The Pride of Vallekas

This is the story of two signings, 14 years apart, of two very similar players. Since I've already written about Raúl Baena before, I'm just going to put a link to the post - you can click here to read it . Nevertheless, without further ado, here is the story of Luis Cembranos. 7th October, 1995. Johan Cruyff must deal with the absence of Kodro, Hagi, Prosinečki, Popescu Bakero. Barcelona are travelling to Betis, and it is the only La Liga game of the day - all eyes are on it. Those eyes then quickly turn - Diego Maradona rejoins the Boca Juniors squad after having been suspended for fifteen months. And even in Spain many focus on Jorge Valdano's Real Madrid who are struggling - and Atlético Madrid's Radomir Antić who calls club president Jesús Gil's dreams distant from reality. But the eyes that remain go wild - Johan Cruyff has produced a revolutionary lineup. Eight new young players make their debut. Eight. And they tear Betis apart, in a performance that...

Once again, smetimes a blog entry becomes less about the subject matter and how it came about. This blog post was supposed to be titled D is for Deportivo Alavés. However, most people would only call it Alavés, and I felt like that was cheating. By sheer coincidence, the first player I wrote about was David Aganzo. Disaster averted? David Aganzo was one of many players who directly confronted Martín Presa in 2011. He had not been paid for fourteen months, Rayo had just returned to La Liga, and he was being offered 70% less than promised. He was blunt in his interviews, angry with his situation and left Vallekas, but his sporting achievements must not be overlooked. His physical problems and excessive temperament plagued him at Rayo but he still managed to score more goals per 90 minutes, and sometimes more goals overall, than any other player. In fact, out of 114 league games, he was eligible for just 64, with 50 games lost due to injuries and suspensions. A Real Madr...

You can read part 1, about Sergio Matabuena, here . And part 2, about Javi Fuego, here . Pep Guardiola was revered by Barcelona fans because he achieved something believed to be impossible - winning trophies consistently whilst playing beautiful, attacking football. But beauty is subjective - and it isn't just of one type. It's hard to justify how a tough-tackling, yellow-card accumulating player who barely ever scores or assists goals can be described as beautiful. It's hard to see the importance of a player like that in a system that rewards passing and movement. But there is something beautiful, something heroic, something almost poetic, about a La Masia youth graduate, his hair flying in the air, his eyes determined, his brow tensed, his speed, stamina and strength all summoned, into a ridiculous tackle that looks impossible yet he emerges with the ball cleanly. And he does it again. And again. And again. If Espanyol fans came up a with a list of player...

From part 1: "Javi Fuego was the talk of the town. He was the Segunda star, and La Liga teams were knocking on the door... The Asturias native started playing professional football for Sporting Gijón, representing the local side during six second division seasons (2001-07) and being first-choice between 2004 to 2007. There was a line in the article above that summed up the whole thing - "Both operations were carried out simultaneously". As soon as Levante had agreed the 853,000 euro deal, Sporting had agreed on the Sergio Matabuena deal. Javi Fuego would later go on to leave the squad upon relegation and serious financial problems, and in August 2008, he signed a three-year deal worth €140,000 with Recreativo de Huelva, appearing regularly as a starter during two years but being relegated from the top flight in his first. During those 3 seasons, between 2008-11, something was happening at Rayo Vallecano." In a dizzying array of red and white, spurred b...

7th October, 1995. Johan Cruyff must deal with the absence of Kodro, Hagi, Prosinečki, Popescu Bakero. Barcelona are travelling to Betis, and it is the only La Liga game of the day - all eyes are on it. Those eyes then quickly turn - Diego Maradona rejoins the Boca Juniors squad after having been suspended for fifteen months. And even in Spain many focus on Jorge Valdano's Real Madrid who are struggling - and Atlético Madrid's Radomir Antić who calls club president Jesús Gil's dreams distant from reality. But the eyes that remain go wild - Johan Cruyff has produced a revolutionary lineup. Eight new young players make their debut. Eight. And they tear Betis apart, in a performance that is still vivid in the memory of some Barcelona fans. That season - the 1995-96 season - saw a record 20 youth academy players trained with the first team. Ten of them made their first team debuts - La quinta del mini , they called it. There are some who go further, who call the B team of...

Adam Selby owns @GironaUK , a Twitter page dedicated to, you guessed it, Girona. Do follow the page, and while you're at it, Adam himself - @ASelbyInfo . A bit about yourself and your background As a page, @GironaUK are a fairly new, incredibly fresh and extremely enthusiastic page that was established shortly after the end of the 2016/17 season. Whilst our priority is to of course document Girona’s rise and performance in La Liga this season, for us a greater priority is to help provide exposure to an ever growing English speaking audience with an interest in Spanish football. As one of the most interesting stories given Girona’s rise to prominence in recent months, we recognized the potential of helping give Girona a much greater digital footprint in the English language and as currently the only English language account for Girona across the internet (at least to our understanding) at this time of writing, we are incredibly proud to represent the club from a supporter’s ...

Last season, I repeatedly sung the praises of Ernesto Galán. He is a former center-back and current right-back - quick, defensively excellent and surprisingly adept going forward and covering for players. However, and quite surprisingly, I never actually wrote about him - his career and his story. Which is a shame, but better late than never I guess. Here it is. Ernesto Galán was struggling. His youth career had started with Villaviciosa de Odón releasing him and ended with Getafe releasing him too. His senior career had started with Segunda B side Móstoles in the 2005-06 season, playing 32 games under four different managers, but the team was relegated. Having played in Madrid all his life, and with his career in jeopardy, the decision to leave was a huge gamble. But he did - in 2006 he signed for Lleida. It was a risk - and it certainly felt like one at the beginning. Felipe Miñambres gave him just three league games in six months, and he had to pack his bags once again f...

In 2014, Jozabed Sánchez was a talent at Real Jaén, relegated to the Segunda B that summer. When Jozabed’s four goals and 12 assists couldn’t prevent Real Jaén’s relegation to the theoretically amateur third-tier of Spanish football, he took the punt and joined Rayo in division one. It was a gamble, a huge one, and no one thought about the signing working out. Two years later and with 10 goals and 3 assists not enough to save Rayo Vallecano, Jozabed was on his way to Fulham. The stakes of the gamble were even bigger this time. Not just because he had no preseason to work with. Not just because it was a different country, or a different league, but a different mentality. The history of Spaniards failing in the Championship is a long and damaging one. Those who succeed are the ones who fit the physicality-type stereotypes associated with the league. The playing style which made Jozabed shine in La Liga is almost the opposite of that - patient buildup play, quick transitions and sho...

Following his retirement as a player in 1989, which included 15 first-team seasons at Real Madrid, Camacho began coaching in Real Madrid's coaching staff. His first professional experiences were spent at Rayo Vallecano (1992-93) and Espanyol (1994-96), both of which he helped promote to the top division. After a spell at Sevilla (1996-97), and another spell at Espanyol (1997-98) where he led Espanyol to a Europa League spot, in the summer of 1998, Camacho took over Real Madrid's first team, but left after only 22 days over disagreements with the club's management. Camacho succeeded Javier Clemente as national team manager in September 1998, after a shock 2-3 loss in Cyprus in a Euro 2000 qualifier. The tide quickly turned under the new boss, who led the side to the final stages, where it bowed out to eventual champions France in the quarter-finals. Two years later, Camacho's team lost in the same stages to South Korea, now in the 2002 World Cup; following the contro...

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" At the end of the 2014-15 season, Rayo survived comfortably, and surviving felt normal. It wasn't. It never was, and never again will be taken for granted. It's surprising that I took it for granted then. We were on the division’s smallest budget. We lost our best center-back - and sometimes our free-kick taker ahead of Trashorras - in Alejandro Gálvez. We lost out best striker in Joaquín Larrivey. We lost our best goalkeeper in Rubén Martínez. We lost midfielder Adrián González. We even lost Anaitz Arbilla - a player who went from being a Segunda player with Hércules to becoming a La Liga quality defender and earning a move to Espanyol. In 18 months. With so much quality leaving the squad, Rayo were backed into a corner. And in that situation, apart from Antonio Amaya returning to Rayo from Real Betis, Rayo had to compensate by bringing in quantity. Rayo's 2013-14 squad R...

Jordi Agusti, 34, is the Chief Operations Officer of a shop displays company. You can follow him on Twitter: @Totocompos He also recommends the Twitter account of Penya Jandrista - @losjandristas - as a great place to follow the club's day to day workings. How long have you been a fan of Girona and what made you support them in the first place? I've been a Girona fan since I was about 10 years ago, I started to support Girona because it is the team of our province and at that moment the team was playing in the Segunda B with the possibility to go to the 2nd division. Also in that moment it was one of my friends playing in the team (Albert Dorca, now playing at Alcorcón) Describe your first experience of watching Girona play? I don't remember the first experience but I remember the first season Girona played in the 2nd division because they played against some first division teams I used to watch on TV (Zaragoza, Rayo, Tenerife, Real Sociedad, Celta) and at that ...

I love plotting a player's career on Google Maps and seeing how many years it took them to travel the distance it did. Obviously, for players who travel internationally, the fun quickly goes away. For example, Joan Verdú, the ex-Real Betis playmaker left for Baniyas (in the UAE) in 2014 - only to go all the way back to Fiorentina in the summer on 2015. Or Ricardo Quaresma, who in two-and-a-half years went from Besiktas to Al-Ahli (Dubai) to Porto, and back to Besiktas again. But sometimes, a player can impact just small communities with small clubs with even smaller ambitions. And their entire career, from when they were a little boy to when they're playing now at 41, can look like this. The stadiums of UDA Gramenet - CF Damm - UDA Gramenet - Torre Baró - FC Santboià - CE Mataró - Terrassa FC - UE Sant Andreu - CF Badalona That, right there, is a 182 kilometer journey, that would take 3 hours 17 minutes on road. It is also the journey of a man who loved Catalunya so mu...

Good, attacking, ferocious football. That's how I would describe Compostela and their undying philosophy. A brand of play that has seen Compostela rise and fall on the ladder of Spanish football. Till 1986, Compostela were a stable mid-table third tier club representing the small regional town of Compostela in Galicia. However, that very summer they were relegated. They had attacked and attacked and fought with all their might, kicking and screaming, but went down - with the joint-worst defense in the league. But giving up their attacking philosophy was out of the question. It was that philosophy that saw them promoted to the third tier in 1990, promoted to the second tier the year after, and reach the top division in 1994. It was that philosophy that saw them lose the relegation playoff against Villarreal in 1998. It was that philosophy that saw them reach the quarterfinals of the 1999-00 Copa del Rey, defeating the likes of Numancia, Tenerife and Villarreal on the way - all...

27th May, 2000 It could not have been more different. Espanyol were facing Atlético Madrid in the final of the Copa del Rey, and their runs to the final couldn’t have been more different. Espanyol had beaten Celta Vigo and Real Madrid; Atlético Madrid had beaten Rayo on away goals in the quarters and Barcelona forfeited the semifinals. At the end of a crazy league season, where Atlético Madrid were relegated, the notion was that the Copa del Rey would be their consolation. Boy, were they wrong. Goalkeeper Toni Jiménez, who was in his first season at Atlético Madrid after having won the 1998 Zamora with (ironically) Espanyol, served as backup to José Francisco Molina. He was having a treacherous season, and only played cup games. And he was about to have a moment that would haunt him for ever. The ball was in his hands. He was about to throw it in the air to kick it. And he did. But Tamudo’s head beat him to the ball, and he scored into the open net. Tamudo had made his for...

Miguel Bastón was a goalkeeper who played for Atlético - but only with its reserves - and spent most of his career with Real Burgos CF. His dream of playing for the first team of the club that he graduated from never materialized. Born in Madrid, Borja arrived in his hometown club Atlético Madrid's youth system at the age of four. He began as a goalkeeper, the position which his father played professionally, but he converted him to a forward so that he could enjoy the game more. He made his senior debuts in the 2009–10 season, scoring 12 goals for the reserve team in the third division. On 15 May 2010, in the campaign's last round, Borja made his first-team and La Liga debut, coming on as a substitute for Tiago in the 58th minute of the game against Getafe CF. He had fulfilled his father's dream. That dream, however, faded quickly. Twenty minutes later, he was stretchered off with a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury on his left knee, in an eventual...

Salamanca traveled to Albacete to compete for promotion to La Liga with an impossible task on their hands. They had to overturn a 2-0 deficit away from home, against a side that entered La Liga's relegation playoff spots on the final day, and who had scored 44 goals in the league - just four less than Salamanca themselves. As the clock ticked towards the 90th minute, Salamanca were winning 1-0 yet in danger of losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Born in Tudela, Navarre, Urzaiz began his professional career at Real Madrid's B-side, making his debut in Segunda División in 1989. Despite being a successful youth international, he did not make any La Liga appearances for the first team (however, he did play one game against Odense BK, in the 1990–91 European Cup). Urzaiz spent the 1991–92 season on loan at Albacete Balompié, making his top flight debut when he came on as a substitute against Athletic Bilbao in October 1991. In early 1993, he was loaned to Celta de Vigo...

In 2007 he won the Segunda title with Valladolid. In 2008 he won the Segunda title with Numancia. In 2010 he was this close to seeing Cartagena promoted and was in the top 3 for the Pichichi trophy. In 2014 he helped Deportivo secure promotion to La Liga. José Verdú Nicolás, or Toché, is 33 years old and is a specialist at getting promoted. At jumping up a level. At rising above the defence and scoring. At rising above the shadows. A former Atlético graduate, he has Champions League and Europa League experience with Panathinaikos. And now, he is at Real Oviedo. The club that just got promoted and wants to get promoted again. A powerful header, a knack of rising above a defense and an uncanny ability to score goals, Toché has scored nine times in eighteen games and will surely try to find the back of the net again. But what goes under the radar when it comes to Toché is his technical ability. In Oviedo’s attacking, one-touch system, he scores one-touch goals like these . He d...