ***** ****.

But chances are some tea-spluttering lawyers will have removed most of the offending allegations, to avoid the risk of having the entire corporation bankrupted in biliseconds by a back-beeping dumper truck full of lawsuits.

Innocent until proven guilty is a completely alien concept for many sports dailies - especially when it comes to Marca and that moustache-twisting scoundrel, Ramón Calderón.

To set the legal record straight at the earliest opportunity, Thursday’s edition of the paper covers the day spent in court by the former Real Madrid president and a number of others ‘accused’ as the Spanish law defines them.

The still very not-guilty group had been summoned by judge Santiago Torres, who is investigating whether a crime was committed during the vote-rigging incidents of Real Madrid’s AGM last December and, if so, who was responsible.

As it stands, no-one has been found guilty of any wrongdoing, if any wrongdoing took place. And that is the way that most of the straight-laced sporting press, even Sport in Barcelona, are reporting the incident.

The main exception is Marca who’s current editorial policy is “Calderón bad! Florentino good!”

“The cheats give evidence before a judge over Calderón’s ‘theft’” yells the paper’s inside page on Thursday.

Indeed, it was a very happy edition for Marca overall as it also got to report on the story of sporting director Pedja Mijatovic leaving the club after mutual agreement with Real Madrid’s board.

As the media were given access to the courtroom for Wednesday’s session, there is a great deal of reporting on the day’s events.

Who, me?

And while there is no dispute over the fact that people who weren’t allowed to vote in December’s special members-only meeting did so, who instructed them and facilitated their entry is the main bone of contention.

Considering the penalty for those found guilty of any fraud could be a jail sentence of between six months and three years, no-one was ready to ‘fess up on the day.

Calderón himself spent an hour and 20 minutes before the judge testifying that he had delegated the entire organisation of the AGM to the VP of the members area, Amador Suárez, and two director generals, Miguel Angel Arroyo and Luis Bárcena, and had no involvement himself.

He also claimed that he had “a minimal relationship” with Nanín, another ‘accused’ up before the court and someone he publicly thanked for helping him get elected in 2006 and handed a job looking after VIPs in 2007.

After Calderón’s testimony his lawyer brother, Jorge Calderón, read a statement claiming that “I don’t think that a criminal act took place as we are talking about a sporting company.”

Luis Bárcena, who resigned over the incident soon after the allegations came to light back in January, also gave evidence but claimed that he was unaware of the presence of non-members in December’s session, report Marca.

The most fun to be had was hearing the testimony of five of the ‘infiltrators’ who were not entitled to be at the event, never mind vote in the session on matters such as the club’s accounts.

But four of the five say that they were there on the request of a certain Mariano Rodríguez de Barutell, more commonly known as Nanín.

“I know Nanín, he called us and asked us to come and support the president,” said Jorge Leal Hidalgo. “I’m a close friend of Nanín and he called me up to come and support Calderón,” claimed Miguel López Gil.

“I didn’t help anyone to get in (to the assembly) nor sneak anyone in. I didn’t know they were there,” said Nanín in his testimony.

After the day’s exciting events, a Judge Dredd-channelling Marca have certainly made up their mind over who the guilty parties are - evidence or no evidence - with Thursday’s editorial calling for Madrid “to turn the page and look to the future to win back the club’s majesty as soon as possible.”

But there was to be some bad news for the sports daily that’s always keen to boast about their sales figures - the loss of one reader.

“I don’t buy nor read this newspaper. I have no intention of ever reading it again in my life,” said Ramon Calderón before judge Torres.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Villa makes mistake of visiting Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

“Valdano negotiates with Villa!” yells Marca. “Villa takes a walk to Madrid!” screams AS. “Over my dead body!” splutters Raúl.

Those were Wednesday’s headlines that greeted the appearance of David Villa in the streets of the Spanish capital the day before - an appearance that had him pestered and probed by stalking hacks and photographers.

The Valencia striker was seen with his wife (face blurred by AS, but not Marca) strolling hand-in-hand through the sunny streets!

The Valencia striker was seen near the Santiago Bernabeu!

The Valencia striker was in town to “buy a suit for my brother-in-law’s wedding,” explained the man himself.

‘Doesn’t matter!’ was the answer from the Madridista press desperately hoping that at least one of their Ribery, Ronaldo, Kaká, Silva, Zlatan, Villa, Wenger, Mourinho, Ancelotti stories comes true over the summer.

"I knew I should have just ordered online..."

If the photographers are out sleazing on the streets once again on Wednesday, they will be snapping a pitiful posse heading into a court room to answer accusations that they were involved with “the destruction, suppression and hiding of public documents” in relation to Real Madrid’s controversial AGM held last December.

The group will be headed by Ramón Calderón and - embarrassingly for Marca, who merely mumble his name in connection with the alleged crime - current Real Madrid president, Vicente Boluda.

This has meant the paper has had to tone down their “worst president in the club’s history" tantrum a tad, considering that Boluda, as Calderón’s No.2, may have had some influence during his tenure.

Marca have some exciting transfer news for Atlético fans, fans that will be hoping their potential new player is of the calibre of recent arrivals such as Seitaridis, Heitinga, Cleber Santana, Assunçao, Reyes, Pernia, Maniche and Luis García.

According to the paper, the club are sniffing around Udinese midfielder Gaetano D’Agostino, a footballer who “has had many appearances for the Italian U21 side.”

Very promising indeed, thought La Liga Loca until it saw that D’Agostino was 26, making him a sensational starlet some six years ago and Serie A’s equivalent of David Dunn.

Still, the Italian’s Wikipedia page reports that his favourite animals are horses, so he will at least be partly prepared to spend the next few seasons alongside a bunch of donkeys.

Over in Catalunya, the local Barca-barmy dailies are all in a tizz over next week’s Champions League 3-0 mauling by Manchester United, despite the fact that it is still seven days away.

Sport’s headline fails to grasp the concept of superlatives by claiming that the Roma battle will be “the best against the best.”

While Mundo Deportivo have a devilish tale suggesting Gerard Pique will be the “anti-Cristiano” continuing the assumption in the Spanish press that Manchester United have a team consisting of just one player.

"Leave him with me, boss..."

At this point, the blog must end on a melancholy note with the news that Sevilla’s Javi Navarro has hung up his hairband and announced his retirement after a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a giant knee knack.

The central defender played a key role for Sevilla during their five trophy, two season spell and recalled at a press conference on Tuesday that his “best moment was seeing children and grandparents crying when we picked up our first trophy.”

In a fine career, Navarro has certainly left his mark on the city of Seville, the game in Spain and Juan Arango’s skull.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Why it's time for Guardiola to go

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

When the world’s finest football magazine repeatedly begged La Liga Loca to come on board some 78 years ago - well, offered it a packet of biscuits - those running the show knew they were getting their brilliant hands on an institution that spoke the truth, stuck it to The Man, kept getting its Llorentes confused and would fail to predict night following day.

But it also knew it was banking on a blog that was a straight-talker, a blog that was ahead of the game, a blog that would lead and not follow.

So that’s why it is now officially calling for the handsome head of Pep Guardiola. It’s time for Barcelona’s big guy to go.

"¿Que?"

Barring a wobbly start for Pep’s Dream Boys at the start of the season in la Liga, the Catalan coach has barely put a foot wrong.

After just one year’s experience in Spain’s lower leagues, Guardiola leapt onto a wild horse called culé and has ridden it into the sunset of success.

Women want to be him, men want to be with him and the Madridista press doesn’t hate his guts despite his side making their Castle Greyskull cronies look very silly indeed.

Even grown-up broadsheets go goose-pimply in his presence. “He’s the eternal seducer,” sighs El País. “The triumph of passion,” pants El Mundo. “Miles better than the Pope,” suggests Vatican-crazy ABC.

Pep’s men won la Liga with three matches left. Pep’s men are on course to score the most number of league goals in a season. Pep’s men have just bagged the domestic double for only the second time in half-a-century for the club.

Barcelona don’t even need to win the Champions League next week for golden idols to be carved to glorify Pep’s name, as if he’s the Catalan capital’s very own Kim Jong II.

Things simply can’t get any better for the Barça boss. And that’s why he should jump ship as soon as the final whistle blows on the end of current campaign.

In fact, he should do it as early as next week to avoid a disappointing draw against Deportivo in the last match of the year.

"Careful, Pep, it's a trap!"

Imagine the alternative future if Pep remains at his post for another season.

Barcelona’s laurel-sitting superstars start the new campaign at a canter leaving Roy Keane’s Real Madrid with a 10-point lead by October (Arsene Wenger having quit two days into his role).

The local press, who are currently claiming that the sun shines from Pep’s perfect posterior, begin to blame his lack of experience, say that he’s a first-season fluke, announce that he’s a busted flush.

An editorial in Monday’s Sport is a key to how the backlash could begin. “The key to the transformation of this team is exclusively down to the work of Guardiola,” writes Joan Vehils.

That’s all very nice now from the culé-loving columnist, but does the same principle apply if things don’t go so well in the future?

Run, Pep, run, while you still have the chance.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 36

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Good Day

Barcelona

Like a wet dream for Maniche, Barcelona didn’t even need to disembark from the bus on Sunday to seal the deal.

Instead, it was the party-poopers from last weekend, Villarreal, who gave Pep’s Dream Boys a break with a sterling show against Madrid.

Apart from watching Mad Sammy Eto’o having an absolute ‘mare against Mallorca, the most entertaining event of the evening's affair was seeing Barça’s goalkeeping legend, Oier Olazabal, receive rapturous applause during the guard of honour that greeted la Liga’s latest winners as they trotted out at the Ono Estadi.

Barca B lap up pre-match plaudits

Atlético Madrid

With Valencia’s front-line making Klaas-Jan Huntelaar look industrious on Sunday night, Atleti should have buried the men from Mestalla in a gallon of goals.

But instead, the rojiblancos chose to do things the hard way in front of a jumping-and-jiving Vicente Calderón crowd.

Chance after chance was missed by Kun & co, and it was only after an outrageous tumble from the Argentinean striker that Diego Forlán was able to poke away a penalty that moved Atleti into fourth spot - a spot they can’t possibly blow. Can’t they?

Espanyol

And speaking of dodgy decisions from referees and polemical penalties, here’s Paul from Barcelona on Espanyol’s 1-0 win over Athletic.

“An awful match between a below par (not in the golf sense) Espanyol and Stoke City minus the long throw but with Crouch up-front.

"Espanyol won thanks to a (dodgy!!! - LLL) penalty after the worst player I've seen this season, Gurpegui, fouled man of the match Coro and Luis Garcia scored.

"Nothing else happened. It was really bad.

"250 Bilbao supporters and one stray cat.

"Good to see self-proclaimed Barça fans behaving themselves. What a bunch of (fine upstanding supporters - LLL)!!!”

Paul, Barcelona.

Roberto Soldado

La Liga Loca is still a bit befuddled over whether the former Madrid man is actually any good or not.

The Getafe striker is a bit of a wasteful Wally when it comes to chances in front of goal, as seen in his team’s Bernabeu clash when it took some 57 attempts before he found the back of the net.

Luckily, one of Soldado’s decent days was on Saturday when he powered in a header to give Getafe a draw and a big old point away at Deportivo.

Manager, Michel, says Getafe deserved more from the tie. La Liga Loca says what would he know?

Numancia

‘Good-bye!’ cried La Liga Loca last weekend to Numancia. Well, it’s 'hello again!' after a 1-0 win over Recreativo in a match where they battered their opponents.

Villarreal

Villarreal’s strikers are still an absolute disaster, but luckily the club’s midfield tricksters went about their business on Saturday with both Robert Pires and Cani coming up with the goods in the 3-2 win over Real Madrid.

With Atleti due to balls things up royally before the end of the season and Valencia visiting El Madrigal next weekend, a Champions League spot is still a big possibility for Manuel Pellegrini’s men.

Sevilla

La Liga Loca spent the first part of Saturday night clucking like a chicken and flapping its arms as Sevilla took to the field against Osasuna with Jesus Navas and Diego Capel both on the bench.

It spend the second half doing it too, as it happens, but for very different reasons.

A four man central-midfield ensured a pragmatic point for the Andalusian side who still sit in their third-placed throne.

Arzu

Not only did the Betis midfielder get to score a thumper in his team’s 2-0 win over Almería but Arzu also got to pump a good old fist towards the critical home crowd.

This ensured much booage for the rest of the encounter and one or two eggs probably being thrown at his car. If it hasn’t already been set on fire, that is.

"Don't even think about it..."

Sporting

And so the comeback begins, thanks to a truly bizarre own goal from Malaga’s Hélder who somehow managed to whack a glancing header into the back of his own net.

Racing Santander

“This particular encounter is set to be a stinker, a slimer, a David Bisbal of a game of football. A guaranteed gumbo of a game” wrote La Liga Loca on Racing’s clash with Valladolid - a 3-2 thriller as it turned out that moved the home side onto 42 points.

Bad Day

Juande Ramos

On Friday afternoon, Juande Ramos was appealing to the press on why his booty should be parked on the Bernabeu bench come August.

“Two weeks ago, I was a strong candidate to manage Madrid next season,” argued the manager who was a strong candidate to manage Madrid next season two weeks ago, “and now I’m not, just because I lost one match.”

Unfortunately for Ramos, that’s just tough titties.

It wasn’t the loss of that single game against Barcelona that blew his chances of a contract renewal, but the disastrous manner of the defeat. That and the absolute stuffings handed out by Liverpool in the Champions League.

While it’s true Ramos had inherited someone else’s squad - no-one at Madrid seems willing to take full responsibility for it - the perception in Madrid is that he should have done better with the resources at his disposal.

Real Madrid’s third straight defeat means that Ramos has just two more weeks left in his current post. Plenty of time for that stationary cupboard raid.

Juande eyes up the boardroom coffee table

Osasuna

Maybe playing Barcelona and Real Madrid in their last two games of the season won’t be so bad after all. Even so, Osasuna need to win both after the weekend’s disappointing goalless draw against Sevilla.

Julien Faubert

The Madrid man has finally made the front pages. But for apparently being asleep on the bench and “touching his parts” as Marca tastefully puts it during the defeat in El Madrigal.

Kun Agüero

“Agüero is not being clever in the penalty area. He’s being a cheat,” says Roberto Palomar in Monday’s Marca. La Liga Loca, for one, salutes you sir.

David Villa

This may be just a footballing fluke, but whenever La Liga Loca has actually seen David Villa play live, he hasn’t been any good.

TVE

Not a great week for Spain’s national channel that is still trying to get to grips with the concept of live television.

During the week it cut away from the national anthem during the Copa del Rey final and replayed it at half-time having manipulated the sound and images.

On Saturday, in its infinite wisdom it opted to show Saturday’s title decider at Old Trafford a good three hours late. But at least the good, good people of Spain got to watch some bike testing from Le Mans.

Ordinarily, La Liga Loca would sigh and move on if it weren’t for the fact that TVE bought the Premier League rights with ITS TAX MONEY. Scumbags.

Soraya

Despite being as bright as a button, as cute as a puppy and in possession of a terrific tush, Spain’s Eurovision entry bottomed out, as it were, in Moscow, causing a whopping storm of protest on Saturday night while the citizens of Barcelona were smashing up their city centre for the fourth time in a fortnight.

Was it the fault of pesky Commies? Being last to perform? Singing in Spanish or simply the result of a terrible tune?

Soraya shines, then slumps

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The Algarve-Fleeing Weekend Predictions - Round 36

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Osasuna (17th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

Last weekend, Osasuna boss José Antonio Camacho pretty much wrote off the relegation jelly-wrestle against Getafe before a ball had been kicked by leaving Persian pass-masters Javad Nekounam and Masoud Shojaei out of the starting XI in the 3-0 defeat.

The red-faced ranter will have to be a little less conservative over the next three rounds, with Osasuna needing five points out of clashes against Sevilla, Barcelona and Madrid.

First up on Saturday night, it’s the side from Andalusia that looks as snug as a bug in a rug in third.

But this Champions League-chasing achievement still hasn’t stopped speculation on the future of manager Manolo Jiménez, especially since former Espanyol man Ernesto Valverde left Olympiacos this week after a rather splendid season with the Greek club.

Interviewed in Friday’s Marca, Jiménez was all with the joshing about his future, chuckling that he could see himself “managing a team wearing white in the Champions League next season.”

Like an over-enthusiastic Ever Banega, La Liga Loca has a hot tip on someone else leaving the Sanchez Pizjuán over the summer.

The blog spotted an unusually upright Diego Capel loitering outside the entrance to the fancy pants area of the Vicente Calderón stadium after Sunday’s clash with Valencia.

And that set off a spider-sense tingle that feels that the winger will be tumbling to the ground in a brand new Atleti-shaped home next season.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Deportivo (6th) vs Getafe (15th)

After last Sunday’s clash with Osasuna, Getafe boss Michel admitted that the only thing he could do with just a few games left was to keep up the spirits of the players during the final run-in.

And that’s a good thing too for the Coliseum club. Had the man with a less-than-impressive managerial past been let loose with any tactical tinkering then Getafe would be going down faster than Paris Hilton in the Atlético Madrid dressing room.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Villarreal (7th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

After months of rumours and rumblings over his intentions, Florentino Pérez stepped up to the podium in the modest, Everyman location of Madrid’s Hotel Ritz to announce his intention to run for the Real Madrid presidency, once again.

And the message from the man who shares the same off-putting grin as Gordon Brown is that the club is going to be spending big over the summer by putting together a squad that mixes galaxy-sized stars of the world game with home-grown talent - a cunning, bold, revolutionary plan that cannot possibly go wrong.

Chief cheerleaders Marca couldn’t be happier with Pérez’ debut in Friday’s edition, but AS are a little less powerful in their praise in their own editorial.

Alfredo Relaño writes that Florentino’s speech got “10 marks for marketing and madridismo” but noted that “the fact that he has returned amidst such adulation worries me to some extent.”

Fellow candidates in June’s poll have also had their say, with Juan Onieva snooking that Pérez “hasn’t learned anything. He continues to be presented as the sun that lights up the institution, the great saviour, the Messiah.”

Eduardo García complains - quite rightly - that “it’s not fair that the media have already laid out the carpet for him.”

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sunday

Numancia (20th) vs Recreativo (19th)

With bottom-of-the-table Numancia needing three wins from three to have even the wispiest, sniffiest of chances of staying up, club captain César Palacios has called for “an incredible intensity” from the home fans in the 105-capacity las Pajaritos stadium on Sunday.

‘Up yours!’ appears to be the message from supporters on the Marca site in response.

One complained that “last Sunday against Valladolid, you had 1200 Sorians who travelled 500km to see you and at the end of the game you couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge us and now you ask for help? You don’t deserve this support.”

LLL Prediction - Draw

Racing (13th) vs Valladolid (12th)

La Liga Loca’s weekly prediction of a game that will be boring but turn out to be brilliant will not be repeated in round 36. On no.

This particular encounter is set to be a stinker, a slimer, a David Bisbal of a game of football. A guaranteed gumbo of a game.

Racing just need a cheeky point or two to stay up and will probably get it on Sunday against Valladolid - the same Valladolid that has had much success at scoring as La Liga Loca at an all female wedding party.

The Pucela side have not managed a goal in seven matches and not won in eight. “It’s hard to explain what is happening to us,” admitted manager José Luis Mendilibar.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sporting (18th) vs Málaga (8th)

With Sporting and Málaga still having plenty to play for, talk in Spain is set to turn to the sensitive subject of payments being made by clubs ‘A’ to clubs ‘B’ with nowt going on so they try that little bit harder against rival clubs ‘C’.

Actually, when La Liga Loca says it is a sensitive subject, the blog is unnecessarily tippy-toeing on egg shells thanks to comments from Osasuna president Patxi Isco this week.

“It’s hypocritical of me to say that these kinds of bonuses don’t exist when everyone knows they do,” scoffed the Pamplonan bigwig, who also admits that he would readily offer them to opposition clubs if it were to help out Osasuna.

The blog would like to note that it is purely coincidental that this discussion on underhand payments to other teams appears in the Málaga section of this weekend’s predictions.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (14th) vs Athletic (11th)

Despite being big old LOSERS having been totally tonked by Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final, Athletic were welcomed back to Bilbao as heroes by thousands of fans with little to do the next day, it would appear.

“Perhaps they are the best supporters in the world,” cooed Jésus Hernandez in local paper, El Correo.

The celebrations are set to continue into Friday with local politicians looking to cash in on Athletic’s final appearance by throwing official receptions where the players can tell tall tales of going all the way to Valencia to win bugger all.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (16th) vs Almería (9th)

La Liga Loca reckons that the Betis players simply cannot wait for this particular encounter.

Having faced death threats from the stands and received abuse at training, the Seville-based squad suffered eggs being thrown at their cars by supporters angry at last Saturday’s capitulation against a second-string Athletic side.

The club did not see the incident as a yoking matter and resorted to legging it out of the country and relocating their training base to the Algarve.

“The move had been planned for a while,” said the fooling no-one Juanito.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Mallorca (10th) vs Barcelona (1st)

Wow. Someone has got it in for Mallorca sporting director Nando Pons (stop giggling).

This week, Marca published club accounts detailing some hefty sums paid to the wallet-bulging Balearic boss for salaries, win bonuses, transfer deals and winning employee of the month four times.

Mallorca, which is some 35 million euro in debt and lost 13 million last year, coughed up three grand to Pons after draws with Osasuna, Athletic and Málaga - all part of the half a million euro earned by the Mallorcan millionaire between July 1 and December 31, say Marca.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Atlético Madrid (5th) vs Valencia (4th)

One of the sneakiest fouls of the season took place in the Vicente Calderón last week, when Atleti full-back Luis Perea whacked an elbow into the face of Espanyol defender Chica, leaving him dazed and confused, battered and bruised.

And also very, very angry.

“I can forgive, but not forget,” growled Chica. “But I will play for a long time and we will meet again,” promised the fallen full-back.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Football fiestas and a Florentino frenzy

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Barring witchcraft or a Bear Stearns-style collapse, Barcelona will be picking up at least two trophies this season, meaning yet more arrests in the Catalan capital from bottle-chucking culés.

Wednesday night’s total reached around 45 say Sport - and increasingly hysterical levels of hype from a bonkers Barça-barmy press.

Pep’s Dream Boys’ fairly comfy 4-1 Copa del Rey win over Athletic sees both Sport and Mundo Deportivo blasting “Champions!” on their front pages on Thursday, and in a very giggly, giddy mood inside.

“Losing to Barcelona, the best team in the world is no dishonour,” writes Sport’s Josep Casanovas simultaneously ruffling the Basque battlers' hair and completely ignoring the existence of Manchester United.

“Madrid have not won the cup since 1993,” chuckles Fernando Polo in Mundo Deportivo, noting the second most important statistic of a night when Barcelona lifted the trophy for the 25th time.

Heck, even the mad-for-Madrid AS are a little excited by the event, with editor Alfredo Relaño commenting Barça have “played football like angels (LLL missed that part of the bible) and they’re going to win titles in doing so - definitely two, maybe three.”

Marca merely plump for an admission on the front cover that “they’re very good.”

One down, two to go for the Dream Boys

The paper’s main concern on Thursday is what it sees as an appalling act of censorship and media manipulation during the coverage of the game - something that some at the paper are fairly adept at themselves, as it happens.

During the broadcast by state broadcaster TVE, the channel cut away when the national anthem was about to be played and, by chance, when a cacophony of catcalls was about to be hurled in the direction of the attending King Juan Carlos from the two sets of supporters.

At half-time the channel apologised for their ‘error’ and replayed the moving moment with the jeers removed and an image added of a proud, royalist Athletic Bilbao fan with his hand on his heart.

“In a move of pure Francoism, TVE opted for censorship,” rants Thursday’s editorial, condemning the TV station’s decision.

The paper also reports other royal-protecting events such as Gerard Piqué having a Catalan flag taken off him when climbing up to the podium to collect his medal from a very disgruntled-looking king.

But such polemical goings-on were forgotten less than 12 hours later with the return of a certain Florentino Pérez to the world after “three years, two months, 13 days, 16 hours, 30 minutes” of silence according to a very happy Marca.

Madrid’s Hotel Ritz was the setting for a bursting-to-breaking-point press conference, broadcast live on a number of channels where the former Real president announced his aim to retake his rightful place on throne of Castle Greyskull - a declaration received by a loud round of applause from the cap-doffing, fawning journalists present.

“I kept a respectful silence for three years,” explained Pérez on his reclusive behaviour. “It was my best contribution to the stability of the club.”

His decision to quit in February of 2006 was “the wrong one” admitted the candidate, saying that he only had the best interests of the club at heart at the time.

In a 13-minute speech littered with bubbly buzzwords such as ‘revitalisation’, ‘renewal’ and ‘solidity’, Pérez detailed plans to build a sporting city for the youth system, hinted that a roof would be stuck on top of the Bernabeu (one can only wonder which company the construction magnate will be handing the contracts to) and teased that Jorge Valdano and Zinedine Zidane would form part of his managerial team should he win June’s presidential poll.

After the speech, the number one candidate took questions from journalists for a good hour (until La Liga Loca got bored, basically - he may still be talking right now) and swerved any attempts from hacks to squeeze information from him on who his transfer targets would be, admitting only that “Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players in the world.”

La Liga Loca already has an idea what the front pages of Friday’s press are going to say.

"Yes, me again..."

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La Liga Talentspotter

Billions gather for Copa del Rey clash

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

A few days ago, AS wrote that 35,000 batty Basques would be making the trip down to Valencia for Wednesday’s Copa de Rey final.

Not the first time - and almost certainly not the last - the paper was quite wrong with its prediction.

La Liga Loca’s own reliable sources - the hopeless cases who claimed last season that David Albeda had played his last game for Valencia - are murmuring that up to 45 million supporters from the unpronounceable lands of the north have made the trip to Mestalla by donkey, bike, car, bus, train, plane and boat.

Unfortunately, only eight of those actually have tickets to see Spanish football’s big night. But it’s two more than the visiting Barcelona fans have got.

In its attempts to model the tournament on the English FA Cup final, the Spanish authorities have decided to keep a good 99.99 percent of the tickets back so that federation suits along with families and friends and anyone who fancies buying their cast-offs for 500 euro can enjoy a nice night out.

And because making a quick buck and Spanish football go hand-in-hand like La Liga Loca and Penelope Cruz, Mestalla should be jam-packed with thousands of less than royalist supporters all ready and willing to boo and barrack the national anthem and the King for good measure.

“These are two teams that represent a very important social mass in their countries,” notes the independance-declaring King of Catalunya, Joan Laporta.

So worried are the FA’s bigwigs at embarrassing catcalls aimed at the royal family that the stadium’s speaker system has been pimped up by a group of mullet-sporting ché chavs to such an extent that even readers in England will be able to hear the King’s theme tune being blasted out at chant-covering, bat-exploding volumes.

"Everybody say 'goodbye eardrums'"

Wednesday’s game will be the sixth cup final between the two teams, with the last being an explosive punch-up back in 1984.

With a bit of luck, there will be a repeat of the scintillating scenes that the BBC would be no doubt tut that no-one wants to see on a football pitch.

Athletic manager Joaquín Caparrós is certainly promising some blood-and-guts on the night by declaring that “we’re going to play hard. We haven’t come here to pay tribute to anyone.”

This is has caused panic in the ranks of the Catalan press who are calling for help - sorry, protection - from the referee Medina Cantalejo, a gentleman Pep Guardiola points out that “Caparrós knows well.”

“We’re not asking for favours from anyone, but just that the referee applies the rules fairly,” writes the favour-asking Josep Casanovas in Sport.

Mundo Deportivo, meanwhile, is maxing out its on-line survey software by asking its less Neanderthal-like readers to decide who is the better player between Xavi and Orbaiz or Messi and Yeste.

Once again, the final encounter has again been jammed away at 10pm on a Wednesday night in a too-small stadium well before the end of the season and not as a showpiece campaign finale as the editorial in AS calls for.

And once again, extra-time and penalties will see the clash finishing at around 1am.

But this shouldn’t take anything away from a match that should be a lot of fun and well worth a cheeky punt on the 7-1 odds being given for an Athletic victory.

It’s a final that some of the great names of Spanish football’s past have taken part in.

Clubs that once were giants but now see their best days long gone, perhaps never return. Clubs like Arenas Guecho, Sabadell, Elche, Racing Ferroll and Real Madrid.

"They did say 10pm didn't they?"

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 35

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Valencia

Saturday’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid was shows exactly why, every September, the pea-brained La Liga Loca calls for silence, stands on a chair and tipsily tips Valencia to win the title by 50 points.

Ignore the fact that the Real Madrid players weren’t exactly cranking up the oophm-o-meter on the night - especially Fabio Cannavaro during David Silva’s goal - and just get worked up over the wondrous ways of the front four of Mata, Villa, Silva and Joaquín.

Nor forgetting the excellent Pablo Hernández of course.

Once again, La Liga Loca is going to tip the men from Mestalla for glory next season. Providing someone comes along with a one-billion-euro-sized bag of cash, that is.

Otherwise, it’s Ever Banega and Edu running the show in the upcoming campaign in what is likely to be a more knee-trembling football affair. But in two very different ways.

Silva sees off Real

Luis Fabiano

More often or not, the Sevilla striker’s frequent tumbles in the box result in yellow cards rather than penalties.

But on Saturday, O Fabuloso turned back the clock to last season when he was a bit special, by winning a spot-kick and coming up trumps with Sevilla’s second in the 3-1 win over Mallorca.

Fabiano’s timely return to form to aid the must-be-knackered-by-now Freddie Kanouté may well be enough for Sevilla to hold on to their third placed spot and give potential new coach, Ernesto Valverde, Champions League football next season.

Athletic Bilbao

All 230,000 Athletic fans heading to Mestalla for their match-up against Barcelona on Wednesday night can do so in the warm and snugly knowledge that their safety for another season in la Liga has been assured.

Joaquín Caparrós’ men moved onto the 44-point mark after a 1-0 win over Betis. More remarkably it was a victory achieved using just one first team starter.

Bilbao: Safe for another season

Getafe

In all honesty, the team is still more than a little rubbish with manager Michel admitting that all he can do is try to maintain the spirits in the Coliseum camp for the final matches of the season.

Sunday’s 3-0 win against Osasuna was an awful affair with chances few and far between, the visitors barely trying and the card-happy ref Muñiz Fernandez sending two players off for no good reason. Again.

The most entertainment to be had was to contemplate what would happen if a Benny Hill style slapping was delivered to Vicente del Bosque’s head with the Spain manager sitting just two rows in front of La Liga Loca’s long-limbed reach.

The answer was very little and a heck of a lot less entertaining than had his predecessor, Luis Aragonés, been sitting in the same spot.

90 minutes of “Raúl for Spain!” songs would soon have had his bubbling brains exploding all over the stands.

Deportivo

Sixth. Jesus.

Diego Forlán

It was perfect night for La Liga Loca in Vicente Calderón.

The crowd turning against the Atleti president at 2-0 down. A massively drunk man being propped up in his seat by his less frazzled friends. Watching Carlos Kameni wander past and realising that he could rip your head off with one hand. And another brilliant display from Diego Forlán.

Once again the 27-goal striker saved Atleti’s awful back-four, which was as high as Michael Phelps for 90 minutes, but was on the right side of a lot of dodgy decisions from the flag-wavey linesman.

Atleti’s Champions League future now boils down to another big night in the Calderón next Sunday, this time against a Silva-suspended Valencia.

Business as usual for Diego

BAD DAY

Barcelona

Unfortunately, La Liga Loca must come clean and confess that it has barely seen a minute from this match due to being in transit from the Coliseum to the Vicente Calderón - and nearly ending up in Cordoba, as it happens.

So it is more than happy to believe Pep Guardiola’s claim that “the side didn’t have enough gas” to play all the way to the final whistle in the 3-3 clash with Villarreal.

Sadly for the Camp Nou crowd it looks like the league title will be won at around midnight next Saturday when Madrid are mauled in El Madrigal.

Andrés Iniesta

God is a Chelsea fan, it would appear, after the midfielder is in danger of missing the Champions League final with a muscle tear.

Real Madrid

“When your head says ‘no’, it’s hard for your legs to say ‘yes’" noted Josep Maria Casanovas in Sport.

La Liga Loca suspected that Real Madrid would be running on fumes in their match in Mestalla on Saturday night and predicted a draw.

But it had no idea that the footballing juices in the Bernabeu camp had been squeezed so severely. Juande Ramos has cancelled Monday’s day-off and dragged the players back into training as punishment for a performance against Valencia branded as ‘apathetic’ by El País.

"Well it's obviously not my fault..."

Recreativo, Numancia

Bye-bye

Betis

Good grief, that was truly bad from Betis. “This team deserves to go down,” wrote Tito Gonzalez, a fed-up fan, in AS after the 1-0 defeat by Athletic’s second string.

Racing Santander

The often-sparring halves of La Liga Loca have tried to work out which team it would most like to see go down along with Recreativo and Numancia this season. And for once, the blog came to an agreement.

Sporting must stay up simply because of their fantastic travelling fans. Osasuna are filthy and fighty and worthy of their Primera spot. Betis are just too entertaining off the pitch to lose to la Segunda. Getafe are down the road and Espanyol have a shiny new stadium and Ivan de la Peña.

So, it’s a big sorry to Racing Santander who are being willed by the blog to sink into the second division. But with just two points needed to stay up, it ain’t going to happen.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Flame-proof Weekend Predictions - Round 35

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Sevilla (3rd) vs Mallorca (9th)

With Raúl reportedly pondering the opportunity to disappear in crucial clashes for Man City next season with a four-year, 40-million-Euro offer on the table, it’s good to see that there is at least one footballer in la Liga who still stands by the lofty concept of loyalty.

That fine, upstanding hero of the people is Sevilla’s Adriano, who has dismissed the idea of a move to Inter Milan over the summer.

“I’m only thinking about Sevilla,” insisted the Brazilian full-back. “I’m happy here and have extended my contract to 2014. I hope to be playing in the Champions League with the club next season.”

Well, big brass knobs to Adriano for his clear statement of intent to stay put at the Sanchez Pizjuán. “I told my agent that I won’t talk to any club until the league is over,” said the sentence-finishing Adriano. And he was doing so well.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Athletic (11th) vs Betis (15th)

Athletic president Fernando Garcia Macua - the man with possibly the heftiest side-parting in the planet - was in action at some kind of suit-attending sporting gabfest on Thursday.

And AS were there too, to report on a Q&A session involving a group of schoolchildren and the bigwig from Bilbao.

“What result would you like in the final?” asked one kiddie on next week’s Copa del Rey clash with Barcelona - a question so stunningly insightful that AS immediately cleared out Tomás Roncero’s desk to make way for their new scoopmeister.

Very much on the mind

Athletic are tipped to be fielding a team of reserves in Saturday’s clash, but that will still be good enough to beat a Betis side who are just happy to be on their travels.

“When we play in front of our own fans, we’re afraid to lose,” confessed midfield maestro Emana.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

For Marca, it was almost too good to be true. Almost.

Ramón Calderón being accused by two judges of evildoings at the club’s infamous General Assembly in December and the super-dodgy postal vote part of the presidential election from 2006.

“Ramón Calderón could be thrown into jail,” yelled Thursday’s edition as it pored over the accusations concerning last year’s AGM. “And Bárcena and Nanín could be his cellmates,” continued the paper on his alleged conspirators.

Unsurprisingly, Marca is being a little liberal with the truth on this particular point. Current Real Madrid president Vicente Boluda has also been implicated in the plot to rig the vote of December’s gathering, according to Madrid judge Santiago Torres.

And this causes a bit of a dilemma for the paper, which has been happily praising the paunchy president for his sterling leadership since Calderón’s departure in January.

The question now is whether Marca can happily continue to attack “the worst president in the club’s history” whilst backing Boluda, a man who must also go before the courts on May 20 to explain himself?

The answer is yes they can and yes they will.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sunday

Getafe (17th) vs Osasuna (16th)

Despite Michel’s failure to win on his managerial debut for Getafe last weekend, the local papers are still hyping up the hopeless coach and his training sessions where “neither the ball nor laughter is absent,” according to AS.

The club has been calling for fans to back the team through their “four finals” in the fight against relegation. But it’s a tough sell, considering the locals barely bother to follow the club even when they are doing well.

"Hello? Is there anybody out there?"

“It isn’t only good fun to come to the stadium when Bayern are here,” promised full-back David Cortés as he called for a good turnout on Sunday.

Quite right, says La Liga Loca. The visit of some knee-knacking, card-collecting, long-ball merchants from Pamplona can be a big barrel of fun, too.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Recreativo (19th) vs Deportivo (7th)

Seventh!

Valladolid (12th) vs Numancia (20th)

One of the sides that La Liga Loca has crossed all its particulars for in the hope that they will be replacing Numancia next season is Rayo Vallecano - simply because the Madrid-based blog is immensely lazy and feels that all teams in la Liga should be based within a 25-minute walk from its front door.

Unfortunately, two recent defeats have been a bit of a setback for the Vallecans, who are currently lying fifth in the Segunda.

They have also been on the receiving end of yet more fines from the Spanish FA, which appears to have it in for the left-leaning rascals from the wrong side of town.

In the past week alone the club has been hit with a 10,000 Euro penalty for “failing to prevent the display of non-flameproof banners in the north stand.”

And that’s on top of the a 4,250 Euro fine for “failing to prevent the introduction of a 50cl beer can onto the pitch.”

In April, Rayo were nailed royally with a sanction of 11,000 Euro for allowing their Ultras to store banners and a megaphone in the stadium. Something that never, ever, ever happens at the Bernabeu and the Vicente Calderón, of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Málaga (8th) vs Racing (13th)

Racing Santander coach Juan Ramón López Muñiz has come up with a novel way of motivating his players to grab three points on Sunday and safety for another season.

“We are working with the idea that there’s a league with just four matches left,” he revealed, “and that the Competition Committee have given us a five-point lead.”

Indeed, it’s an idea so brilliant that La Liga Loca hears that Real Madrid will be proposing it as the official format for la Primera next season.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (10th) vs Sporting (18th)

Rather than run around in the lovely spring sunshine, the Sporting players have opted for closing the curtains, dusting off the projector, donning the silver-foil sunhats and picking out every mistake made by the referee in last Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Athletic.

After playing and rewinding the tape more times that Maniche watching a Mr Kipling advert, Sporting’s Iván Cuellar declared that referee Teixeira Vitienes should be suspended for his poor performance.

“It’s the same that would happen to footballers,” complained the gaffe-prone goalkeeper on the match which saw his side lose their lead in the last minute to their Basque opponents.

Next up on the Sporting cinema will be a study into why CIA-trained seagulls were to blame for the club’s previous six defeats.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Barcelona (1st) vs Villarreal (6th)

Perhaps the biggest losers in Barcelona’s current run are the poor old street-cleaners of the Catalan capital, who are having to renovate the city centre every few days now.

On Saturday, both they and the riot police were out in force to sort out the mess after the victory against Real Madrid. And they were back again on Wednesday after Iniesta’s super strike against Chelsea.

"Sparkling!"

Brooms will be on standby for another busy week with the chance of a league title triumph on Sunday and a Copa del Rey victory a few days later.

La Liga Loca has been told that, should there be a mauling of Manchester United in three weeks' time, plans are afoot for airdrops of bleach over Barcelona.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Atlético Madrid (5th) vs Espanyol (14th)

It’s been Olympic week in Spain’s big smoke with the city on its best behaviour as it presented its bid for the 2016 games to a delegation from the IOC.

And that’s why Forlán, Kun Agüero and Maxi - proud Spaniards to a man - were at the location of their proposed new ground and Olympic Stadium site at 8.30 on Wednesday morning to meet and greet the visiting inspectors.

The international party completed a footballing double by dropping by the Bernabeu later in the day to be greeted by... no-one.

AS reports that Real Madrid captains Raúl, Guti and Salgado had been instructed to come to the gathering at the ground at 17.30.

The trouble was that they were not told this until 12.30, leaving them unwilling to undertake the 10-minute drive from their homes, what with important Playstation business at hand.

LLL Prediction - Away win

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La Liga Talentspotter

What's Catalan for "Have it"?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Poor Paco cut an unfashionable figure tucked away in the corner of his bar in Barcelona.

Puffing away on his ciggies, supping on his cañas, Paco spent 97 minutes of Wednesday night being booed and barracked, hissed at and harassed by the dingy dive’s other proud patrons.

Paco hadn’t insulted the quality of the local bar’s ham, nor had he recommended the occasional wipe-down of the dunnies.

Instead, Paco was the last remaining Chelsea fan in Catalunya, as mentioned in previous La Liga Loca posts. Until Andrés Iniesta’s super-strike, that is.

At that moment, the devastated dropout watched tantrum-filled tiny-tots Ballack and Drogba coming THIS close to beating up the referee with a torrent of whines and whinges. “Nah, I’m done with them,” declared Paco, returning to the non-foreign fold.

"Cheers ref"

“¡Toma!” – “Have it!” – cried his new bar buddies.

“¡Toma! ¡Toma! ¡Toma!” yells the front cover of Sport, on Thursday.

“¡Toma!” echoed the Barça-loving companions of the blog in its local dive - Barça-loving companions from Toledo who only ever watch their team in the Champions League, showing that the Surrey-Manchester United effect is just as common in Spain.

With all the excitement of Iniesta’s moment of genius, it was easy to overlook the somewhat controversial refereeing display when watching the game in Camp Culé.

All that seemed to matter in the end was that a horrible, bus-parking, anti-football, ref-chasing monstrosity of a side had been thwarted in Europe, once again.

And that’s the opinion of the Catalan press, of course, and not La Liga Loca which doesn’t fancying facing the death-threat treatment about to handed out to poor old whistleblower Tom Henning Ovrebo.

"Who in the what now?"

“Football beat anti-football,” trumpets Sport’s Josep Maria Casanovas on a familiar riff.

His colleague Joan Vehils takes delight in yet more scenes of street-dancing, bin-throwing and fire-starting in the Catalan capital to greet the late, late winner – the second time such festivities have been witnessed in just five days.

“This side is so great that we’ve still not won anything but we’ve been a few times to Canaletes now... we can only express ourselves with jumping, shouting, hugging and crying,” giggles the delirious Vehils.

Mundo Deportivo are also running on a ‘justice has been done’ tip, with Santi Nolla grumbling over a Chelsea side that “is obsessed with getting the result, defensive football and muscle against skill, attacking football and the spectacle.”

The penalty claims for Chelsea are largely brushed over in the Barça press, although Sport do touch on the subject with an online poll suggesting that the visitors were given a helping hand by the Norwegian man in the middle.

"PLAY ON!!!"

Marca are less obtuse and note that “Super Iniesta and the referee puts Barça in the final.” However, their lead writer argues that Chelsea got their just desserts in the end.

“It was poor stuff from a team that has cost 500m Euro over the past four years,” scoffs Santiago Segurola.

However, the paper’s main concern on Thursday is the news that former Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón was accused of corruption by two different judges on two different cases on the same day.

AS put the Champions League finalists where they belong, on the front page, but leave it to possible pretend Perico and boring Barça-baiter Tomás Guasch to have a pop at the manner of the Catalan club’s passing.

“The gentlemen who watch over The Rules of The Game decided that there wouldn’t be penalties. But they didn’t tell Chelsea that because they asked for four. Three as big as cathedrals.”

And that’s about the same size as the controversy that will be rumbling through both England and Spain over the next few days as the football world chews over what was a stunningly fun night at Stamford Bridge.

NEWS: Iniesta blockbuster breaks Blues hearts
NEWS: Semi-final hoodoo hits Hiddink again
PHOTOS: Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona
NEWS: Last-gasp goal validates purist approach
NEWS: Pep hero status further enshrined at Barca
NEWS: Drogba likely to suffer ire of UEFA
NEWS: Hiddink: Worst refereeing I've seen

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Moaning masses and Maniche moves on

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:30:00 GMT

La Liga Loca is unsure whether it’s a catastrophic caña-caused comedown from Seville’s annual Feria - which Sergio Ramos definitely, definitely did not attend two days before el Clásico - or reaching a tipping point of grumpiness.

But something has definitely yanked the cranks of Betis fans of late.

Yelling abuse at the squad during training, death threats during matches and bawling out their best players are the latest tactics to have been adopted by barmy Beticos during the side’s latest relegation rumble.

The most recent incident of rancour took place on Tuesday when Emana faced a torrent of taunts from a posse of Spain’s version of White Van Man - mid-40s, moustachioed, belly of pot and face of red.

But it’s not just the club’s three defeats in a row that has got the Betis masses all angry - losses that leaves the side just three points and three places from relegation, but also the realisation that Darth de Lopera, the club’s cuddly owner, isn’t going anywhere. Again.

At the back end of March, there were stories - commented on by the club itself - that the very loaded Emir Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuami of Ajman was in talks to buy out the Andalusian Lord of the Flies.

“It would be amazing if a sheikh bought Betis!” squealed Betis’ website-quoting club president Pepe León.

“Lopera has decided to sell and now it’s in the hands of the Emir,” said the sheikh’s supposed spokesman, Israel Gutierrez de Alba, who posed merrily in the club shop wearing a Betis shirt with ‘Humaid’ on the back.

"Well, Sheikh it up baby now..."

The trouble is that the story turned out to be absolute poppycock and one concocted by the club to turn attention away from their latest on-the-pitch problems, say some suspicious sources.

That’s the opinion of Sport anyway, having contacted a close business partner of the suspected Betis buyer who poo-pooed the whole story. “I called the Emir to congratulate him on the purchase, but he knew nothing about it,” said Rashidi Omrani.

Another club facing a stand-off with supporters are Atlético Madrid, who are crossing every appendage imaginable that the team’s victories against Sporting and Betis will lead to a less hostile atmosphere on Sunday in their Vicente Calderón clash against Espanyol.

“It will be a time to win back the fans,” cooed club president Enrique Cerezo.

Atleti have taken another step to soothing fans' furrowed brows by terminating Maniche’s contract and telling him to pack his oversized suitcases.

The Portuguese midfielder was already serving out a suspension for failing to turn up for the Sporting encounter but is now as free as a very big bird.

“He told the fans to go to Gran Via [instead of the Calderón], failed a roadside breath test and grew fat due to too much nightlife, his natural habitat,” noted AS’s Atleti man Iñako Díaz-Guerra.

The downside to Maniche’s sacking will be the lack of income from his various fines, report El País. “He practically paid our wages,” is the quote the paper gives from one club insider.

"Doh! Dough!"

Both Marca and AS have become even more unreadable than usual this week, with the blog routinely zooming through the first 20 or so pages of absolute pig swill.

Both papers have gone completely doolally in linking every player in the world with Madrid – once the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent Florentino Pérez ascends (bearing in mind the very hot place where he will be travelling from) to the Bernabeu throne in June.

But in a break with recent tradition, it appears that Real Madrid may actually be worth watching next season, not just for the comedy factor but to work out how Wenger / Mourinho / Ancelotti manages a forward line of Kaká, Ronaldo, Silva, Villa, Zlatan, Huntelaar and of course, Raúl.

Lassana Diarra is going to be a very busy man.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 34

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Barcelona

When there are regurgitated guts and glass covering the streets the Catalan capital, you can be sure that it has been a good night for the culé-crazy part of the city.

The 6-2 *rse-handing, humdinger of a thrashing inflicted on Madrid by Barcelona kicked off the mother of all parties in the city, a party which inevitably turned a little bit fruity, as often tends to happen in this particular place.

It was an unexpectedly insane night in the Bernabeu with Barcelona coming to town to show Madrid who really wears the trousers in this year’s title chase.

The league leaders were rocked on two occasions with goals from Higuaín and Ramos, but bounced back almost instantly to make sure that any Real revival was as short-lived as Juande Ramos’ reign.

“A goal-fest! Humiliation! Champions! 2-6!” yelled Sport’s headline on Sunday. Monday’s edition had toned down the excitement a tad with Josep Maria Casanovas declaring that the victory in the Spanish capital was merely “the best moment in Barcelona’s history.”

Barca fans paint the town red (and blue)

Florentino Pérez

Aside from Barcelona, the biggest winner from Saturday’s mauling of Madrid was Florentino Pérez, who is set to announce his candidature for the presidential elections, next week, according to the local press.

And as he makes his way to the podium, there are likely to be representatives from both Marca and AS throwing rose petals before his feet and offering up their daughters as sacrifices.

“Florentino Pérez will come back to rescue Madrid,” gushes Monday’s Marca who has put the insufferably smug-faced figure of their Saviour on the front cover, along with AS. The Pérez propaganda machine is only just warming up.

Sevilla

Back to winning ways after four dumping defeats in a row. The away victory over a completely lost-the-biscuit Villarreal came courtesy of strikes from Kanouté and Fabiano, just the third time the forward pair have both appeared on the scoresheet in la Liga this season.

But the fact that Sevilla are still 18 points behind Real Madrid shows that Manolo Jimenéz’ men are still not much cop, despite their relatively lofty position.

Espanyol

Hells bells. It really does look like La Liga Loca will need to look elsewhere for its second division coverage next season, after Paul from Barcelona witnessed a 3-0 win over Valencia for the plucky Pericos.

“Football’s a strange game. Just over a month ago Espanyol looked doomed, but the way things are going a top-10 finish could be on the cards. Five wins and one draw out of the last six matches. 12 goals for, one against.

"A sunny early evening saw Valencia with a good following (1,300) which begs the question, why this year and not all the others? 34,000 inside the stadium to see a fairly even first-half which ended goaless but with the better chances being created by Espanyol.

"The second half saw Valencia start the stronger but their fans were silent. Is there some Valencian custom about not singing in the second half? But gradually Espanyol got on top and it was no surprise when a rocket shot from Roman gave 'I can't believe he still gets a game' César no chance.

"With Villa shackled by Jarque (not... you know) it was Espanyol who were controlling the game. Then a 30-metre free-kick from Pareja put the result beyond any doubt. And there’s more, Rufete gave the defence the run-around and was fouled in the area. Nené easily scored the penalty.

"So 3-0 against one of the top four who, despite some good movement, didn't really threaten. Villa and Silva particularly poor especially in the second half.

Stray cats 0. Barça fans arrested 5”

Paul, Barcelona

Periquitos dare to dream of avoiding drop

Gregorio Manzano

A 2-1 home win over Getafe puts Mallorca on a more-than-handy 45 points, a total giving the Balearic side another year of top-flight footie.

“Safety is now real and not virtual like last week,” said relieved Mallorca manager Gregorio Manzano, who must be looking to the club’s final four matches against Sevilla, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Villarreal with considerably less stress than before.

Considering the amount of trouble Mallorca was in at the start of the season - both on and off the pitch - with the bailiffs hammering at the gates, Manzano has performed a mini-miracle to lead Mallorca into ninth with just one defeat in their last 13 matches.

Hugo Sánchez

Another coach due a dose of cap-doffing from the blog is Hugo Sánchez, who came to Almería with a reputation as being a poor manager making a living off his reputation as a player.

But 43 points for his side, thanks to a 2-0 win over Racing Santander, means that his previously ridiculous desires to be the bigwig at the Bernabeu one day may not be so far-fetched after all.

Numancia, Recreativo

Two wins against Málaga and Osasuna respectively gives both clubs a *** of light in their dark relegation tunnels of doom.

Diego Forlán

As usual, Atlético’s win over Betis in the De Lopera was a hard-fought one with the normal defensive scrambles and panics at the end.

But an 88th minute strike from Forlán, the rojiblanco striker’s second of the night, means that Atleti can probably return to the Vicente Calderón next week without the need for body armour.

“I’m sure that next Sunday our fans will welcome us with open arms,” predicted manager Abel Resino, pushing his luck somewhat.

Forlan fires home two more

Athletic

A last-minute scrambled effort against Sporting gives Athletic a point, with perhaps just one more needed to give them total security ahead of their Copa del Rey thrashing by Barcelona next week.

Deportivo

43 goals scored. 42 goals conceded. Seventh. (Sigh)

BAD DAY

Juande Ramos

Oh dear. It looks like Real Madrid will be moving onto their (starts counting on fingers) 37th manager in two years this summer. The 4-0 defeat by Liverpool and the small matter of a 2-6 hammering by Barcelona will almost certainly see to that.

Despite a poll in Marca suggesting that 82 percent of readers want Ramos to continue on the bench, the paper is touting Arsene Wenger as Madrid’s next manager, next summer.

Of course, there’s no consideration in the paper as to why someone who is managing a club that actually plays in the Champions League will want to switch to a team governed by an all-powerful president who has the dangerous combination of knowing jack-all about football but thinking he does.

Real Madrid

La Liga Loca probed Christoph Metzelder after the game on whether the defeat to Barça would lead to an end of season collapse for Madrid.

Although the German defender talked up their chances in the final four matches, his well-meaning attempt at a cheery tone did not convince.

Michel

The Getafe manager started his tenure on his latest bench as he means to go on this season - with a defeat.

However, his case certainly wasn’t helped on Sunday with the previously excellent goalkeeper Stojkovic booting the ball straight at Aduriz, who gave Mallorca the second goal in their 2-1 win.

Sporting

Oh dear. Not a good time to pick up the first draw of the season.

Deep into second half injury-time, Sporting were 1-0 up and about to grab three crucial points that would have lifted them out of the relegation mire. But that was before a big old scramble gave Athletic an equaliser.

“Nuts,” growled Manolo Preciado after the match.

"Dry roasted if you've got any..."

Racing

A bad day for Racing with a 2-0 home defeat to Almería, but a good day for one famous fan who returned to the stands to rapturous applause - Seve Ballesteros.

Osasuna

Another team who conceded in the final seconds - a rather embarrassing lapse against Recreativo - leaving Osasuna in all sorts of trouble.

Two points from the drop-zone and facing Getafe, Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid in their final four encounters. Gulp!

Betis

Despite the somewhat ominous banner from the fans declaring “Win or die. Last warning,” the Betis players fell to their third straight defeat.

It’s unlikely that the club will tumble through the trap door but their supporters remain very unhappy bunnies indeed.

Valladolid

608 minutes without scoring a goal. Hard to believe with Víctor, Ogbeche and Goitum in the side’s forward line.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Kitten-Tickling Weekend Predictions - Round 34

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Real Madrid (2nd) vs Barcelona (1st)

It needed to be a whopping story to knock The Pig Plague, political corruption, cash-grabbing mayors and skyrocketing unemployment figures off the front pages of Spain’s papers this week.

But that’s exactly what happened with the alarm-dinging arrival of Europe’s biggest of battles, craziest of clashes and hottest of topics.

The big question being asked by Everyman all over Spain was who has the best bum - the home-grown Princess Letizia or Carla Bruni, the foreign floozy from France-land?

A photograph of the posterior-poking pair was taken as they walked up a flight of steps during a visit from Nikolas Sarkozy and it prompted debate in every oracle from El País to ABC, Spain’s Vatican news daily, over which bottom was the bonniest.

Of course, there is a big game of footie going on as well. And it’s Marca who brought the exclusive news of where the Barcelona and Real Madrid suits will be spending their members’ money on gold-plated ham and the finest wines during the pre-match feast.

The gorge-fest will take place at “one of the capital’s gastronomic sanctuaries” one kilometre from the Bernabeu, giving the less-engorged of the group a fighting chance of rolling their fat bellies towards the ground in time for the big game.

The directors’ wives - heaven forbid they should be allowed anywhere near the Work of Men - will be at another restaurant tickling kittens and cake-baking.

LLL Prediction - Home win

The choice is yours...

Numancia (20th) vs Málaga (7th)

Time is running out for Numancia. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Anything less than a win against Málaga and there will be no more ‘finals’. No more matches to give 120 percent, sweat blood for the fight and go out onto the pitch with knifes between their teeth. Unless a few teams above the Sorian side lose of course, in which case the struggle will continue for another round.

But Numancia manager Pacheta says it will be tough-going against Málaga, as all the rivals in the second half of the season have “tied themselves down with plugs.” Either that or it is an idiomatic expression that neither lies in La Liga Loca’s tiny memory nor in its useless dictionary.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Villarreal (5th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

And so we pass quietly onto the final days of Sevilla manager Manolo Jiménez who, if Marca are to be believed, will be moving to the Vicente Calderón over the summer to be booed by a brand new bunch of supporters.

Four defeats in a row for Sevilla, their worst top flight record, means that Jiménez truly is toast at the Sanchez Pizjuán. But he is set to remain in his place until the end of the campaign at least, claims club Godfather José Maria del Nido.

“Whatever happens in Villarreal, he’ll finish the season,” confirmed the Sevilla president in a half-hearted attempt at a vote of confidence.

Meanwhile, Jiménez himself has spent the week steering between understanding the stadium’s ire - “I, like the fans, would also be very angry with four defeats,” - and indignation over the booing and barracking - “We are third, but if feels more like we are third from bottom.”

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sunday

Mallorca (9th) vs Getafe (17th)

Since the appointment of Michel as coach of Getafe on Monday, two-faced hacks who in private will scoff that the former Madrid man is a managerial waste of space have been praising his hide to the heavens and gone all rapturey over the immediate change he has made at the Coliseum club.

In a report reminiscent of a 1930s BBC Newsreel describing the King of England meeting common people in Plymouth, Friday’s AS gushes over how Michel will ensure survival for the club by making the players walk from the stadium car park to the training ground as opposed to taking their Porches. Yep, that’ll do the trick.

Meanwhile, Javi Casquero, the man who nearly had his head taken clean off by a certain Portuguese defender, has revealed that his aggressor has yet to contact him to apologise for his actions, despite what the Real Madrid man has claimed.

“Pepe hasn’t called me and I’m not expecting him to either,” sniffed the penalty-taking punch bag.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Osasuna (15th) vs Recreativo (19th)

Every week, La Liga Loca likes to predict a match that will be an eye-gougingly awful encounter. A game that could turn wine into wee. And every week the expected shocker turns out to be a 7-6 end-to-end classic.

This week, it is plumping for this particular tie between Osasuna and Recreativo, a relegation rumble where cards will outnumber goals by a ratio of 33-1.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Deportivo (8th) vs Valladolid (10th)

A feisty game of football between two clubs from the north of Spain - a wonderful part of the world where men are men, red hair is acceptable and where wailing, weeping, Flamenco-loving, soft Southern nonciness simply isn’t tolerated.

Except in Miguel Angel Lotina’s case, that is.

The coach at La Coruña is one of the wettest blankets in the west. A man who cried when Espanyol saved themselves on the last kick of the season. A man who blubbed continuously during his short spell at Real Sociedad. And a man who pleaded guilty this week to being the biggest of Basque cry babies.

“The last time I cried?” mused Lotina, “it was a couple of days ago watching how the contestants on ‘OT’ (the Spanish version of Pop Idol that was won last year by the goddess-like La Liga Loca future-wife Virginia) got all emotional and when I saw their families. I’m a big wuss.”

The only tears being shed by the Depor boss on Sunday will be of despair during what, let’s face it, will be an awful encounter.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Lotina wells up

Racing (13th) vs Almería (11th)

Nope. Not even going to attempt a preview on this one.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Sporting (18th) vs Athletic (12th)

Sporting could not have chosen easier opposition for Sunday’s showdown in their attempts to halt their shocking run of 76 defeats and a return to la Segunda.

Having finally pulled their footballing fingers out over the past couple of rounds, Athletic have hauled themselves to within a point or two of survival and have returned to their navel-gazing of the Copa del Rey final.

To give a clue as to the Basque club’s tactics during this much-anticipated cup clash, Marca reports that the Athletic camp have spent much of the week practising penalties.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (16th) vs Valencia (4th)

The ‘look at me!’ screaming and arm-waving Clasico will surely dominate much of the sporting headlines in the latest round of matches. But this enticing encounter between the Pericos and EasyValencia is worthy of a spot on the second-place podium.

One of the 17 people who currently seem to be in charge in Mestalla has been speaking about the club’s ongoing financial foul-up this week, and the chances of holding onto their shining stars over the summer. Or rather, their lack of them.

“It will be tough keeping them, but not impossible,” admitted the club’s VP Sporting Director Fernando Gómez.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Betis (14th) vs Atletico (6th)

One of La Liga Loca’s biggest regrets this season is not making it down to the Vicente Calderón last Sunday to watch the rojiblancos. And that’s genuinely quite ironic as normally the blog’s biggest regret of the campaign is the complete opposite.

Normally, La Liga Loca is there in the stands through wind, rain and rain. But sadly it missed out on the recent clash against Sporting, a clash were the 25,000 fans who turned up spent the 90 minutes sarcastically cheering back passes and chanting “Pernía, Ballon d’Or” at the deservedly-maligned left back.

“I don’t like it when they have a go at anyone,” admonished Maxi during the week.

It seems that the players have been just as undisciplined as the supporters of late with both blog heroes, Maniche and Ever Banega, making the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The portly Portuguese midfielder has been fined 50,000 euro and suspended for 10 days, along with Seitaridis, for failing to turn up for last Sunday’s Sporting encounter. “They don’t offer anything to the team,” grumped manager Abel Resino, who says their presences will not be missed.

Ever Banega, the self-loving sensation, decided to end a week where he spoke at length about wanting a permanent move to the Vicente Calderón by turning up for last Saturday’s opposition study session a little worse for ware.

“He was very late and practically asleep,” said Resino.

La Liga Loca suspects the Argentine adventurer was doing some internet research of his own, the night before.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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La Liga Talentspotter

Respect but revulsion meets Chelsea display

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Mork and Mindy man, Robin Williams, would have been more useful than Pep Guardiola in the Dream Boys’ dressing room on Tuesday night.

What the perplexed players of the Camp Nou needed was a rousing, desk-standing, pecker-inspiring speech about following their dreams, making hay and seizing carp.

And maybe a forceful argument insisting that ‘What Dreams May Come’ is an avant-garde, thoughtful study of guilt and death. And not a load of sentimentalist tosh.

Instead, Messi’s mob may well have received a relentless rant over the lack of referee protection and how it wasn’t fair that they had to play against the most vulgar of sides whose tactics were “Cech-Drogba, Drogba-Cech” as Pep complained after the game.

"To me..."

In the first half of the Champions League encounter, it felt as if Barcelona were close to peeing their pants. Their normal fluid, flowing game was strained, passes were being misplaced and confidence was rock-bottom.

It was only in the final 30 minutes when the likes of Dani Alves and Andrés Iniesta pulled themselves together and went with the lip-stiffening did the side play anything like they have been all season.

Indeed, if it hadn’t been for that pesky Bojan missing an absolute sitter in injury-time, Barça would have had some reward for their work. Instead it was the club’s first goalless draw of the season.

Over 90 minutes, the Barcelona players crashed into more walls than a Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

It was another classic Chelsea display of power and pragmatism and exactly why the club continues to win fans the world over.

Billions spent to produce the kind of performance that a replay-seeking second division side would put up against a top flight club in the FA Cup, as one person noted on a comments board that La Liga Loca read.

However, Chelsea failed to grab an away goal with their one chance on goal and this leaves the Catalan press with hopes of a more successful game in Stamford Bridge next week.

“We will go through!” says Sport’s headline. Inside, all their editorial pieces are respectful of Chelsea’s performance, but fairly scathing.

“Anti-football won,” sighed Josep Casanovas. “It’s sad but Chelsea came not to play football but to not lose.”

“We’ll win in London,” agreed his more feisty colleague Lluís Mascaró, “with the permission of the ref,” he quipped.

It’s an opinion shared by the normally sober El País who complain that “the referee had more respect for the foreign intrusion than the local delicacy.”

"To you..."

Over in Marca-land, there has been as much coverage of the game as a mid-table clash featuring Mallorca. Which is about a page.

After all, if Florentino Pérez isn’t interested in the affair, then nor is Marca. Heaven knows what will happen if Spain’s King of Industry suddenly takes a shine to ‘Lost’.

Eight page pullouts on the programme, probably.

AS half-pretended that the European clash was important to the paper - but only in its relation to Saturday’s Madrid match - with editor Alfredo Relaño writing that “Barcelona did the attacking, but lacked the flourish.”

“The bad dream would have been completed had Jose Mourinho been in Hiddink’s place,” chuckled Fabian Ortiz.

While there seems to be a sense of outrage in the English comment-o-sphere that Chelsea were a gutless, disgrace to the beautiful game, there is more understanding in Spain in response to the English side’s parking-the-bus business.

However, while Chelsea may have won the advantage in the semi-final clash in Spain, they lost what few friends they had left in la Liga.

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Will Munoz and Michel relegate Getafe?

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT

La Liga Loca doesn’t really get on with its neighbours. Or rather, its neighbours don’t really get on with La Liga Loca.

And that’s fair enough considering the blog’s slight sociopathic tendencies and unmistakable musk of mothballs.

But the one happy-shopper who always responded to the blog’s cheerful ‘Cooee!’ of a Madrid morning with a cheery wave was Getafe boss Victor Muñoz, who was resident in a hotel just around the corner from La Liga Loca’s humble abode.

Except the big-chinned chief of the Coliseum won’t be all with the Alan Partridge for much longer. That’s because he has been sacked. And it’s a good thing too, considering La Liga Loca’s warm hand on Muñoz’ entrance had turned into daily shouts of abuse.

Munoz packs his bags

When not reassembling his trouser press or wondering whether to rent that Vin Diesel DVD, Muñoz has spent the last 10 months or so ruining Getafe and turning them from UEFA Cup Goliaths into a relegation-fighting rabble.

If fact, it’s no surprise that Victor did not choose to live someone more permanent, considering it’s the catastrophic coach’s fourth firing in three years having previously been strapped to the ejector seats of Zaragoza, Panathinaikos and Recreativo.

Muñoz now has the dubious honour of being the first manager to be fired by Angel Torres since the club’s angelic ascent into the top flight in 2004 - the others, Quique Sánchez Flores, Bernd Schuster and Michael Laudrup all walked out on the club.

But they were all sacked from their next positions. Which serves them right, quite frankly.

The former Barcelona player was booted out by the Getafe president after the club’s disastrous home defeat to Villarreal on Sunday afternoon.

“I had to make changes to save the team,” explained Torres. “Victor had asked me to give him until the Mallorca game but I noticed that the dressing room was very despondent.”

And this is where La Liga Loca must agree with the Getafe big shot.

Torres has stood by Muñoz throughout the campaign and in the face of poor results, fan protests and complaints from senior players who neither liked nor understood their manager’s tactics.

“The majority had a professional attitude,” noted Muñoz on Monday, revealing that there had been some rumblings in his Coliseum camp.

There are still five games to go and - to borrow a tired old cliché - the club’s destiny is in its own hands.

A new manager has been appointed to lead Getafe to safety through until the end of the season, but this is where the side may be jumping out of the frying pan and into a volcano.

When the name of the caretaker at the Coliseum was announced, a Spanish journalist acquaintance of La Liga Loca immediately started singing “A Segunda!”

That’s because the new man at the helm is Michel. And Michel, for those who don’t know, is rubbish.

Michel during his Madridista days

Michel is the former Real Madrid player who failed to take Rayo Vallecano up from the Segunda B division but became more well known for his natty pink sweaters that he used to sport on the touchline.

Michel is the coach who then took over Madrid’s second team and promptly got them relegated, before eventually moving upstairs where he could cause less damage.

Soon after, he left that position and has been happily insulting his former club from a distance, ever since.

Leading a team with the likes of Gavilán, Polanski, Uche, Soldado and Granero to relegation takes some skill. But the blog fears that’s exactly what Muñoz - and Michel - are about to achieve.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 33

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Real Madrid

Blimey. Madrid could actually win this, a concept La Liga Loca poo-pooed just this weekend with its prediction of a defeat for Juande Ramos’ men.

And this could send Barcelona fans into therapy for decades, not to mention the mental implosion that will take place at Sport, whose offices may simply fold into a shiny singularity like the house in ‘Poltergeist’.

For half an hour, it looked as if Sevilla would be getting their bloodthirsty revenge on their Spurs-swapping boss, the man the crowd waved fake Juande Dollar bills at before the game.

At 1-0 up and playing with the kind of cojones that had been lacking in the matches against Getafe, Valencia and Barcelona, the Andalusian side had Madrid mired in the mud.

But, once again, Real hung on for dear life and grabbed yet another goal just before half-time, the first strike in Raúl’s hat-trick (in a game where he only had three blinkin’ touches).

The show now moves to the Bernabeu next Saturday. A win for Madrid and it’s a 50/50 tight tussle for the title. Real have nasty-looking away matches in Mestalla and el Madrigal, but Barcelona have some business to attend to in a couple of other competitions.

This could be fun.

Three touches, three goals

Barcelona

La Liga Loca is in full on sitting-on-the-fence, cowardly, pleasing all of the people, all of the time, mode on Monday by placing Barcelona in the ‘Good Day’ section too.

As Mundo Deportivo shouted on Sunday’s front page, Pep’s Dream Boys picked up ‘a huge point’ in Mestalla. Sport called the 2-2 a ‘draw that felt like a victory’.

Valencia matched Barcelona’s pace and passing precision for 90 minutes and perhaps deserved the win, especially after the referee ignored Carles Puyol crashing into David Villa, who may perhaps have gone down a little too theatrically.

But the game was exactly the kind of nose-bloodying, sweaty affair that Barcelona needed ahead of the visit of Chelsea on Tuesday night. A proper team, giving them a proper match, unlike sorry Sevilla.

Valencia

It’s amazing what getting paid can do for the motivation of a side.

When the Valencia players’ Porsche repayments were in peril, the men from Mestalla more-or-less downed their footballing tools, despite narked denials that this was the case.

But since the announcement that the club had got their hands on some loot to deal with the deficit, the squad has been firing on all cylinders with five wins from six, a run that has closed the gap on third-placed Sevilla to just one point.

Saturday’s display against Barcelona showed why a whole bunch of us stick our necks out every year and tip Valencia for the title, only to regret it about a fortnight later.

Alvaro Negredo

Not just a goal-scoring Goliath but an assist-maker extraordinaire too. The striker’s double dose of mazy runs led to Almería’s two goals in their victory against Numancia that almost certainly sees them safe for another season.

Espanyol

Another green shoot of hope has been handed to Paul from Barcelona and his beloved Pericos. But will it snap, only to see his dreams dashed on the rapids of... er... reality...?

“A ‘I bet it's going to pee it down during the match’ type of day drew a 30,000 crowd and a fair few from Betis, about 1,500. There's a big Betis Peña in Barcelona and they were out in force.

"So it was mullets a go-go at the start which saw Espanyol take the lead after only four minutes through Luis 'I'll show that Stannard bloke who's rubbish' García.

"With the mercurial De la Peña having a blinder, it was all Espanyol who could and should have scored more. Betis had a penalty appeal turned down when serial whiner Oliveira took a nosedive.

"A different Betis came out for the second half - not literally culés, that would be ridiculous - but a more attacking formation.

"With Espanyol's defence having their best game as a unit in a long time, Betis never really looked like scoring and it was no surprise when Roman put Espanyol two up with a few minutes left.

"Overall, a great performance by Espanyol who never looked like losing against a very average team who seemed toothless - again not literally - in attack despite a feted front line.

"Or were Espanyol's defence so good on the day it made them look bad?

"Stray cats - 0. Working video screens - 0. As Espanyol are leaving Montjuic the council is not bothering to repair anything.”

Paul, Barcelona

Espanyol keep survival hopes alive

Mallorca

The 2-4 win for Mallorca may not have raised too many eyebrows around the world, but it was a whopping win for Mallorca.

With Sevilla, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Villarreal making up four out of five of their last games of the season, the Balearic battlers had to pick up three points against Recre to move them onto 42 before a title-chasing tornado heads in their direction.

Athletic Bilbao

A midweek victory and one more on Sunday against Racing Santander puts the Basque club another step towards the security needed before their Copa del Rey clash with Barcelona.

But that’s not what’s making news in the Spanish press on Monday. Oh no. Instead it’s the dreadful refereeing performance by Gonzalo Vásquez who brought out a record-breaking 18 cards (including five reds) in a match that El País said “didn’t have a nasty knock, nor a kick at a knee, nor an insult, nor a late tackle.”

It needed something special to break the man in the middle’s own personal milestone set in last weekend’s Valencia vs Sevilla clash, when he showed 15 yellows and two reds, but hats off to Gonzalo as he managed it in Bilbao.

Atlético Madrid

AS noted soberly that a win was badly needed by Atleti to prevent some kind of Bastille-storming scenario, but that’s exactly what they managed with a comfortable 3-1 win over Sporting.

But this did not stop the fans from fuming after the capitulation against Racing, just three days previously.

The rojiblanco players were booed during the warm-up, booed when their names were read out and booed during the game, as well as olé-cheering when the defenders managed to successfully pass to each other.

But sharing the Calderón ire was club president Enrique Cerezo, who tutted after the match that “when I go to a ground, I go see a game of football, not listen to the shouts of a section of the public.”

La Liga Loca says go to a different ground next time then, you clown.

BAD DAY

Victor Valdés

The Barcelona keeper was flapping so much on Saturday night he nearly took off. And you can bet yer bunnies that Chelsea were taking notes.

"Keeper's ball... er, hang on, no you deal with it Carlos"

Sporting

It’s now six defeats in a row for Sporting, the last of which being the 3-1 defeat in the Vicente Calderón. “We’re on a super bad run,” noted the growling manager Manolo Preciado.

Numancia, Recreativo

It looks like at least two of the relegation spots have been fixed after a double dose of defeat for the down-in-the-dumps duo.

Numancia came a cropper against Almería to leave them on 28 points, while Recreativo suffered a disastrous home defeat to Mallorca which now requires the Huelvan side to pick up four wins from five to stay up.

“We know what it takes to win in this division,” said Recreativo boss Lucas Alcaraz, announcing that his team had not given up all hope just yet.

Sevilla

The club had done their very bestest to ensure a victory for the side off the pitch, but could do little to guarantee a win on it.

Local bars had been encouraged to charge just a euro for tapas and beer before the match, to help warm the supporters up.

In La Liga Loca’s experiences at the beery, cheery Sánchez Pizjuán, such encouragement is rarely needed.

Unfortunately for the singing supporters, Sevilla ran out of puff after just half-an-hour and have now lost four league matches in a row, the club’s worst ever record in the top flight.

Sevilla slump again

Osasuna

Just one point from the last three games means that Osasuna still need two more victories to stay up in their last five games. Three of those will be against Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

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La Liga Talentspotter

The Fairly Angry Weekend Predictions - Round 33

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Málaga (6th) vs Deportivo (8th)

Now La Liga Loca must start Friday’s ramblings by apologising to Málaga and Deportivo - well, Málaga, anyway - for hijacking their section which should be a joyous dedication to two plucky teams chasing Europa League dreams, etc.

But it must draw attention to Marca’s story on Friday concerning the profile of its typical reader who turns out to be male, between 25 and 44-years-old and from a middle / upper-middle class background.

However, it does not give a profile of the paper’s editor, Eduardo Inda. But La Liga Loca’s own survey can help there - loathsome, cowardly, cheap, nasty and seemingly happy to do anyone’s bidding if the price is right.

On Thursday, a one page editorial from the man himself attacked Ramón Calderón - who was portrayed in a cartoon with red eyes and hands dripping in oil - for choosing TV channel Al Jazeera to air the latest edition of his ‘vendetta’ against Inda’s precious club.

The paper’s editor wrote that it was a disgrace that the ex-president chose a forum that “systematically transmits the nauseating videos of (Osama Bin Laden) the most wanted terrorist of all time,” and attacked those who suggested the station was ‘integrationist’ for offering an alternative viewpoint to the likes of CNN.

Mr Inda. You sir, are an idiot. A really big one.

This particular terrorist mouthpiece also airs the international version of Real Madrid’s television station and was recently given exclusive interviews with Raúl and Iker Casillas.

Is there really nothing you won’t say or do to get Florentino Pérez elected? No depths you won’t sink to? La Liga Loca cannot wait to find out.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (14th) vs Numancia (20th)

Now that they are stuck at the bottom of the table and destined for a swift return to la Segunda, Numancia are tired of being the referee's butt-monkeys and are speaking out against what they perceive to be a season-long campaign against them, a campaign that contributed to the team’s 20 defeats.

“Whenever referees take our games, they laugh in our faces,” complained midfielder Txomin Nagore.

And that’s a fine fantasy if you ignore the fact that Numancia got to play the 10 men of Athletic Bilbao for much of Tuesday night’s encounter, but still ended up losing.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Barcelona (1st)

Andrés Iniesta’s second minute opener against a truly sorry Sevilla may have kicked whatever stuffing was left in Real Madrid’s title-chasing cushions.

Or so says professional substitute Christoph Metzelder, the one Whites player who was delighted to watch Pepe going postal.

“I sat down in front of my TV to watch the game and two minutes later I wanted to turn it off,” said the German defender looking back at the Getafe clash. Sorry, the Barcelona vs Sevilla match.

Joan ‘Joan’ Laporta, for one, is someone who is living every kick of the title chase at the moment.

Well, that’s the reason he gives for last weekend’s giant huff when he stormed from the Getafe presidential balcony at the end of the game as only Laporta can when he has a big old bee in his bonnet about something.

“This kind of football makes it hard to keep a lid on the excitement,” explained the Barcelona president. What odds on his trousers coming off, once again, between now and the end of the season?

LLL Prediction - Draw

Sunday

Getafe (16th) vs Villarreal (5th)

Despite doing their level best to sulk their way through Thursday night’s encounter against Recreativo, Villarreal scraped a 2-1 win thanks to what AS are describing as a ‘zombie goal’ from Cani.

Apparently, that’s the term that kids today are using for a ‘goal’ that may or may not have crossed the line.

Thankfully, this is unlikely to launch a time-consuming argument over the use of video technology in the game in Spain, considering those running the sport have yet to get round to fixing the time of next weekend’s Real Madrid vs Barcelona clash - a match that La Liga Loca hears is of some interest to people around the world.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (19th) vs Mallorca (10th)

La Liga Loca must admit that it gave up half-way through Mallorca’s televised encounter with Valladolid. There’s only so much fun a blog can take watching what was an awful, goalless draw between two mid-table sides.

But La Liga Loca was punished by its impatience by missing out on two strikes from Mallorca striker Alhassane Keita.

The Guinean, who came to the club last summer promising 20 goals, has now racked up three which should leave the Balearic side as very much the one to watch over the last six rounds of action.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valladolid (9th) vs Osasuna (15th)

It seems that Osasuna may be in a spot of bother after their Wednesday night mash-up with Málaga.

The three red cards for the home side as well as the dismissal of manager José Antonio Camacho sparked the notoriously volatile crowd into life with a barrage of objects being thrown onto the pitch.

The referee’s report advises that Málaga’s Albert Luque was struck by an object and that the linesman was hit by a coin as he left the field at the end of the game.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Athletic (13th) vs Racing (11th)

After giving their fans - and the blog - a relegation scare for a while after a period of poor performances, Racing took advantage of the visit of the softest touches in la Liga, Atlético Madrid, to issue a 5-1 spanking to their opponents and move the club to within one or two points of safety.

And it’s all thanks to little Pedro Munitis, who wafted in two free-kicks that caused chaos in the Atleti box and plopped in Racing’s fourth - a truly exquisite chip.

“It was a magical night,” sighed the former Real Madrid front man, wiping away a tiny tear.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (18th) vs Betis (12th)

Surely, Espanyol cannot lift themselves out of their mess, like a powerlifting patient in an English care home?

They may have grabbed three goals on Thursday night to ease past Sporting in Gíjon. But it is set to be a very different matter on Sunday with the visit of Betis, a tough team with everything still to play for and.... and... the blog’s not fooling anyone is it?

LLL Prediction - Big home win

Sevilla (3rd) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

While Pepe goes off to think long and hard about what he has done and perhaps considers rugby as a future career - after all, it’s a sport where stud-raking and trying to boot people’s heads into the stands is fair game - Madrid must take the trip down south to take on Sevilla, a side who may or may not fancy trying to win this game.

After the scenes of violence at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night - especially the sadly overlooked dustup between Cata Díaz and Marcelo, the most unfortunate mismatch since Maniche sat on a picnic stool - there could well be more fireworks on Sunday night according to Christoph Metzelder in an interview with AS.

“Sevilla are going to be going out with a knife in their bags, no doubt,” predicted the defender.

La Liga Loca is unsure if it is the accessories on a field of play or the lethal weapon that the Spanish authorities are going to be most troubled by.

Could go either way. A bit like the game.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Atlético Madrid (7th) vs Sporting (17th)

Now La Liga Loca doesn’t like snorting ‘told you so’ in response to Atlético’s 5-1 thrashing by Racing Santander on Thursday night, but it is going to anyway.

Told you so.

In the most predictable, explosive climax seen since Ever Banega got his right hand back after three months in plaster, the Atlético Madrid players promised ‘seven finals left, Champions League, all in it together, giving our all, etc’ and came up ever so slightly short in el Sardinero.

“They approached the game as if it was a friendly,” wrote Marca, giving the team an underhand compliment.

“We know that everything looks dark now but perhaps it won’t be on Sunday,” said rojiblanco boss Abel Resino, who is already looking forward to Sunday night’s home tie in front of some happy home fans.

LLL Prediction - Home win

You can catch Tim Stannard - the only man paler than Andres Iniesta - on pundit duty on RMTV’s Extra Time, broadcast 22.05 Friday night on Sky Digital channel 446 and repeated over the weekend.

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La Liga Talentspotter

Barça fire rude response to Real Madrid

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:30:00 GMT

Like a date with La Liga Loca, Barcelona’s encounter with Sevilla was only fun for two minutes. But at least the fans didn’t walk off promising to call the next day.

Two minutes was how long it took for Pep’s Dream Boys to post their single-finger response to Real Madrid’s fist-waving fury from the previous night.

Two minutes was how long it took for Barça’s hero of the hour, Andrés Iniesta, to smack a shot past the hapless Javi Varas in the Sevilla goal.

Two minutes was how long it took for everyone in Spain to switch over to watch Desperate Housewives. Or, for those treasonous types, Manchester United’s Premier League clash with Portsmouth.

On Wednesday night, Sevilla showed just how truly average and uninspiring they have become under Manolo Jiménez, the man who took over the club’s reins from Juande Ramos.

Getafe had an excuse or two for barely having a touch in their Coliseum clash on Saturday night: they’re not very good and are being managed by Victor Muñoz.

But Sevilla have no such fallback position for the four goals conceded, or the two shots in response that was their wonderful night’s work.

Jiménez admitted that “we were infinitely inferior to them” and bleated that “you have to be perfect to beat them.”

You have to at least try to beat them, huffs La Liga Loca to a manager who waved the white flag from the off by leaving Freddie Kanouté on the bench.

Manolo eschews the option of brown trousers

Sport’s headline notes that “Who laughs last laughs longer,” while the considerably less literate Mundo Deportivo - the paper that communicates in grunts and clicks - yells ‘Superstar!’ at Iniesta.

“Barcelona are unstoppable,” opines Sport’s Josep Maria Casanovas. “La Liga will not be lost, despite certain referees.”

And Josep is probably correct in his assumption, considering there are just six games to go and Madrid have to face Sevilla in the Sánchez Pizjuán without Pepe, Sneijder, Robben and Higuaín (pending an appeal).

Elsewhere on Wednesday night, Osasuna found themselves suffering at the hands of a life-risking referee in Pamplona in their clash against Málaga.

The relegation-battling Basques were punished with the softest of penalties in the opening minutes before losing three more players and their manager in a game where the man in the middle seemed to quite enjoy himself – unlike the furious white-hankie/plastic bag-waving fraternity who watched their team crash to a 2-3 home defeat.

Osasuna fans: "May we have a word?"

Elsewhere, David Villa struck twice to beat Betis 2-1 at home in a match where Unai Emery claimed “the second half was ours” but where opposition coach José Maria Nogúes felt that “the second half was more open.”

And Deportivo beat Almería.

Thursday night sees what uncharitable types would describe as the runt of la Liga’s midweek fixtures. In the 10pm kick-off against Valladolid, Mallorca are hoping to see their crowd reach double figures.

“The other day, Arsenal's Alex Song told me that we are the only league you watch in bed when you go to sleep,” joked Mallorca striker Pierre Webo on the preposterous start time.

Meanwhile, two bald men fight over a comb in Gíjon as Sporting take on Espanyol. Atlético are set for another dazzling away day defeat, this time against Racing Santander, while Villarreal will continue to show indifference to la Liga with a narrow, scrapping win over Recreativo.

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One-man Madrid keep up pressure on Barca

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

It was like putting up with nine hours of Jacqui Smith, only to be rewarded by seeing her being blasted into space, Emperor Ming style.

The first half of the clash against Getafe at the Bernabeu was awful. Dire. Possibly the worst since the last league game at Real Madrid’s home.

The second saw the Bernabeu rocking and swaying like Maniche in a tree house and brought back memories of the famous 4-3 win against Espanyol two seasons ago - a match where a certain Gonzalo Higuaín first performed his championship-saving heroics and Fabio Capello came dangerously close to expressing an emotion aside from strop and grump.

Gonzo rescues Real... for a change

Real Madrid went into the break in Tuesday’s game drawing 1-1, after a thoroughly undeserved late first-half strike from the Argentine striker levelled the score in a match that a rubbish Roberto Soldado should have finished off, many times over.

But then Getafe continued to be a thorn in Madrid’s side with a breakaway effort that Albín buried with some aplomb. Whatever that means. With the Bernabeu feeling that their title toast had been well and truly burned, Guti equalised with a thumping free-kick.

Minutes later, Pepe brought down Javier Casquero in the Madrid box and proceeded to go Goodfellas on his Getafe backside by kicking lumps out of the midfielder.

The referee’s report notes that he proceeded to yell insults at the match officials as he was dragged off the pitch, only to reappear to celebrate Higuaín’s dramatic winner.

“I know that I made a mistake and must be punished,” admitted the blubbing Portuguese defender after the game. “He should be banned for 10 games,” stormed Angel Torres, the unforgiving Getafe president.

Casquero, perhaps still suffering from concussion, decided to chip Casillas for the subsequent penalty. It didn’t work. And with seconds on the clock, Higuaín charged into the opposition box to blast the ball past the excellent Stojkovic in the Getafe goal. Cue bedlam.

And cue an uncharacteristically industrious La Liga Loca heading to the Bernabeu backrooms armed with stun gun to snare the Dutch duet of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and the returning Royston Drenthe.

“I couldn’t believe it!” gushed a very hyper (for the Dutchman) Huntelaar. “It was a match where you think ‘ah sh*t, we’re going to lose’.”

Pepe: Sent off

Drenthe celebrated his return to the Bernabeu after a three-month absence by picking up a booking within seconds. But it was all part of a cunning plan, revealed the Dutch midfielder.

“I spoke to my father before the game. We said that if I enter the match, then I have to go in hard. Even if you get a yellow card, they know that Royston is back,” growled Drenthe.

Admitting that sleep was going to be tough that night, the Madrid man took time out to heap more praise on Higuaín. “He can be incredible in the most difficult of moments.”

Even Sport, over in Barcelona, found the match intriguing with Josep Maria Casanovas writing that “it was a final of shocks with laughs and tears.”

However, the paper is not getting too carried away with the affair and focuses its attention on Wednesday’s visit of Sevilla when “we are all playing” which may not be impressive as it sounds considering the usual attendance for midweek Barca games at 10pm.

While most of the Sevilla squad are preparing for a journey to the Camp Nou, the goalkeeper for the encounter, Javi Varas, is apparently expecting a trip into the valley of death. Or rather his mother is.

“She has been to La Macarena to light candles for me,” revealed the fearing-no-evil Sevilla man who is standing in for the suspended Andres Palop.

In Tuesday’s other game, Athletic did themselves a huge favour with a 2-1 away win to a now very doomed Numancia. But it was no thanks to defender Aitor Ocio whose fortnight has gone very Pete Tong.

Having been sent off against Osasuna two rounds ago, the Athletic stopper returned to the line-up only to score an own goal within nine minutes and be given his marching orders not long after with two swift yellows.

Wednesday sees Osasuna ‘entertaining’ Málaga in the Dick Cheney sense, Deportivo ‘entertaining’ Almería in the Spanish sitcom sense, while Betis are looking for a third win on the spin at home to Valencia.

The Mestalla men have been full of remorse all week, with both David Villa and Joaquín apologising for their unfortunate behaviour during Sunday’s 3-1 win against Sevilla.

Villa: Strops off

The two players were substituted in the victory and both players let their angry feelings known to Unai Emery. However, the pugnacious pair subsequently remembered that the hard-lining Valencia manager carried his childhood hobby of burning ants with a magnifying glass into adulthood and sought his forgiveness.

“I thought the doctor has ordered the substitution,” said Villa as motivation for losing his rag.

“I was breast-fed till the age of seven!” confessed Joaquín. About three years ago.

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Lazy Liga wakes up for midweek mayhem

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Those go-getting fast-trackers running the Spanish league gave a good four days notice to the plebs and players of when they would be in footballing action this week, so everyone had better be ready.

Incidentally, La Liga Loca would love to know how mild-mannered Sir Alex Ferguson would react to having to wait until Thursday morning to find out whether he would be playing a match the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

The blog imagines that a taxi to the league’s HQ and a chainsaw would form part of the measured response.

"I'll be back... with reinforcements"

For just the second time this season, la Liga is in midweek action with yet more dodgy refereeing decisions, rubbish red cards, god-awful 1-0 wins for Real Madrid and family friendly 10pm kick-off times on a Thursday night.

Tuesday sees two of the 10 games kicking off with Real Madrid at home to Getafe in yet another enthralling encounter that should see 80,000 people quickly regretting not having stayed at home to watch Liverpool take on Arsenal.

One player who completely forgot that there was a midweek encounter was Julien Faubert, who chose to stay in bed on Sunday and missed the morning’s training session. La Liga Loca is still unsure of how anyone noticed his absence.

The Frenchman is set to be fined with Juande Ramos commenting that his waste-of-money winger “thought it was a free day as normal.”

The speculation in the Madridista press is on whether Raúl’s booty will be parked on the bench for the game. But only because he is such a key player in the final run-in and needs his rest. And not because he has been really rubbish of late. Oh no.

AS come nearest to heresy in the Spanish capital with editor Alfredo Relaño noting that the Madrid captain has yet to score against Getafe and that he may not have the chance to do so again after tonight.

“A new era is coming with new players and it’s difficult to guarantee that he will keep his status (as sporting director)” writes the number one AS, who is probably angling for an interview with the Madrid number seven, rather than expressing an actual, valid opinion.

Marca are in two minds about Raúl’s role in the Getafe game. The official review has him starting the encounter but the accompanying caption has him sitting firmly on the bench. Nothing quite like covering all the bases.

"Well don't leave me here on tenterhooks..."

The paper’s craziest columnist, Roberto Gómez, is still suffering his punishment for having raided the office cookie jar one time too many.

It’s a punishment that sees his witterings cut down in size and poked away in a dusty corner of the paper. In response, Gómez has spent the past fortnight calling for the renewal of Juande Ramos’ contract and that the spirit in the Madrid camp has never been better.

“The little faces of Salgado, Guti, Codina, Faubert, Javi Garcia and Parejo were a poem,” sniffled Gómez on the moment when Ramos announced his squad for the away match to Recre last weekend. “They all wanted to go.”

The midweek round of matches gives another excuse for both lazy players and press alike to ramble on about there being eight/seven/six finals left until the end of the season.

Except in the footballers’ case when the ‘final’ is lost. Then it is the next game that is the real final. Unless that is lost, and so on.

Speaking of losing, Athletic Bilbao play “their final in Soria” according to Marca by travelling to play little old Numancia on Tuesday night.

The bottom of the table side are also facing a final where “the league is at stake,” according to manager Pacheta.

However, after just one win in 10, Athletic cannot get any worse and should more or less condemn Numancia to la Segunda with a cheeky away win.

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La Liga Talentspotter

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 31

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Ever Banega

For an hour or so, it looked like being the 13th consecutive season that poor old Atleti would fail to win on their special ‘Day of the Fans’.

It looked like going the same way of the ‘Day of the Children’ the fortnight before, an event that saw thousands of new Real Madrid supporters being formed after a 4-2 home defeat to Osasuna.

But then the on-loan-from-Valencia, 20 million euro man Ever Banega came quickly off the bench, had a frenzied five minutes, rose to the occasion and exploded into action with a strike on the hour mark to give the rojiblancos a 1-0 lead.

The Ever reliable Banega

Opponents Numancia had a perfectly good equalising goal disallowed before Atlético wrapped up the tie with two more efforts and a famous victory.

“The Calderón had begun to think the worst, another fiesta and another fiasco,” commented AS, but it was alright on the night and a win to keep Atleti on track for another crushingly disappointing end of season run-in.

Barcelona

As one panicking, perspiring Barcelona fan noted on the blog over the weekend, it was a nervy second half against Getafe on Saturday night. But it really shouldn’t have been.

Having restricted the home side at the Coliseum to about two chances on goal during the entire encounter, Barça had penalties, goals, declarations of independence all turned down by the referee who, let’s not forget, has been instructed to hand the Catalan club the league title, according to Marca.

La Liga Loca had felt a draw in its waters in this tie, not because of the inferiority of Barcelona, but because of the notion that sod’s law would eventually catch up with Pep’s Dream Boys and some footballing punk like Getafe would get lucky one day.

Out of all Barcelona’s wins this season, the 1-0 drubbing of Getafe may well have given Pep Guardiola the most pleasure.

The downside is that a day-long strike by the workers of TV station, Telemadrid, meant that La Liga Loca was deprived of seeing what the most outrageously anti-Barcelona presenters of their Sunday night football show would have to say about the refereeing decisions.

El Pais were on hand to point out the good side to the blackout noting that the blank screen was “the best programming the channel has produced in years” and that viewers were spared “the systematic insults to our intelligence” that Telemadrid normally trots out.

Real Madrid

As ever, La Liga Loca has nothing original to say on Real Madrid’s result this week. Nothing different to what even the most barmy of Bernabeu fans are feeling.

Yes, 15 wins from 16 is incredible and yes, equalling the record of seven away victories on the trot is also a fantastic feat. But hells bells, does it have to be so dull to watch?

“The definition of minimalism,” complains Juanma Trueba in AS. “They’ve found a way of winning games and it doesn’t deviate a minute from the script,” notes Marca’s Santiago Segurola.

However, it is the paper’s editorial from Sunday that the blog has to agree with - something that makes it feel very uncomfortable indeed - and its opinion that “it’s a shame they’re not playing well... because they’re making history.”

Business as usual for Real

Alvaro Negredo

While Madrid are set to blow a good 60 million or so on either Kaka or Cristiano Ronaldo this summer - players who are by no means guaranteed to reach the 25 goal mark in la Liga - the club already has access to player who can achieve that feat, but for considerably less money.

In fact, for 4.5 million euro Real Madrid can invoke a buy-back clause on Almería’s Alvaro Negredo, a player who scored 13 league goals for what was a newly promoted club last year and is currently on 19 for the southern side.

Indeed, 15 of those goals came from open play - the same tally as David Villa - and six were headers. That’s six more than Higuaín, Raúl, Huntelaar and Robben have managed all season.

However, such a deal would probably make far too much financial sense for those at Castle Greyskull to contemplate. Negredo grabbed two more strikes on Sunday in a 2-1 win over Osasuna that lifts Almería seven points clear of the drop-zone.

Espanyol

As Christmas is just around the corner, let’s be charitable and keep up the pretence that Espanyol will pick up the 13 points needed over the final seven games to stay up. Here’s Paul from Barcelona.

"Well, not a bad day's work but the omens were not good.

"Three-year-old match-day mascot David Edwards didn't want to go on the pitch with the team, probably scared by the Jolly Green Giant until someone pointed out that he wasn't the smallest person out there. So, after towering over Munitis and Pereira the match was able to get underway.

"Racing, from here on known as 'The Flying Elbows' had their five minutes of dominance and then it was one-way traffic. Espanyol took charge of the game and should have gone in ahead at half-time.

"Second half, Espanyol charged head-first into Racing and were met with yet more elbows. They went ahead after a Nene free-kick was headed in by Ivan Alonso.

"Espanyol could have scored more and only really looked like throwing it away in the last five minutes. More due to nerves than anything Racing tried. So, overall, a totally deserved three points against a 'not as poor as Depor but not far off it' Racing.

"Espanyol to stay up if they play like that again whereas Racing are doomed if they keep playing like that.

"Stray cats - 0. Inappropriately placed crash barriers - 37.”

Paul, Barcelona.

Pablo Hernández

To help silence the screams in La Liga Loca’s head at night and bring forth sleep, it likes to imagine Valencia’s line-up next season, once everything of any value has been flogged.

The forward line currently consists of Zigic and Mata up front, with Vicente on the left and plucky Pablo Hernández on the right. Joaquín’s replacement is still a relative newbie to la Liga but returned to the club he began at after a season with Getafe.

However, every time Pablo has played for the Mestalla men he has earned his corn - especially considering the corn has been fairly scarce of late.

The right midfielder joined the fight against Sevilla in the second half and was on hand to finish a breakaway move in injury-time as cool as a cucumber. Pablo could be playing a key role in next season’s EasyValencia - the world’s first low-cost club.

Hernández wraps up victory for Valencia

Betis

If his arthritis wasn’t so severe, the 217-year-old Paco Chaparro would have been kicking himself furiously on Sunday night. Along with most of his squad.

Betis have now picked up two wins from two in the matches since poor Paco was handed his papers. The second was down to two strikes from Emana, who has now grabbed four in two to ensure firstly that Betis are in the top flight next season and more importantly that he won’t be there with them.

Deportivo

Despite their best efforts, a lucky late strike from Pablo Alvarez gives Deportivo their first win in five.

BAD DAY

Raúl

AS plonked the Real Madrid captain in their own Bad Day section for his performance against Recreativo and gave him a spanking with no marks. Marca awarded him two out of three.

Racing Santander

As Paul from Barcelona pointed out, Racing were less than impressive on Sunday - but that’s been the case for a while now with the club managing just two wins from 11. But seeing as they were against Numancia and Sporting, they don’t really count.

Before the defeat to Espanyol, Racing were on 36 points but a tempting 9/1 to go down, due to them quietly going about their business of being bad.

Those odds may be a little bit shorter today.

Sporting

La Liga Loca may have to change tack in its relegation predictions. A couple of weeks ago, it felt that Recre would be a dead-cert to go down. But the Huelvan side has shown some blood and guts in the recent matches against Sevilla, Barça and Real Madrid. Admittedly they lost them all.

But it’s a lot more than Sporting are currently serving up considering their recent record currently reads LLLLWWLLLL. The latest of these ‘L’s was Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Betis in another flop of a performance and another failure to secure a draw.

“We’re going to stay up, I’m convinced,” claimed Manolo Preciado after the game. La Liga Loca is not so sure. But it hopes it is wrong and that la Primera’s finest fans will be back again next season.

Athletic Bilbao

La Liga Loca has a fine Athletic supporting friend that likes to routinely blame their constant defeats on unfair red cards, turned-down penalties and mind control machines controlled from Castle Greyskull.

But he may be lost for words on Monday after what was down-to-earth blind luck against Deportivo in a 1-0 home defeat. Athletic really shouldn’t be four points off the drop-zone, but they are.

Any Copa del Rey victory in May could be very sour indeed if their current awful run continues.

Giuseppe Rossi

A missed penalty for the Villarreal man means that he has not scored in la Liga since the middle of February - a crisis mirrored by his side who have not mustered a league strike for three rounds now.

England-based colleagues suspected that Villarreal were flimsy up front in the Big League from what they saw in the ties against Arsenal. The blog argued otherwise, but perhaps it was wrong to do so?

Rossi: "Drat"

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The Living for Betis Weekend Predictions - Round 31

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Saturday

Getafe (14th) vs Barcelona (1st)

A light-headed La Liga Loca has to confess that it has been rubbing its hands on its cockles all week. But has always washed them after.

After a month of unrelenting tedium at the top of the table, things are about to get sexy and sensational in Spain. And that’s because the glorious wrecking ball of Getafe is now swinging merrily into action.

Despite having been fairly pants for much of the year, the Coliseum club has a more than decent record against Spain’s big two, having beaten Madrid and drawn against Barça already this season and caused no end of headaches for the sides in the past.

AS promises that the Coliseum will be a ‘cauldron’ - it won’t - and the Getafe players are claiming that the match ain’t gonna be no barn dance for the visitors.

Meanwhile, the Camp Nou club has denied stories that the much-anticipated match will be beamed live to fans in the Catalan capital using Andrés Iniesta’s forehead as a screen.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Atlético Madrid (6th) vs Numancia (19th)

Even when they are not losing at home to Osasuna, the rojiblancos remain a highly entertaining club.

This week, the papers have been poking through the side’s summertime transfer targets, although a lot still depends on what level of European competition they will be playing in next season.

AS claim that the Calderón club will be making a 20 million euro grab for David Silva - and offering several sessions of hypnosis - to persuade the Valencia man to ignore the advances of Juventus, Real Madrid and Liverpool and play down the same flank as Pernía.

Raising the chuckle stakes even further, Marca reveal that Atleti’s sporting director Jesús Pitarch had dinner with former Zaragoza tearaway Andrés d’Alessandro, now at Porte Alegre, realising that the club did not have enough dressing room chaos going on already.

Maniche, for one, is almost certainly going to have his cakes and eat them somewhere new next season and boasted to the press that: “I have the chance to go back to putting on the shirt of a big club.”

An XXL shirt, of course.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Athletic (15th) vs Deportivo (8th)

In an effort to channel another 5-4 epic encounter, La Liga Loca is tipping this tie to be an absolute stinker.

Ever since reaching 43 points, Deportivo have apparently given up the ghost and gone on strike. And that’s not overly surprising since most of the side are out of contract this summer.

Meanwhile, Athletic have been saving their cherry like an overeager evangelist for May’s Copa del Rey final.

The arrival of the semi-final stage of the competition left Athletic as limp as lettuce with the club having managed just one win in nine games - a rubbish run that leaves them just four points above the drop zone.

LLL Prediction - Draw

Málaga (7th) vs Mallorca (12th)

Málaga’s rather handy 0-2 win over Villarreal last weekend has set things up nicely for a bull run at next year’s Europa League (La Liga Loca feels so silly writing that name).

But even the Champions chase is not such a crazy dream should Villarreal give up, Valencia fail to pay their players again and Atleti carry on being Atleti.

Either way, Málaga president Fernando Sanz is already getting giddy over away trips to the Ukraine next season. “It would be magnificent to play in Europe,” confirmed the owner’s son as he searched for the word ‘suitcase’ and ‘incentive’ in his Russian-Spanish dictionary.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Recreativo (18th) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

After months of tense excitement, the date of Florentino Perez’ glorious coronation has been set.

And it’s June 17 - meaning that one lucky so-and-so who is Spanish, been a ‘socio’ for 10 years, has nine people willing to serve as directors, 57 million euro and the support of both Madridista papers in the bag can become the new King of Castle Greyskull!

Unlike previous presidential polls, a third party firm will be running the show with no involvement from anyone in the club, boast Marca, who therefore imply that Madrid’s employees are so corrupt or incompetent that they cannot be trusted to run the election themselves.

Incidentally, for those watching the game on La Sexta in Spain, feel proud that the station’s undying dedication to the footballing cause means that their 10pm Super Saturday, Big Live Match is commentated on from a small booth in the station’s headquarters in the south of Madrid, rather than the stadium itself.

LLL Prediction - Away win

Sunday

Valladolid (9th) vs Villarreal (5th)

As the blog reported on Thursday, Villarreal’s comprehensive exit from the Champions competition led to the annual investigation into why the English are lauding over la Liga.

In Friday’s edition of Marca, the papers director Eduardo Inda cites money and physical superiority as the two main causes. And certainly not the hopeless organisation of the game in Spain - organisation which meant that the upcoming midweek round of matches were scheduled just four days before some are due to kick off.

Instead, the paper has praised the leadership of the running for re-election as president of the league, José Luis Astiazarán, and chosen to ignore the organisation’s refusal to tackle match-fixing, their overseeing of clubs going into bankruptcy, players not being played and a destructive media fist fight.

“The balance of the leader of the LFP could not be more positive,” gurgled Tuesday’s editorial, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the back-scratching fact that Astiazarán is siding with the paper’s holding company in the Great TV War.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Almería (16th) vs Osasuna (11th)

Over the past week, Alvaro Negredo has dropped one or two hints that he fancies a move away from Almería and to England’s green and pleasant pastures.

“Clearly every footballer wants to play there,” noted the striker pointing desperately to himself and ignoring David Villa. “Personally, the team I most like is Chelsea.”

The club who has Negredo’s Stamford Bridge dreams in their hands is not Almería, but Real Madrid who have a 4.5 million euro buy-back clause on their ex-striker should he ever leave his current club.

However, their intentions may be to use him as a counter weight in a deal to bring either Villa or Silva from Mestalla, leaving poor old Alvaro stuck in the back waters of la Liga.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Espanyol (20th) vs Racing (10th)

“I’ll swap not playing another minute and Espanyol staying up,” declared Perico forward Luis García. Espanyol fans would argue that the two situations are directly linked.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Valencia (4th) vs Sevilla (3rd)

Everything is rosy in Valencia’s garden once again!

The players have finally been paid the 15 million euro owed to them since February. Correction - the players have been paid 20 percent of the money owed to them since February, with the remainder to come any day now, promises the club.

Carlos Marchena, for one, is towing the party line by declaring that he is not rushing to the cashpoint to look for his loot. “I don’t need to go to my bank account, their word is enough,” said the defender showing himself to be either dumb or gullible. Or a magic combination of the two.

LLL Prediction - Home win

Betis (13th) vs Sporting (17th)

While the proposed buy-out of Betis by Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid al-Nuaimi appears to have gone very quiet indeed - La Liga Loca heard a story that the supposed interested party knew nothing of the deal - there has been much talk of the comings and goings of players next season, should Betis survive another relegation fight.

Defender Juanito is a free agent over the summer and looks set for a move to Atlético, and admitted this week that “there has not been an offer of renewal since December.”

Meanwhile, Emana was caught confessing to the French press that he fancied flying off to a bigger club than Betis over the summer. It was a declaration that brought about a swift and completely plausible denial from the man himself.

“I work for Betis, live for Betis and I’m part of Betis,” shouted the midfield marvel.

LLL Prediction - Home win

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Spanish press ponder Champions chase

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:00:00 GMT

With three English teams having qualified for the semi-finals of the Champions League for the third season in a row, the Spanish press have taken a teeny time-out on Thursday to sniff out the chances of the one remaining local side for local people still slugging it out in the tournament.

When La Liga Loca says ‘time out’, the blog means donating a couple of column inches to the topic. After all, there is other important business to attend to both in Madrid and Catalunya.

Sport are busy plugging Xavi’s ‘autobiography’ My life is Barça - an in-depth, no holds barred, tittle-tattle telling tome that will shock the world of la Liga.

Not really. As the book is sponsored by the paper and one of their ‘writers’ helped with the scribbling, chapters such as ‘Joan Laporta - what’s with the girl’s name?’ are unlikely to appear.

Xavi: No.1 bestseller. Or not

Josep Maria Casanovas writes that the treble is very much on, but is starting to get the wobbles over the six weeks or so to come. “When you look at the calender for the next month, it’s enough to give you a fright. Every three days they are playing for everything.”

Mundo Deportivo have begun trying to get the London-living Deco to return their calls, having spent the past six months or so blaming him and Ronaldinho for all of the Catalan club’s troubles last year.

Meanwhile, in the inside pages, Francesc Aguilar is looking for Pep Guardiola to bring back the ‘spirit of Chelsea’ from 2005 when the team ‘unfairly’ lost 4-2 in the last 16 second leg clash at Stamford Bridge.

“It was in those very same dressing rooms when the players vowed to win the following year’s competition.” And so it came to pass in Paris, Dear Reader.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño admits that the English teams may know a little bit about playing the world’s game after all, and gives them a doggy biscuit for doing so.

However, he does not see them ruling in Rome come May. “The English play nice, attractive, energetic, solid, practical football. But none of the three teams are as good as Barça."

JT heads home controversial winner in 2005

The paper also continues its ‘glass is half full’, ‘glass is half full’ approach to Cristiano Ronaldo.

When Sir Alex was accusing the pouting ponce of being a workshy, lazy, mercenary, sulking so-and-so the other week, the paper saw this as a very positive thing for a player whose precious, ham-loving heart is pining for the Bernabeu and the chance to play alongside Miguel Torres.

AS views Ronaldo’s super strike against Porto as a taste of things to come next season for Real Madrid, of course.

Marca also ponder the continued dominance of the English league but are less willing to put their cojones on the line and tip Barcelona for the title. “A third European Cup is not going to be easy. The English teams stand in their way,” boomed Thursday’s editorial.

There is praise for little old Villarreal and their Champions league exit against another English side, but few grumbles over the eventual result which saw a 4-1 aggregate win for Arsenal.

“They leave with their heads held high,” write Marca, “but they never really had any options.”

“Pound for pound... the English side was better than the Submarine,” admit AS.

In a fortnight’s time, we will discover if it will be the same story for the current league leaders against Chelsea.

Van Persie sinks Yellow Submarine

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Big Bernado Schuster is back in business

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Having disappeared from the Bernabeu faster than the bullfight-barmy Sergio Ramos, blog über-hero Bernado Schuster has made a very welcome return to the Spanish spotlight after a four month absence.

With the moustache having transformed itself into a full-on Careless Whisper beard and looking a little like an out-of shape Jack Bauer, the former Madrid man has been in the pages of Marca this week talking about his past, present and, of course, Florentino Pérez.

As is the norm with Marca, these days the main aim of the out-of-the-closet confession-fest was to hurl yet more insults at Rámon Calderón, with the paper claiming that Schuster was cursed by “the opportunity of his life coming under the leadership of the worst president in 107 years” at Real Madrid.

"He's stood right behind me, isn't he..."

Calderón has responded to the slur by branding Eduardo Inda, the paper’s director, as “a man with a complex and a bad journalist without any prestige amongst his colleagues.” La Liga Loca knows the feeling.

Marca’s revisionist take on Schuster’s stylings is that he is a top, top manager after all and has afforded the former Bernabeu boss all the rope required to defend his 17-month tenure at Madrid.

Schuster’s gut-rumbling gripe about his spell in Castle Greyskull concerns his inability to dictate - or even have the slightest say - in the side’s transfer policy.

“There was money for Cristiano... but none for Cesc and Alves,” complained Schuster who also grumbled that, “Calderón didn’t bring me any of the signings I asked for,” leaving the coach’s cupboard barer than Maniche’s with the munchies.

Bernado is equally dismissive of the Sporting Director model much favoured in Spain. Or perhaps more accurately, he is equally dismissive of Pedja Mijatovic playing this particular role.

“He was against me from the beginning because I was not his favourite,” complained Schuster on the man who was always a strong supporter of Fabio Capello and someone who he feels was equally to blame for the transfer failure of the summer.

“Why didn’t Villa come? I don’t know, you’d have to ask the greaseball that one.” (For the record, La Liga Loca has gone creative in his translation of Schuster’s excellent use of ‘el gomina’ or ‘the hair-gelled one’)

It is this insistence of treating managers like expendable serfs that will prevent Madrid from bringing in the big cheeses of the global game, claims Schuster.

“In the whole of Wenger’s life at Arsenal, he has been more than just a coach. It’s the same with Ferguson and Benitez. These guys are more than just trainers. I imagine they would say, ‘I’m in charge of the team’.”

Inevitably, Schuster has been dragged into Marca’s Florentino Pérez for President campaign and says that he had a very enjoyable meeting with the Anointed One once but soon discovered that he knew absolutely nothing about football - an unfortunate condition for someone who eventually wanted to pick the team.

“You are not going to learn anything more about football after 30 games sitting in your presidential box,” noted Schuster.

Perez: "You'll become the best left-back in the world playing for us"

As well as giving Marca yet another opportunity to kick Calderón in his cockles, the Schuster exclusive was a chance for Bernd to put himself back on the managerial market.

There are stories circulating that the German coach fancies the soon-to-be vacated seat at the Vicente Calderón in an Atlético move that already has the blog’s bones a’tingling.

“I had a chance in Spain, but I needed more time,” revealed Schuster. “But I’m going to wait and see how things are at the end of the season.”

Welcome back, Bernado.

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La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 30

Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

GOOD DAY

Vladimir Stojkovic

Having gone through more goalkeepers than a Seaman-obsessed old slapper, Getafe finally found the right man for the job on Sunday evening.

Vlad the Impaler was between the posts in the Sánchez Pizjuán and helped the visitors to their first clean sheet in 22 league games with some fine saves and even finer arm-waving and boggle-eyed staring.

Having previously worked their way through Ustari (too injured), Pato (too peculiar) and Jacobo (too meeeehhhh) they finally settled on the Serbian currently on-loan from Sporting Lisbon.

Combined with a tough-tackle and splendid run from Jaime Gavilán on the left, Getafe won just their second game in 10 to send coach Victor Muñoz more than a little doolally on the opposition bench.

David Villa

There is nothing as poignant as the player who pointedly refuses to celebrate a goal against a former team. That slumped posture of depression, so reminiscent of some poor soul being ordered to watch Real Madrid’s last three games all over again.

This was the brace position adopted by David Villa on Sunday on converting a penalty against his old stomping ground and big love, Sporting.

It was against the club that made him a big banner to welcome him home and even tried bribing him with a celebratory plaque before the game. But it was to no avail, as Villa’s first half strike was to prove.

Villa: All out of goal celebration ideas

Cleber Santana

The Mallorca midfielder has appeared one or two times in the blog’s past - usually with the word ‘why?’ and ‘!!!’ next to his name.

This is a player who is so awful that Atlético even put a clause in his contract forcing the on-loan player to play against them, rather than be left out. (This may not technically be true).

But for now, those jokes are (temporarily) suspended after Cleber’s Hugo Sánchez-esque overhead kick which put Mallorca ahead in their 2-0 win over Almería.

Osasuna

The 2-1 victory over Athletic, the side’s third win in a row, lifts Osasuna to the heady heights of 11th.

It also makes them - or so La Liga Loca heard - the third best team in Spain in the second round of matches with just one defeat in 11. Manager, José Antonio Camacho is perhaps one Madridista that the fans won’t lob lighters at it in El Sadar.

Kun Agüero

Or ‘Kum Agüero’ as one caption writer for TVE1 put, opening a whole different career path to Sunday’s goalscorer, should he give up football one day.

It was almost a very familiar but entertaining story for Atlético in Riazor. Decent work by the strikers let down by the side’s failure to play the final three minutes of the match with a late goal conceded.

“But this time, there was to be no circus (just)” wrote Iñako Díaz Guerra in AS. “We did well for the rest of the game,” noted Abel Resino coming to his team’s defence.

Emana

After a very sprightly first third to the season, Betis’ marvellous midfielder seemed to be stuck in the same plug hole of despair as the rest of his team-mates.

But the Cameroonian footballer finally clambered out to ‘sink’ 10-man Racing Santander with two goals to give new manager José María Nogúes a winning start to his no doubt short Betis career.

Málaga

Took advantage of a Villarreal side who looked like they were playing on jam rather than grass to restart their European push with a 2-0 win to keep them level with sixth-placed Atleti on goal difference.

Malaga stay on course for a Europa League spot

Barcelona, Real Madrid

The same reaction in the Spanish press to two more victories for both teams in a weekend that was sadly similar to the last round of matches.

Marca claim referees are helping Barça and complain they are winning the league ‘by decree’. Sport and co say that Madrid are spawny jamsters doing the bare minimum to hang onto Pep's Dream Boys’ brilliant coat tails.

Meanwhile, the Bernabeu correspondent for El País appears to be on the point of blowing their brains out with the headline that Madrid ‘win as much as they bore’.

BAD DAY

Cáceres, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Bojan, Hleb...

Over the next few weeks, Barcelona’s first-teamers are going to be busier than a one-legged tap dancer, but the less-than-super subs do not appear to be aware of this.

Like Maniche, they are unable to pull their weight and are contributing very little to the culé cause.

Although the 2-0 win over Recre can be seen as a battling performance in the middle of a big Champions League week, it’s nothing to what the Catalan club will face when the likes of Sevilla, Valencia, Chelsea and Villarreal come a callin’ over the next month.

If the Barcelona backroom boys can barely overcome a side that are in the bottom three, it doesn’t bode well for the immediate future of the league leaders.

Sergio Ramos

Replaces Guti in the Real Madrid naughty corner after leaving the ground at half-time (he was suspended, the game wasn’t that bad) to go and watch some bullfighting.

"I love a bit of bullfighting me"

Sporting

Have now equalled the record for number of matches played without achieving a draw - 30. And this sees Sporting slipping towards the relegation zone.

10 of the promoted club’s 19 defeats have been by the odd goal, a touch more pragmatism in some of those matches could have seen Sporting already safe for another season instead of one place above the trap door.

Sevilla

Have scored less goals than Real Betis this season. Which is not very good really.

Espanyol

Like an over-botoxed Barbie Girl, Paul from Barcelona has had a stiff upper lip for a good fortnight now... let’s see how it is holding this week.

“A five-and-half-hour drive through the jungle, desert actually, only to see us stitched up yet again. Three clear penalties (one for Numancia) not given and a perfectly good goal disallowed. The horror! THE HORROR!. Welcome to Espanyol's world.

"Over 1,800 made the trip and about 700 of them couldn't get in as it was sold out. Numancia decided that a point would be good enough so they didn't go for the win, whereas Espanyol did but came up against Supergoalie and Supermoron.

"By far the better team, Espanyol created loads of chances and should have had a penalty when Tamudo had a shot and what looked like a clear handball stopped it going in.

"A couple of minutes later a nod down from Moises was volleyed home by Sergio Sanchez. Disallowed because..........????????

"The ref was garbage. Both sets of fans agreed on this. In the final minutes Espanyol could have scored five or six times but Juan Pablo, Numancia's keeper, had the game of his life.

"So, results went against us and we are now seven off safety. How much do I hate Sevilla? Probably more than Barça at this moment in time. Not quite over yet. Three of the next four at home and our away match is against Sporting.

"Nice friendly people in Soria but no reason to visit them.”

Paul, Barcelona

Deportivo

A team that has gone into depression ever since securing safety for another season, say AS on a side that has picked up just one point from 12.

Getafe stall Sevilla

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