Letting Others Speak

By: Cesar | November 4th, 2007

I haven’t written in a few days and with good reason. Wednesday’s 5-1 debacle/game at the Mestalla against arch-rivals Real Madrid was just a little too much for me.

I took in the game with friends from the Peña Madridista New York City, a fine bunch of people with a burning passion for Madrid. But being the only Valencia fan among 30+ Madridistas chanting for goal #6 with about an hour left in the game was a lot to take in.

I made it out alive and unscathed. Maybe a little embarrassed, but I lived on for another day.
Let’s chalk up that game to a heavy heart, to coaching instability, to a leaky defense. Whatever. That game’s over and done with. Let’s leave it where it deserves to lay.

So yesterday saw what I figured would be Ronald Keoman’s debut as Valencia gaff against Real Mallorca at the Ono Estadi in the Balearic Islands, Mallorca. Alas, it was not to be as Oscar Fernandez completed his internship as Che leader at 2 games in seeing out the club from Palma, 2-0.

It was a good game overall. I thought the club actually looked strong from the beginning. True, the defense lacked some punch. And Mallorca’s inability to put the ball into the net didn’t speak so much to Valencia’s defensive ability as to Mallorca’s poor finishing. But overall, the squad came back from the 5-1 destruction with their heads up.

How good did Timo Hildebrand look last night? I’ve had some trepidation about Timo’s ability to become our #1 starter over Santiago Canizares. I think all those fears have been pushed aside. Timo put on a super performance last night, stopping some dead-eye shots and averting some sure goals. Great job.

Also, Manuel Fernandes played a wonderful match. He looked excellent running the midfield in the first half, making some fashionable spins and some tenacious moves. He looks like a keeper, even though he says he hasn’t settled in yet because he hasn’t taken a liking to Spanish food. Manuel, what’s wrong with you? Valencia boasts some of the best cuisine in the world! Hopefully he gets himself over to La Pepica on the Valencian seaboard and samples the stupendous paella.

“Fernandes was wonderful,” said Fernandez, who was taking charge of his second and final match before Ronald Koeman is handed control.

“I dedicate the victory to my wife, to Alexis (who was carried off on a stretcher early on following a clash with Mallorca striker Dani Guiza) and to the changing room,” he added in AS.

“The players were in an awkward situation but they have given the correct response, from (Timo) Hildebrand to Morientes.” Very well said.

There’s a supposed Koeman-Fernandes rift from the coach’s days at Benfica that needs to be settled. But the kid played a blinder and I’d be sad to hear these issues have carried over to the Turian capital.

What else?
- Silva looked a bit off but what a pass to Morientes for the second goal of the game.
- Miguel laid a beautiful floater to Morientes for the first goal. Didn’t it look like Moro almost fluffed the goal though, shooting the ball right into the keeper’s path before the keeper slid too far to stop it? Still, although I believe Nando is a bit long in the teeth, classic performance from the ex-Madrid striker.
- Wonderful to see Vicente back. He played a good game and though he’s a little rusty, he brings a level of excitement to the squad.
- The defense continues to look rusty. Remember back in the day, when the knock on Valencia was that they had a stellar defense but sub-par strikers? Look at us now. We have a great offense yet a Second Division defense. This HAS to be an area that Koeman upgrades. And I don’t mean next summer. I mean this winter. Helguera looks like he’s still playing for Real Madrid, especially this Wednesday against his former club. Albiol looks raw, Moretti and Caneira are serviceable, but nothing special. And Miguel is great, but lately off more than on. Guess that Valencian nightlife is getting to him.
Now comes the wonderful, terrific news that Alexis will be laid up for three months after succumbing to injury just four minutes into the game.

The summer sigining hasn’t played much since signing from Getafe, for reasons unknown. Unfortunately, the stopper was stretchered off early on to be replaced by Miguel and, although he was able to later take to crutches, the Mestalla medical corps fears that he’s suffered ligament damage.

Should this be confirmed on Monday, then he could be out of action for three months, a hammer blow to a Valencia side that has shown recently that it needs defensive depth.

Uggh. Not good news.

Regardless, a nice victory. A much-needed victory for morale and for position in the league table, where we now lie 4th with 21 points, one point ahead of Atletico Madrid, 3 behind Villarreal and Barcelona and 4 behind leaders Real Madrid.
So ends Oscar Fernandez’s tenure at the helm, where he came in under hard circumstances, lost a tough game but rebounded nicely in Palma. “The team was extraordinary in providing solutions in this match,” Fernandez said.

“I have only words of praise for all. Fernando Morientes was the first line of defense and [Timo] Hildebrand the last. The work-rate was wonderful.” The Valencia youth coach dedicated his first and last win to the fans and the players. Thanks Oscar and good luck with Valencia B.

Now, it’s on to the Mestalla and Tuesday’s super important match-up against Rosenborg in the Champions League. It’s simply this: Koeman’s first match as coach and a must-win game in Europe. Small fish to fry, eh?

So who is Ronald Koeman? This from Reuters and journalist Simon Baskett:

Former Dutch international Ronald Koeman signed a 2-1/2-year deal to coach Valencia on Friday after quitting as PSV Eindhoven manager earlier this week.

The 44-year-old ex-Barcelona player replaces Quique Sanchez Flores who was sacked following Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Sevilla.

Sanchez Flores was the third manager to have been fired by Valencia in three years with predecessors Antonio Lopez and Claudio Ranieri also failing to live up to expectations after the success achieved under previous boss Rafa Benitez.

“We wanted to sign an internationally recognised coach,” said Valencia president Juan Soler. “We are convinced we will be in very good hands. He knows what Valencia’s objectives are, he knows the squad and he will bring us the success we want.”

Koeman will be joined by his assistant Tonny Bruins Slot, who previously worked under Johan Cruyff at Barcelona.
Although demolished 5-1 by league leaders Real Madrid at the Mestalla on Wednesday, Valencia remain relatively well placed in sixth spot just two points off the Champions League places and Koeman was confident he could meet the club’s objectives.

“Valencia have a lot of quality players and we have to use them to strike the right balance in the team,” he told a news conference.
“The fans are very demanding but that is not a problem if you have good players. Football is for the fans and you have to ensure they enjoy themselves. What we have to do now is get the balance right between entertainment and results.

“I’m really looking forward to coaching Valencia and leading them to the position where they should be.”
Caretaker coach Oscar Fernandez will remain on the bench for Saturday’s Primera Liga match against Real Mallorca, but Koeman will replace him when the team host Rosenborg in the Champions League on Tuesday.

COACHING CAREER
Koeman was a member of the Barcelona team that won the 1992 European Cup and four consecutive Primera Liga titles in the early 1990s and he had a spell as assistant at the Catalan club when he began his coaching career.
He returned to the Netherlands to take the job of head coach at Vitesse Arnhem in 2000 and then took charge of former team Ajax the following year, leading the Amsterdam side to the league and Cup double in 2002 and another league title in 2004.

He stepped down in 2005 following a UEFA Cup defeat to Auxerre and then moved to Portuguese champions Benfica, but resigned less than 12 months later after they finished third in the league and signed a two-year deal with PSV.

He led PSV to a dramatic victory in the Dutch championship last season when they pipped rivals Ajax and AZ Alkmaar to the title on goal difference in the final round of matches.

More about Valencia’s loss against Real Madrid and the sobering response from the fans in an article from the Spanish league writer Sid Lowe in The Guardian. Read this article. It’s simply wonderful … :

Valencia’s fans whistled and booed, waved hankies, pointed fingers and made for the exit, shaking their heads in disgust as they wound down Mestalla’s crumbling concrete walkways and into Manolo’s bar with its football lampshades, busted tellies, and ropey sausages. All of which would be perfectly normal (after all, if there’s anything valencianos love more than blowing off their fingers, it’s complaining about their team) but for one thing: it was only just after half past nine and there was still an hour to go against hated rivals Real Madrid.

And yet, like witnesses to Anne Widdecombe flashing an ankle, the chés had seen more than enough already. Valencia were four – yes, four – down and rather than the home team staging a dramatic comeback, Madrid looked set to score 10.

Before the match, Madrid manager Bernd Schuster told journalists he would “love a job like yours where you get paid for insulting people, despite not having a clue what you’re talking about.” Well, what else do you expect from a Romanian tosspot? He also insisted that, far from being a bit rubbish and getting lucky late in games, Madrid were like Roger Federer, “toying” with the opposition: “tie-break, tie-break, 7-6, 7-6, then suddenly, bam! 6-1.” He was so nearly right, too, with Madrid stopping fractionally short of a tennis score. Not the 40-love so dear to Robinho but 5-1, with two from Ruud van Nistelrooy and one each from Raúl, Robinho and Sergio Ramos, Marca’s headline this morning declaring “Real Federer enamours everyone” alongside a picture of Robinho trying to get off with Raúl.

But if Madrid were superb – with Guti outrageously good, Raúl exceptional, Ramos stupidly impressive again, and even Fernando Gago looking half-decent – Valencia were shocking, absolutely awful, truly, deeply dreadful. Iván Helguera proved that not only is Madrid’s policy of banning former players from facing them an act of cheating cowardice, it’s also pretty dumb. Playmaker David Silva, ludicrously played in a deep role, spent the whole game hacking wildly while David Albelda, strangely, didn’t. Miguel was absent at right back, Fernando Morientes was anonymous and … well, they were all rubbish, only Joaquín emerging with any credit whatsoever.

Valencia were one-down after 40 seconds, four down on 37 minutes. Small wonder that the few fans left were sat fidgeting in silence, that the injured David Villa, Carlos Marchena, Rubén Baraja and Santi Cañizares had their heads in their hands up in the stands, or that the Youmus ultras turned their backs on the pitch. Over in the director’s box, Valencia president Juan Soler couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable if Alfredo Di Stéfano had released a particularly nasty fart.

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bloke. With his potbelly, rubbish tache, flabby jowls, shabby suits, jumped-up lack of class and marvellous ability to run a club with disastrous and comic consequences, Soler is Spanish football’s very own Brian Potter. And you couldn’t help but grin a big grin of schadenfreude: watching him sadly surveying the wreckage last night was like watching Richard Branson swinging from the tangled wires of his hot air balloon after another half-arsed attempt to circle the globe – Good! Serves you right, you smug git!

And it serves him right because Soler was the man who sacked Quique Sánchez Flores on Sunday night with Valencia in fourth place, just four points off leaders Madrid. Because he sent one of his flunkys into Quique’s post-match press conference to announce that the board was discussing his future, with the coach still sitting there. Because he confirmed the sacking on the club’s website at 4.23am just three days before Madrid’s visit, but decided that sporting director Miguel-Ángel Ruiz should explain the decision publicly – even though Ruiz played no part in the sacking. Because he reckoned that sacking Quique was the way to beat Madrid and that the man to come in as caretaker manager was Oscar Ruben Fernández, a 33-year-old youth-team coach who’s never been above the third division. Because he gave a shortlist of new, permanent coaches with nothing in common except fame – perfect men to protect him.

Now, there were reasons to sack Quique. The fans had been singing “Quique, go now!” for weeks, Valencia’s football had been desperately dull, and the coach failed to get the best out of an exceptional squad. He had also lost the players. They backed him in the civil war with sporting director Amadeo Carboni last season and eventually Carboni was sacked, but Quique’s victory was hollow: in return for the sacking, he swallowed the dismissal of three of his backroom team, revealing his weakness and convincing the players he had changed sides. When he came back after the summer and tried to play the hardman, they turned against him and Soler stabbed him in the back. No wonder when he cleared the scarves and eyeliner from his desk, Quique admitted: “I have lost a job but regained a life.”

But fans also whistled Rafa Benítez and Hector Cúper while Valencia were enjoying the most successful period in their history. Privately Valencia’s veterans believe the club failed to sign anyone who would really improve the starting XI, and although a tendency not just to hit the self-destruction button but to batter it into submission has long existed at Valencia – where no coach has lasted four years since Di Stéfano between 1970 and 1974 – to describe Soler as a pretty bad president would be like calling Noel Edmonds slightly irritating.

Ronald Koeman will be the fifth coach Soler has had since taking over in October 2004, when Valencia were statistically the continent’s third-best club, having won two league titles and been to two European Cup finals in four years. Since then, Valencia’s debt has risen from €120m to €260m, there have been five sporting directors, a handful of director generals, three different medical chiefs and no trophies. Sacking Quique is all well and good, Juan, but maybe it’s time you got rid of the man really responsible: yourself.