The Pride of Vallekas

When he started for Segunda B side Olímpic de Xàtiva shy of his 37th birthday, he had previously played just two seasons in the Segunda B. His first had come shy of his 26th birthday; his second had come shy of his 30th. He has played in just three leagues his entire life - the Preferente Valenciana, the Tercera Group 6 and the Segunda B Group 3. Yes, that's right, every club he has played for has been in the Valencian Community. It all started at Acero, in the fifth tier in 1994, with whom he won promotion. After one season in the Tercera with the club, he moved to Valencia C for a season, and then to Burjassot for three seasons - all in the same tier. In 2000, Alzira, in the Segunda B, gave him a chance; however, despite being an undisputed first team player, the side were relegated and his Segunda B chances looked all but dashed - he would spend another season at Alzira, before signing for Alcoyano in the Tercera in 2002. What followed was a second Segunda B shot - Alcoyan...

Welcome back to the mini-series focusing on the technical players at Córdoba! This is part 2...you can read yesterday's piece - part 1 - here . Wow, two days in a row - that's a first! 24th August, 2014. It was Eibar's first ever goal in La Liga, in their first ever game in La Liga, their first La Liga Basque derby....their first of many. And it was a hell of a goal. In their own stadium, a player who was making his La Liga debut scored a free-kick from the tightest possible angle, just a few meters from the corner flag, just before half-time. The perfect kick of the ball to kick-start Eibar's dream season. The celebration by the 28-year-old said it all - not just the goal he had scored, but the struggle of being in that moment, in that stadium, in the top tier, in football at all, scoring a goal against a Europa league team. Exactly, four years before that goal, Javi Lara was without a team, having been released from yet another Segunda B side. By the...

Estadio El Collao. A stadium that has been in operation since 1929, and has hosted matches for Alcoyano in La Liga, Segunda, Segunda B, Tercera and even the Regional Preferente. It has seen Alcoyano thrash Sporting Gijon 6-1 in the first division and beaten 9-1 in the third (then the Tercera). And it has seen it’s pitch being initially made by soldiers from Alcoy, covered by snow every winter and became the symbol of socialism and anarcho-syndicalism during the Spanish Civil War. But through all those times - the sporting success and failure, the destruction of Alcoy during the war and it’s rebuilding, the balance between industrial success in textiles, paper and metal and the immediate threat of desertification - one thing has remained intact. Untouched. Non-negotiable. CD Alcoyano’s philosophy. They are a team that will never lose their attacking mentality. A team that will never stop fighting. A team that, almost senselessly, will throw men forward from the first minute to th...

If age really is just a number, Mariano Sánchez takes it to the extreme. Some of the players I've mentioned before reached the Segunda at the age of 26-28. He did it at the age of 31. Some players started out in the Segunda B - he reached it at the age of 26.  This is one of those days. I wrote about the Cartagena legend who is now a businessman. You can read it on 19Spains.com here  and on BarcaBlaugranes.com here . Follow @Vallecanos1924