The Pride of Vallekas

When I sent Elizabeth the questions via email, she responded: "Good grief. Are you doing a PhD in Rayo fans?" Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new subtitle of the Rayo aficionado project. She is @LizzieCarrEllis on Twitter - give her a follow! A bit about yourself and your background I’m a journalist living and working in south-east England, but I’m originally from Newcastle. I lived eight years in Scotland, where I supported Hibs (Hibernian), and then eight years in Madrid. How long have you been a fan of Rayo and what made you support them in the first place? I thought I’d be an Atléti fan at first but they never grabbed me. My husband was reading up about Rayo and we both really liked the ethos: anti-fascista, etc. and the strong sense of community. Plus the tickets were affordable - and you could get them - and one day we just really wanted to see a live football game so we went, we won and that was it. Describe your first visit ever to Vallecas and the sta...

In February 2009, de la Vega was arrested in connection with an anti-drug operation in the Spanish capital. After eight days, he paid €30.000 in order to be released from custody. Former footballers Predrag Stanković and Txutxi were also involved in the plot, among others. In 2014 (confirmation in 2015) de la Vega was one of two persons acquitted, as five other people received sentences that ranged from four to 12 years. Predrag and Txutxi were condemned to nine years in 2014 (confirmation in 2015) for smuggling 950 kg of cocaine into the country. After emerging through Rayo Vallecano's youth system, right-back Carlos de la Vega went on to play with amateur sides Alcalá and Alcorcón, also from his hometown of Madrid, until well into his 20's. He did not have his first taste of full professional football until the 2008–09 season (he had only played one match with Rayo's first team in 2002–03's La Liga, two minutes) when, after returning to Rayo in the previous ye...

You can read part 1 here  and part 2 here . Part 1 dealt with the players who stuck by the club through two consecutive relegations in 2003 and 2004. Part 2 dealt with the players who stayed with the club until they went up in 2008. Part 3 deals with players who took the club from the Segunda B to La Liga. These players realized a dream - a dream to take Rayo back to La Liga. The dream took eight years in total, but it happened. And these players made it happen. Let us first acknowledge that there is a player who makes more than one list - Javier Monsálvez Carazo , aka Yuma, whose praises have been sung in part 2. And he is literally a true Rayista - his cousins are Iván and Antonio Amaya and he even played for Rayo OKC. Speaking of the Amaya brothers, Antonio Amaya makes this list too. He should have made the previous list (a mistake which has now been corrected). But let's sing his praises here. Born in the capital of Madrid, Amaya began his career at local San...