The Pride of Vallekas

The Rayo aficionado series was intended to interviewing Rayo fans from various backgrounds, and so far this blog has been privileged to feature fans who are born and bred in Vallekas. But the international reach that this small club has had is amazing - Finland and Oslo were surprising, but Washington DC might be the hardest to beat. Nevertheless, given the number of Rayo fans in the UK - and given that a Newcastle and Lancashire based fan have already contributed to this series - it's with great delight that I can announce that I'm joining forces with Carl Harper in setting up a UK based Rayo Vallecano supporters group . We are in our infancy, and you can find more details on social media below. Moreover, we will try and give some English coverage of Rayo Vallecano as well - I'll try my best to increase my coverage on this blog too, but forgive me if I go back to writing about a Segunda B player no one has heard of. I'll resist that temptation - sometimes. Finall...

While Rayo has a strong youth academy that produces some top quality, La Liga-caliber players, it is also a club where many managers start, and in most cases boost, their careers. Here's a list of those managers and how their careers have progressed since then: Míchel (José Miguel González Martín del Campo) After a long and successful career at Real Madrid, being part of the legendary Quinta del Buitre and a season at Celaya in Mexico, he retired in 1997 and took charge of Rayo for the 2005-06 Segunda B season - it was the only season out of the four spent in the Segunda B that Rayo didn't even qualify for the playoffs. He would go on to take charge of Real Madrid B as a coach while also being director of Real Madrid's sports city, the entire youth system. He would coach his son, Adrián, but get relegated to the Segunda B in 2007 and left. His career went upwards from there - in 2009 he took over at Getafe for two seasons, beating the drop both times (he would coa...