1st Place Valencia

By: Cesar | October 6th, 2008

Another game, another week where our Beloved top the Spanish La Liga table.

This week, an emphatic 1-0 victory over Real Valladolid, the goal coming from Portuguese midfielder Manuel Fernandes. I mention this because it’s the first time since December 22, 2007 and a 2-2 draw against Real Zaragoza that a foreign player scored for Valencia. That time it was two goals from Nicola Zigic. Yesterday, Fernandes did the trick.

And it’s a good indication that the over-reliance on David Villa that I talked about a few weeks ago is ending. When formerly oft-used midfielders are scoring winning goals for us and we’re topping the table, life is sweet.

Unai heaped praise on Fernandes after the game.

“In the first half he was involved, and in the second he was even more emphasized. He has a strong genetic force, and I think that he needs to keep on going like this to help the team.”

I agree.

I didn’t get the opportunity to watch the game. (This reminds me: If ANYONE out there wants to write a guest blog the next few weeks, please do so. I’m in a precarious situation these days (i.e. no job) so blog posts might be scattered. Please take the opportunity to talk to the Valencia faithful in this great vehicle and share your opinion!)

From what I read, it was a lethargic showing from Los Che. A tougher than expected UEFA Cup match midweek could account for that.

Nevertheless, we were able to grind a goal out in a game that offered few scoring opportunities. Fernandes, the former Everton midfielder settled the game in the 54th minute when he smashed a low drive into the bottom corner of the net from 20 yards after being played in by Villa.

According to what I read, the first half was a stop-start affair with an endless stream of free-kicks in the middle of the park for both sides, although we had more.

The first opening arrived after 23 minutes when Villa sprung the offside trap down the right and lifted a high ball over the onrushing Sergio Asenjo towards Juan Mata inside the six-yard box but the winger was beaten in the air by Javier Baraja (Ruben’s bro?).

Valladolid were relying heavily on the cultured right boot of Pedro Leon at set-pieces, and he forced Renan Brito to push a dangerous inswinging free-kick onto the post.

However, it was the visitors who looked the strongest going into the interval as Joaquin and Mata were unable to pick out bodies inside the six-yard box when in positions to deliver decent crosses.

Five minutes after the restart Fernandes got a chance to set his sights when he blazed a shot over the crossbar from 25 yards, but he made no mistake from an almost identical position just four minutes later.

And another 3 points for our lads … this is a whole lot better than last season’s cluster f*ck under Ronnie ‘TinTin’ Koeman, eh?

So is it premature to think ahead to May and a possible championship trophy being raised at the Mestalla?

Villa thinks so.

“We only worry about the teams we face from Sunday to Sunday. Right now, we are not fighting with Barcelona; we are not fighting with anyone. It is too early to be talking about fighting. Once we see two months of competition, then we can see who is involved, and I hope we are one of them.”

We’ll see what happens. Still, things are on the up swing.

With the win, coach Unai ‘No Way Out’ Emery became the most successful new coach in Valencia history, garnering 16 out of a possible 18 league points.

The Basque manager’s only competitive defeats with Los Che have come in the Spanish Super Cup against Real Madrid. Not bad.

As always, Emery remained modest after the game.

“It was a very balanced game, but the result was fair. There were chances for both sides, but not very many clear ones.”

Still, he found praise for both his club and the opposition.

“They created a lot of danger thanks to Pedro León from dead balls,” admitted the young coach.

“But at 1-0 we saw a more controlled game, and we could have killed it off on the break a couple of times. If those had been scored it would have been a different game. Yet we respect them as a rival a lot because they’re a team that demands a lot of concentration and intensity both in defense and attack.”

Despite Emery himself now being immortalized in Valencia history after the superb start to the season, he saw such matters only as “an anecdote.”

“It’s just another step in the growth of Valencia,” he shrugged.

You have to love this coach. He’s modest, he’s a winner, the team seems to adore him and his philosophy has worked wonders with a team that last season looked hopeless.

He’s made some decisions here and there that have caused people to scratch their heads, but overall the young Basque coach is winning the footballing world over with his prowess.

In closing, a few words from venerable Spanish soccer scribe Phil Ball of soccernet.com, who I’ve praised time and again in this blog.

Ball’s Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football is the best English account of La Liga’s history I’ve ever read, as well as one of the best football books around.

Sure, he’s a bit Real Madrid and Barcelona-centric. But at the heart of it, he’s a passionate Spanish football fan. And his opinion is interesting and quite good.

Anyways, Ball wrote a glowing piece about our own Unai. I’ll include it here. The link to the full article is above. I’ve made some comments below the Ball anecdote below.

[Emery is] not exactly a kid at 37, but his four years so far as a manager have been disproportionately positive, making him the current golden balls of Spanish football. In a week when world stocks have plummeted, Emery’s local value soared even higher when Valencia’s oft-troubled winger, Joaquín, came out publicly to try and explain why Valencia are now league leaders only a few months after looking like relegation fodder.

Joaquín, one of Europe’s best traditional wingers on his day, was breast-fed by his mother up to the age of six, and confesses that it has left him needing to be loved. You can interpret that one as you wish – since the psychological damage inflicted by having to wander across to your mother at half-time when the rest of the team are reaching for their oranges must have been considerable – but Joaquín didn’t feel very loved by Ronald Koeman, and even after the arrival of Emery in the summer he seemed to be on his way to Inter or Roma. Now he’s happily gliding down the right wing again, with that curious tubby lightness of touch that he has, like Paul Gascoigne in his Mars Bar days.

Joaquín told the press last week that Valencia are top because “we’ve got a manager again’, which answers the question posed in the first sentence of this article. “And this manager doesn’t dedicate himself to the art of messing people around and inventing stuff” – this a shot across the bows of Koeman, presumably.

“It’s different in the changing-room now. You breathe a different air. The team’s almost the same, but this year we’re just playing football again.”

Is it all down to young Emery? Could be. When John Toshack was in his second spell as manager at Real Sociedad, Emery was playing in the reserve side as a left-sided midfielder. Toshack liked the look of him and asked the Sociedad B trainer if he thought Emery was ready to step up to the first team. “Dunno’ replied the trainer (Salva Iriarte), “but he talks a good game. He’ll probably make a better manager than a player’, or words to that effect. Indeed, Emery only played five times for Sociedad, making a career of it as a journeyman midfielder in the Second Division of Spanish life, hanging up his boots at Lorca and becoming their player-manager at the ripe old age of thirty-two.

In 2006 he went down to Almería, won several press awards as manager of the year and brought them up to the top flight quite unexpectedly. He then steered them to an even more unexpected 8th position last season, during a campaign in which they only lost sight of the UEFA places in the last few weeks.

Emery’s further promotion was inevitable, and the chaos at Valencia was crying out for a steady hand. Nevertheless, such a pit of vipers might easily have proved the wrong choice for such a quiet type, with his rather goofy expression and lack of public charisma. As Morgan Freeman remarks to another hard-bitten inmate in the “Shawshank Redemption’ as they watch the new prisoners march in through the gates; “I’ll give that one a week” – pointing at the gawky Tim Robbins. Robbins lasted much longer, of course, as well might Emery if things continue apace.

This weekend’s 0-1 win at Valladolid, managed by José Luis Mendilibar – another of the up-and-coming triumvirate of Basque managers (the other is Almeria’s Gonzalo Arconada) was good evidence of Valencia’s revival.

Under the cosh for most of the match, they still nicked a win with a goal from the Portuguese midfielder Manuel Fernandes. Looking at the players who took part in the game, the names of Baraja, Angulo, Albelda, Vicente and Helguera seem significant. Helguera spent most of his life at Real Madrid and is no spring chicken, but at the height of the club’s troubles last season it would almost have been laughable to believe that the club would be top in the coming October with those players still around.

Albelda we all know about, but Baraja and Angulo seem to have been around for ever, whilst Vicente seemed to have reached a point of no return with injuries. He’s still not the player he was, but is a decent enough stop-gap for David Silva, whilst the young left-sided international recovers from a major operation. The old warhorse Carlos Marchena was injured for the game, but he’s still very much alive, of course.

Emery has based his conservative revolution around three players, David Villa, the aforementioned David Silva, and the new revelation of the league, the left-sided Juanma Mata, whose surname means “He kills”. He certainly does. With Asier Del Horno back, Mata, Vicente and Silva, the squad has a left flank to be envied by most.

Villa has stayed, and whilst Valencia are top of the league, it is less likely that he will go to England in the winter transfer window. If he does, start counting the noughts on the pay cheque. But he’s a fantastic player, worthy of all the hype and more. Quite how Valencia managed to hang on to him this summer amongst all the chaos, the revolving doors and the pressure from Chelsea and Real Madrid – to name just two, is something of a mystery, but you never know – Emery’s presence might have had something to do with it. Ask Villa and he might tell us, but nobody’s complaining now that the club didn’t cash in.

… Emery himself was modestly batting away comparisons of himself with Rafa Benitez this weekend, due to the fact that this is Valencia’s best start since the 2003-2004 season when Liverpool’s current boss was in charge – but Benitez still divides opinion, despite his track record. At the moment, Emery is on a blemish-free roll.