Stranger Than Fiction

By: Cesar | April 28th, 2008

Relief, at least for one week, came in the form of a 3-0 victory at the hands of 10-man Osasuna at a feisty Mestalla yesterday.

With new coach Voro at the helm, Valencia returned to the old 4-4-2 system that’s worked wonders before.

It paid dividends, as Joaquin, Mata and Villa (penalty) scored against the Rojillos, down a man due to goalkeeper Ricardo’s dodgy foul on Villa in the 18th minute.

Besides that, we saw the triumphant returns of goalkeeper Santiago Canizares and Miguel Ángel Angulo, who received a huge ovation when he was brought in late in the game …

Ahh, this feels good.

Not only is it nice to win a game (finally!) but there’s a sense of normalcy that returned with the additions of Canizares and Angulo.

Angulo was never the brightest bulb on the tree, but he always played with grit and passion. And he was truly grateful for the rousing cheer he received when he made his way on the pitch, saying, ‘There aren’t words to explain how I felt.’

That’s wonderful.

And Canizares … what can I say? He’s my favorite player and I actually got a wee bit misty-eyed when I saw he returned to the Valencia nets.

It won’t last forever. Nothing does. But it felt good, warm and familiar to see these lads running on the Mestalla pitch. Not to mention the fact that Vicente played as well. It was a veritable 2004 reunion on the field … all we needed was Kily and Rafa Benitez!

True, Osasuna had 10 men for much of the match. But still, 3 points is 3 points … what more can we ask for at this point?? We did play well for long stretches of the match. There’s something to be said for having the Trio back and a new coach at the helm.

Click below for highlights of our much-needed win …

With the win, we cam breathe somewhat easier … at least until next week, when we travel to the Nou Camp and take on Barcelona.

Voro was realistic after the win.

“We knew how to cope with the pressure and move forward after a difficult situation and we can now view the future with optimism, although we have not achieved anything yet. One win does not solve all the problems, just like losing would not have been that serious,” Voro said.

Very true.

Next week, it’s Barca.

For now, let’s enjoy a victory. It might not have been extraordinarily pretty. It might not have been just (many say the Villa penalty was a bit harsh). But it’s what it is … and I’ll take it.

I’m a smiling Valencia fan today …

I leave you with the words of Spanish soccer sage Phil Ball, who waxes poetic on our beloved and offers words of condolences for our neighbors/city brothers Levante, who were relegated this weekend …

Talking of therapy, we can hardly close this week’s column without a mention of the goings-on at Valencia, soon to be made into a soap-opera called ‘Stranger than Fiction’. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder, just about the only member of the backroom staff not to get the sack during last Monday’s predictable ‘Lunchtime of the Long Knives’, new manager and club stalwart Voro (Salvador González Marco) decided that he should offer the olive branch to the three veteran players previously sidelined by Koeman.

Of course, for all Koeman’s obvious inability to master the art of man-management (his ability to master the art of football tactics remains a moot point), it does seem that he was something of a puppet king, brought in by Soler and then asked to do the dirty deed during the first week of his stay - hardly a move likely to win the players’ affection. But Koeman could have said no. The fact that he willingly played executioner in a drama in which he had previously played no part, says little for his judgement. But you can’t bite the hand that feeds you, particularly in the first week.

Then again, as the old saying goes - watch out for your enemies whilst you’re on the way up, because they’ll come back to haunt you on your way down. And so, six days after a humiliating thrashing at the hands of Bilbao, Cañizares is back in the team, Angulo comes on as substitute (and makes his 300th appearance) and Albelda is back in the squad. Admittedly goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand was injured - although the rumour mills were saying the opposite - but Cañizares did seem to be rushed back between the sticks with indecent haste.

It’s all very well offering an olive branch, but it remains a worrying fact for Valencia’s further prospects of avoiding relegation that several players (one of them Hildebrand) must be fairly unchuffed to see the three outlaws swagger back so easily into town. I don’t know. There has been so much disinformation that it’s hard to get at the truth - but in the final instance the policy decision came up trumps, at least for the purposes of Sunday.

Osasuna came as unwilling victims, but it was always a possibility that Valencia could begin their Year Zero at home to a struggling side like them. A 3-0 win, aided and abetted by the ref who sent off Osasuna’s goalie Ricardo in the 20th minute for nothing more than taking the ball off Villa’s feet, as he’s been coached to do, may be just the tonic the whole club needs to avoid joining their fellow Valencianos Levante, who were finally relegated after losing at Recreativo.

Someone must have put a spell on the city this year, because the drama has hardly been confined to the Mestalla this week. Indeed, Levante came to within 48 hours of carrying out their threat to refuse to play against Recreativo, unless they were given bank guarantees that at least 50% of the money owed to them would be transferred to them by the middle of this week.

Facing the prospect of a possible relegation to Segunda B and the subsequent mess of adding and subtracting points from the teams that have played Levante since Christmas, Valencia’s City Council finally got their act in gear and secured the guarantees. Levante played and lost, but were at least put out of their top-flight misery. It remains to be seen whether they can survive next season, however, unless their ground is put up for redevelopment. And Valencia CF think they have problems. As Einstein remarked, everything’s relative.

Stranger than fiction indeed, this season’s La Liga show. Don’t put it past Barcelona to upset the apple cart, win at Old Trafford and really confuse the issue even further.

What a year it’s been, eh?

Four more games to go … let’s enjoy them!!!