A Homecoming and Silva’s Tired

It was a nice homecoming for local lad David Villa against Sporting Gijon. But at the end of the day, Los Che had too much for Los Rojiblancos, a late Juan Mata strike sending Valencia up to 4th and a Champions League spot with a 3-2 win.

Tense game. Tough to watch, not only because the feed was so blurry but because you could sense Villa’s frustration playing against his old squad.

Villa started his career with Gijon, scoring 40 goals in just three seasons before leaving for Real Zaragoza and eventually Our Beloved. His heart flutters when he speaks about his old team. His eyes water, his face flushes and his breath is taken aback. It’s like Gijon is the old girl friend he never forgot about.

But forget he tried, although his pace was evidently off yesterday. As someone commented on the chat, it was an emo version of El Guaje we were watching last night. Listless, shoulders slumped, a rare display of the football blues.

Luckily, Juan Mata struck a winner two minutes from the end to finally put a finish to a tough match.

Our Beloved had twice gone ahead either side of the break through a slinky David Silva goal and a David Villa penalty. But Sporting, who are just three points above the drop zone, got back on level terms on both occasions with David Barral’s penalty and a Mate Bilic header 20 minutes from time. It looked like a draw was the best we were going to do.

But Mata delivered the decisive blow in emphatic style with a crisply-hit 20-yard shot that flew in to the bottom-left corner of the goal.

Here’s a good recap of the match.

A video you say? Here are the highlights.

Overall, not the prettiest of matches. A shoddy penalty call here, a missed penalty call there. A Marchena Face and his requisite card. A wonder goal at the death to secure the points and a few fabulous saves by our resurgent goal keeper Cesar make for a typical Valencia victory these days …

We don’t win with sexy football. But winning – that we’re doing.

Now comes the hard part: Keeping this up.

The hard part of our schedule officially begins next week with a visit from 3rd place Sevilla. Somehow, some way we need to figure out how to keep this run going. Coach Unai Emery knows that.

“You just have to think of the next match against Sevilla. I hope that this win has given the fans more joy that they have had in recent matches.”

I think so, no?

Emery gave the lads two days off for their hard work these past few weeks. A justly deserved rest, I’d say.

I have to take my hat off to these guys, who’ve put us through the ringer but also acted like utmost professionals through a very difficult time.

Most people would have laid their guns down during this terribly hostile financial time. I mean, who works without getting paid?

But not our lads. They kept working, busting their asses for the team, for the fans and for each other.

Things are certainly not at the level we’d like. We’re struggling on many fronts. But we can be proud we have guys like this representing Valencia CF. I’m sure many other squads out there would not have reacted with as much class during these difficult times.

Being Valencia and being that we’re going through financial peril, the transfer rumors just won’t stop.

I’m sick and tired of them. I know many of you are sick and tired of them. Today, David Silva had enough. He’s sick and tired and not going to take it any more.

“I am tired of the rumors. I take them all calmly but they are beginning to tire me,” Silva told the Europa Press.

“These are the things that happen in football and I accept that, however, I want to reiterate that I have a contract with Valencia and I want to comply with that.”

I love these guys. I love that Villa could have left for any team on planet Earth after Euro 2008 but decided to stay with us. I love that Silva could have done the same but he stayed with us. I love how clubs like Madrid and Barcelona can’t find any one with an iota of the loyalty these lads have … Sergio Ramos f*cked off to watch the bullfight at Las Ventas rather than yawn through another Madrid bore fest?

No wonder they’re lobbying the Madrid press to steal our boys.

You can’t pay for loyalty like that.

And that’s how I’ll close the post today. Loyalty.

Because although Villa had a tough go at it yesterday, you know deep down in his heart he’s still the young kid who supported Gijon. You could see the pain of scoring against them written on his face. He cares. He doesn’t want to hurt his former club.

Again, loyalty you can’t buy.

He may leave us this summer for greener pastures. But you can’t doubt the class, ability and heart of this guy.

I leave you with Sid Lowe’s article for the Guardian today, which is all about Villa and his love of Sporting Gijon. It’s a good one. Read the entire thing here or click the blue line above.

AMUNT!

Behind the goal, supporters peered through cameras, ready to immortalise the moment. Heavy-set stewards took their eyes off the fans and turned to the pitch. Ball boys stood open-mouthed. There was a collective pause, an intake of breath. Some wondered if he would really do it. Then the whistling began, as heavy-hearted as it was necessary. David Villa put the ball on the penalty spot, took a few steps back, stopped and looked around, eyes darting from left to right. He puffed out his cheeks, his chest heaving with the tension, strode forward and did what he always does.

Scored.

As the ball hit the net on Sunday night, Valencia climbed into a Champions League place – not so much a target as a necessity for a club in crisis – and Villa racked up his 150th league goal, his 22nd this season. It took him to four behind Samuel Eto’o and six from Valencia’s season record. But rather than perform a corner-flag jig, kiss his ring, suck his thumb, point to his name, pull a hat from his pants, pucker up to the badge or do a rubbish back-flip, he stopped dead, put his hands together in a gesture that pleaded forgiveness and looked glum.

One by one his team-mates approached, grabbing him by the ears, spitting delight into his face, but it was no good. There wasn’t a hint of a smile, barely a flicker in his eyes. There was, though, a quiet smattering of applause. Soon, it was replaced by chants of “Illa, illa, illa, Villa maravilla!” (Villa the marvel.)

The chants came from the opposition’s fans. It was Sporting Gijón against Valencia. After five years, 10 months and 21 days, Villa was finally playing at the Molinón again. He was wearing Valencia’s black and orange, not Sporting’s red and white and he had promised that if he scored he would not celebrate. Virtually every player has a former club – even Raúl started his career at Atlético – but few have a former club like Villa has Real Sporting de Gijón and few clubs have a former player like Sporting have Villa. The promise was familiar, but the sentiment wasn’t. This wasn’t yet another empty gesture.

If Villa isn’t given the credit he deserves nationally – eclipsed by campaigns for Raúl, lacking the charisma or the club to be a media star – in Gijón he couldn’t be more of a hero. When Valencia arrived at their hotel over 3,000 people were waiting, the queue snaking out the building, across the road, through the petrol station forecourt and out the other side. At the front of it, a mother and daughter who had waited eight hours for a photo and a signed shirt.

Television crews fought for the best position, cameras for planks as they spun round cracking each other across the head slapstick style. Backed into a corner, microphones under his nose, Villa was forced into an impromptu press conference. As he arrived at the Molinón the following afternoon, a banner awaited him. “We’re proud of you,” it said. Teachers from his school, wearing T-shirts in his honour, and 23,000 others were also there. Molinón was packed.

“If Villa comes anywhere near my touchline during the game, I might just bite him,” declared Sporting’s coach, Manolo Preciado, “but before and after, I’ll give him a hug. He’s the best player in this club’s history, after Quini.”

When he emerged from the tunnel, there was a huge roar and representatives from Sporting’s Ultra Boys supporters’ club presented him with a plaque and a scarf. The chant went up. “Illa, illa, illa, Villa maravilla!” By the end of the game, swapped Sporting shirt over his shoulder, he was in tears. “It was an unforgettable weekend,” he said, “the hardest game of my life.”

“I hoped I would never see the day he played against Sporting,” said his dad. (At least, this column thinks it was his dad: TVE decided they needed a caption saying “Villa, Valencia player” rather than one explaining who the big bloke in red was.)

Talk about the return of the prodigal son. Only instead of departing an ungrateful sod in search of filthy lucre, ending up a swineherd and returning in shame, Villa left Gijón with his head held high to play for Real Zaragoza, Valencia and Spain and returned a European champion.

And that is partly the point. Because if it seems a bit weird to lavish such praise on a striker who, although he scored 38 goals in 78 games, never played a first division match for Sporting, if it appears bizarre to offer such a warm welcome to a footballer who walked away, yet to really make it, at the age of 21, Villa never turned his back on Sporting, becoming a kind of ambassador for the Asturians – a foothold, however tenuous, in the first division. A player who celebrates goals by pretending to pour Asturian cider, has the Asturian cross stitched into his boots and paraded round after Euro 2008 with an Asturian flag, who goes by the Asturian miner’s nickname El Guaje and even lent his support for a campaign to grant Asturianu the same status enjoyed by the Basque and Catalan languages.

A miner’s son, Villa was raised at Sporting, the last great product of Mareo where, to the sound of cowbells, howling wind and pouring rain, quality players used to roll off the production line. His hero was Sporting’s feisty midfielder Luis Enrique. As a kid, his mentor was Enrique Castro González, “Quini” – five times Pichichi, the greatest Sporting player ever and possibly the finest striker in Spanish football history.

And during the European Championship in Austria he had a satellite dish installed so he could watch Sporting finally clinch promotion to the first division after 10 long years away. Even his departure, seen as the ultimate, reluctant act of sacrifice, delighted the fans: without it, struggling Sporting would quite probably have gone out of business and would almost certainly have faced administrative relegation.

Trouble is, after waiting a decade to return and half a decade to face their hero, by scoring that penalty Villa sent Sporting to within a place of another relegation. Small wonder the fans applauded him but didn’t cheer as they had done when the sides met at Mestalla. The fear was too great. All too real, too. Mate Bilic, Sporting’s promotion hero and a player who first joined them in the deal that took Villa to Zaragoza in 2003, made it 2-2 but with three minutes left Valencia’s other Asturian, Juan Mata, thumped the winner to hand Sporting a La Liga record – 30 games without a draw – and take Valencia into a Champions League place. As Villa stood motionless, looking rather sunk, Mata sprinted off and leapt into Valencia’s fans. Asturian he may be, but Mata’s club is Real Oviedo.

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

Subscribe   The Offside RSS Feeds

Print

Share