Ivan Helguera vs. Unai Emery

By: Cesar | December 11th, 2008

Ivan Helguera used to be a big-time footballer.

The defensive midfielder from Santander featured 47 times for the national team, representing Spain at Euro 2000, the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004. Besides that, he made a heady living with Real Madrid, featuring in their 2000 and 2002 Champions League-winning sides and claiming the Spanish title 3 times.

These days, he’s a relative nobody under coach Unai Emery at Valencia.

He plays cards with Zigic, charades with Hugo Viana and collects tips at Manolo’s with Curro Torres.

He’s so out of favor that Emery decided to use Maduro at center back this weekend at the Nou Camp then go with Helguera, who’s more suited to the role. To put it simply: Helguera’s not very good anymore.

Now I’m not one to rail too often against my players. I’ve been known to make offensive comments against Arizmendi, De Los Santos and Rufete in the past. But more often than not, the players represent my club and I try to respect them.

Helguera’s a different case. A different breed. He comes with baggage.

In my eyes, he’s Madridista through and through. He comes from the Florentino Perez era of Real Madrid, when they thought they were the team of Galacticos and backed that up on the field for a few seasons, winning title after title.

Eventually, the Zidanes y Pavones model Perez advocated collapsed, giving way to a culture of excess that still haunts Madrid to this day. Take a look at Tuesday’s MARCA and their firing of Bernd Schuster for evidence to this.

When Helguera came to Valencia on a free transfer in 2007, I blogged about how skeptical I was of the move.

Although he came over as a scrappy player, I was skeptical because of his devout love of Madridismo (i.e. the pampered & spoiled athlete syndrome) and the implications that would have for our club.

Since he signed for us, he’s been nothing but awful. He can’t defend. He can’t run. He has no tactical sense and without someone like Zinedine Zidane or Guti in front of him, he’s no idea what he’s doing anymore.

Fair enough. There’s a host of players that have no idea what they’re doing at our club. Joaquin comes and goes as he pleases most of the time.

So when word broke today that Helguera and Emery were at it again, fighting in front of the team for the second time this season, I had to laugh.

What the f$(k did Valencia expect?

According to sources the incident started when Helguera wrote a ‘joke’ on a blackboard used Emery to convey messages to the team. Emery didn’t think the joke was funny and erased it, asking who it was that wrote it.

Helguera admitted it was him and was then questioned by the coach as to what he meant by it, to which he responded that it was only a joke.

I shouldn’t take sides. I wasn’t there. Maybe Emery got annoyed for no reason. Maybe Helguera was simply trying to make his mates laugh. Maybe there’s no cause for harm.

Or maybe Helguera should pack his bags and leave the team.

I just do not like the guy.

I’d rather Curro Torres serve drinks at Manolo’s and scrub the floors of the Valencia dressing room for the next 10 years and be paid like a starting left back than suffer through another episode of ‘The Adventures of Ivan Helguera’ in center defense.

The guy acts like a first teamer and defends like a Valencia Z player.

Can you tell that I don’t like the guy?

Unfortunately, we’ll have to suffer Ivan’s steady horrid play for some time. Terminating Helguera’s contract would cost about €4.5 million, so we’d prefer to find a buyer for him. But who in their right mind would want this guy?

Please, Fernando. Please Vicente Soriano. Tear up Helguera’s contract. Shred it in your office shredder.
Tell Helguera to go as far away from the Mestalla as he can go. Loan him out to the New York Red Bulls if you have to (woe betide Ivan if I saw him on the streets of my fine city).

Just go very far away. And don’t come back …