Liftoff: 6 Days

By: Cesar | August 20th, 2007

So I haven’t had much to say the past few days.

It’s been a busy time in American soccer, with David Beckham playing a game right down the road.

It’s so weird to see people flocking to the local stadium to see a football match and have it not be a New York Jets or Giants gridiron affair. Strange? Weird? Different, for sure. And wonderful to watch happen …

What’s even weirder is this business with Rafael van der Vaart, midfielder for Hamburg.

It’s his dream to come here, or so he says. He was pictured in AS holding the Valencia kit high, signaling his desire to come to the Levante region of Spain and ply his trade.

What promised to be another boring transfer saga has turned into a soap opera epic not many people could have penned. Truth being stranger than fiction?

This, from the excellent Guardian Unlimited’s Raphael Honigstein regarding van der Vaart’s ‘move’ to Valencia:

It’s all thanks to Rafael van der Vaart’s brave efforts to make the Carlos Tevez transfer saga look like a straightforward, tedium-free event. The whole sorry affair started with an unsolicited fax from Valencia, who offered €14m for the Dutch playmaker a week ago. Hamburg put it straight into the bin, but the 24-year-old publicly promised to make the move happen by “putting pressure” on his club. “It would be a dream for me to play in Spain where my grandparents live,” he declared with a straight face, and vowed to join Valencia by the end of the month.

Then came a Uefa Cup game away to Honved in Budapest. In the morning before the match, Van der Vaart complained about back-pain. He had apparently hurt himself - don’t laugh now - lifting his one-year old son. Hamburg immediately remembered that Khalid Boulahrouz had pulled out of a Champions League qualifier twelve months before, after suffering a mysterious muscle injury in the warm-up. After his move to Chelsea, it transpired that he didn’t want to be cup-tied. Van der Vaart was obviously playing the same game, and he didn’t even pretend otherwise. A German TV station duly wondered about his next “injury”. Perhaps he could break his leg wearing those funny Dutch wooden slippers? Break a toe by dropping a piece of cheese on it? Or choke on the Dutch delicacy of Matjesfilet (fillet of herring)? Twisting his knee while plucking a tulip would have been this column’s suggestion.

The HSV fans were predictably beside themselves when he sat out the game. “Van der Vaart: Hochverrat” [Betrayal] was the cry on the terraces in Hungary, and his wife Sylvie added a touch of high drama by voicing fears about the safety of her son. But the “Van der Farce” (Hamburger Abendblatt) was far from finished yet. Hamburg’s most important player, under contract until 2010, insisted that club president Bernd Hoffmann had promised to let him go if an offer from a top Spanish club was forthcoming. Hamburg denied that; €14m was not an acceptable sum in any case, and manager Huub Stevens would have been unable to sign an adequate replacement before the close of the transfer window. On Friday, just as Stevens was defending his midfielder at a press conference, the man once revered as “the little angel” invited two Spanish journalists into his home and posed with a Valencia shirt.

This calculated provocation unsurprisingly made Hamburg’s blood boil, but Van der Vaart had clearly forgotten the famous Hanseatic propensity for unflinching pragmatism. When he took to the pitch against Leverkusen on Sunday, the supporters in the AOL Arena were smart enough not to play into his hands; instead of whistles and boos, there was polite indifference from the terraces.

You might guess what came next. Hamburg were awarded a penalty - and Van der Vaart stepped up to score the winning goal. Applause accompanied him into the changing room after his substitution. Faced with Hamburg’s intransigence and the fans’ unwillingness to take the bait, Van der Vaart beat a hasty retreat. “It looks as if I’m staying after all,” he said, making his best puppy eyes at the camera. “I never wanted to make the Hamburg fans angry, I only described my feelings.” The stench of factitiousness is hard to stomach. But a little cockney rhyming slang explains why Van der Vaart will be allowed to stink the place out a little longer by the HSV fans. We all know that when it’s one of your own, it’s only half as bad.

Yikes.

In the space of writing this blog entry, Valencia have upped their bid to 22 million Euros … I dunno. What do you guys think?

In any event, the season begins in six days for our lads with a visit from local rivals Villarreal. I’ll have more to say about that another time. In between that is a national team friendly against Greece, with 6 of our sqaud being picked by coach Luis Aragones. As the former Che gaffer said, “They are the team with the most Spanish players. I look for players who are in form and Valencia are at a different level to every one else.”

Right you are. The 6 are Marchena, Angulo (ANGULO??), Silva, Albelda, Joaquin and Villa.

For now, a preview of our squad from the decent football news site, Goal.com.

Despite not making any spectacular signings Valencia will go into the new season with the best squad since they last won the title under Rafa Benitez in 2004.

The internal fight between manager, Quique Sanchez Flores, and Sporting Director, Amadeo Carboni, has been resolved with Carboni being shown the door and being replaced by Angel Ruiz, leaving Quique free to concentrate on the football.

The signing of Timo Hildebrand from Stuttgart on a free transfer will give veteran Santi Canizares real competition. Hildebrand, who holds the Bundesliga record for keeping a clean sheet, is likely to be the long term successor to Canizares; however he will be looking to bring the 37 year old keepers career to a premature end by becoming the number one.

After the departure of Ayala to Zaragoza after seven years at the club there will be a massive hole in the heart of the Valencia defence to fill. Promising youngster Raul Albiol looks like being the man entrusted with that difficult task.

Quique will have to decide whether to partner him with Marchena or one of the new signings, Helguera and Alexis. Alexis has arrived after impressing last season at Getafe, where he was an integral part of the defence which conceded the fewest goals in La Liga.

Club captain David Albelda has stayed at the club after speculation that he may be on his way out. Valencia are likely to once again have a central midfield pairing low on creativity but high in work rate and determination, with Baraja likely to partner Albelda.

However, in the last few days ‘Los Che’ have been linked with Rafael Van Der Vaart who could give them the creativity they are missing in the middle of the park. Fortunately for Quique he has an abundance of gifted wide players at his disposal. Last summers big signing, Joaquin, started to live up to his £17m price tag towards the end of last season with some impressive displays.

Fan favourite Vicente has had his last three seasons ravaged through injury but if he can maintain his fitness and pick up the form he showed under Benitez he will be a potent threat on the left. Perhaps Valencia’s most impressive player last season was David Silva, who can play either on the wing or as a second striker.

Having spent the previous season on loan at Celta, Silva was a revelation as he burst into the Valencia first team and also La Seleccion. Valencia have bolstered their attack with the signings of Zigic and Arizmendi. Villa will definitely start, with Zigic or Morientes most likely to partner him, while Arizmendi seems doomed to a season on the bench.

With ‘Los Che’ spending 20 million euros on Zigic, they will be expecting him to continue on from his great form for Racing last year. The 2.02m Serb scored 13 goals last season aswell as providing many assists, to fire Racing to their highest ever finish, and formed an excellent partnership with the diminutive Munitis. Quique will be hoping that Zigic can perform another little and large show at the Mestalla alongside Villa.

They may not have spent the kind of money Barça and Madrid have but if Valencia’s main players can stay clear of injuries, which have blighted them in recent seasons, they have the squad to mount a genuine title challenge.