Flip Flop

By: Cesar | March 2nd, 2008

When you concede a goal in the first three minutes of the game, you know you’re in for a long evening.

*Sigh*

From the highs of the Nou Camp to the lows of the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, the city of Barcelona provided us with two views of our beloved Valencia CF: One good, one bad.

Yesterday it was bad, a 2-0 loss to Espanyol which ended most of the momentum from the midweek semifinal Kings Cup match-up against FC Barcelona.

The game was effectively over in the 3rd minute. Goalie Timo Hildebrand, our man of the match in the Nou Camp, went out of his box to claim a pass from Pablo Zabaleta to the Espanyol attackers, but Luis García beat him to it and after rounding Timo, the forward calmly stroked it in.

A cheeky penalty later in the game sealed the victory, handing us our first loss in 5 games (including Copa Del Rey matches).

Here’s a small video of the goals and some nice saves, particularly by Timo late in the game against the hat-trick seeking Garcia.

RCD Espanyol 2-0 Valencia CF
Uploaded by ComedLov

Coach Tintin Koeman wasn’t too pleased after the match. Kind of like most Valencia fans.

“The two goals we conceded were down to errors. In the first, Hildebrand didn’t come out well, while the second was borne of a corner that we didn’t deal with. We were the main culprits there.”

However, he added, “We were given eight cards in a game that wasn’t particularly fierce. This ref has refereed 19 Valencia games before, expelling 9 Valencia players. The penalty? There was contact outside the area, but in the end the player fell inside the box. We had no luck in this game.”

However, he admitted that his team had not exactly made their own fortune.

“We must aim to score,” he pointed out.

“We had three or four plays in which we tried to over-pass rather than clinch the shot.”

Uggh … I didn’t have the ‘pleasure’ of watching the match, so I can’t comment too thoroughly on it, but as you can read from the comments page of my last post, people aren’t pleased. Ali, Timothy Lakefront, Daniel, Jason Lujan … I feel your pain …

Here are some random comments from the Valencia Xtratime.com forum, one of the better Valencia message boards out there … check it out and get involved.

Poster PR316 says, ‘Wow. Looking at this, maybe Quique wasn’t so bad. Maybe he was working miracles to get the best he could out of this team. Espanyol are not that good a squad. They are NOT on our level when it comes to talent and yet they still dominate us.’

I’d say Espanyol are talented, but to handle us this readily in 2 league matches? Maybe we were tired from the midweek game.

Poster Blaz says, ‘Talk about conceding stupid goals. Disappointing performance, the only bonus of these loses are, it’s one more step to Koeman getting the sack at the end of the season. Defense is just too mediocre. Moretti, Helguera and Caneira are not good enough. If Miguel doesn’t get back to some form, we probably need a left back, centre back and a right back next term.’

Yikes, imagine that? We do need a complete defensive restructuring though.

Koeman? The readers are right. I flip flop. Why? Because I want to believe the guy can do it, that he can coach Valencia.
But he’s too inconsistent … one match we’re great, one match we stink. Should we give him another season? Or should we just ax him at the end of this one? I really have no answers …

Then again, as reader Ali pointed out, it wasn’t like we were world beaters against Barca this past week. We played well, but more than anything, our defense played cohesively for one of the first times this season and salvaged a tie. Is that on Koeman? Should we be more forgiving of a guy who stepped into a dire, no-win situation?

It’s just that we haven’t had many memorable matches this season, games where you felt Valencia played up to their potential. This is beginning (or has already begun) to be a very forgettable, lamentable campaign.

One more poster opinion, this from wannastop who says, ‘Well they (Espanyol) got their tactics right and Koeman can’t react to it. Honestly their counters are miles better than ours. And why are our players so weak physically? They seemed to lose every physical challenge. We need Marchena back, really. And wtf is with our soft shots? We had chances but our attackers just can’t shoot the ball, even Villa. Kameni wasnt really tested once.’

I dunno what the answers are to that …

So on we go, another game in the books, another loss, another week to question the direction of our club.

I may be called a flip flopper, but I tell you what: The biggest flip-floppers here are the subjects of this blog. One week they’re very good, the next they’re terribly inconsistent.

Will the real Valencia CF show up next week? Let’s see …