The Pride of Vallekas

It must be frustrating to be linked to a club whose budget is 50 times the size of the club you play for, and at the same time be unwanted at the club you play for. In October of 2015, Barcelona were looking to sign a Guinean winger from Rayo at about the same time that he was expelled from training for his attitude. He was loaned out to Ligue 1 club Stade de Reims just three months later. Lass Bangoura has quality - he is a skillful dribbler, a pace merchant and a confident player. But it is his attitude that ticked Paco Jémez and Rayo fans off to no end. Born in Conakry, Bangoura began his career with local Étoile de Guinée. In 2010, aged 18, he joined the youth ranks of Spanish club Rayo Vallecano, scoring 23 goals in 25 games in his last year as a junior. Without having played for Rayo Vallecano B, Lass managed to appear in four Segunda matches with the first team during the 2010-11 season, as the Madrid side returned to La Liga after an eight-year absence. In June 2011 he at...

This is a re-post of a piece I wrote elsewhere on May 10, 2016 titled "Rayo Vallecano's grim future", just before the last game of the 2015-16 season. Just before Rayo got relegated for sure. I’m sitting in my chair, trembling, wondering how to express what I want to express, wondering how to start this very piece. I’m lost, because it doesn’t matter and yet it does. I’m lost because Luck has been cruel, Fate has been cruel. Life has been cruel. Even when the aesthetic is wonderful, Hope has been replaced with Fear, and Fear with submission. Our no. 1 and captain was out for the season before the season began. Our best goalkeeper then followed. Then our star signing. Then our hero who came back in January. Then our only other midfielder. Then our best defender. By the end, six players were out for the season. And that’s not counting the fact that at one point we were relying on a 17 year old from the Juvenil A because our top three goalscorers were out. Each obs...

Yesterday was part 1 of the Pride of Vallekas End of Season Awards! This is part 2... Best goal So many contenders - Fran Beltrán goal against Tenerife was shocking. If you hear closely, you can hear the Tenerife stadium go "woah!". It was his only goal of the season. Embarba's goal against Gimnàstic was perfectly threaded - it went through four players and somehow hit none of them. This one by Javi Guerra at UCAM Murcia was vital - Rayo didn't deserve the three points - and harder than it looks - Patrick Ebert's cross was amazingly precise. But this pass by Pablo Íñiguez, along with Embarba's run, makes it the winner . No contest. Best player Any one of Patrick Ebert, Embarba and Javi Guerra could take the plaudits here. I'm going to give it to Ebert though - in many games, everything went through him. Which leads me to award... Best performance Patrick Ebert. Against Oviedo no less . Best save by a goalkeeper Gazzaniga's save...

There are two kinds of people in the world. If you give both a task to do in 12 hours, one of them will carefully calculate how much work needs to be done in each hour, and calmly finish it before the deadline. The other will binge watch half a season of their favorite TV show they haven't seen for the fourth time, and then all hell breaks loose in the last hour - a frantic, hectic, enjoyable-to-watch mess. Given that  Roberto Trashorras was suspended - you knew that all the calm, careful calculations of the Galician were gone. You knew all hell was going to break loose. Rayo attacked loads and defended loads. Fran Beltrán and Jordi Gómez dribbled and ran with the ball, Patrick Ebert went on long mazy runs with the ball on the left. Embarba made excellent runs on the right - even hitting the post from an Ebert cross. But Rayo were overrun in the center of the park. Time and time again, Zaragoza players waltzed past Rayo defenders. Time and time again, Manuel Lanzarote ...

A lot of what goes missing in football analysis is the fact that being a professional football is an actual job. Many who enter the profession think about the food they put on the table for their families. They think about the future since the job only pays well till the early thirties. They think about bigger and better clubs offering bigger and better opportunities. They think, constantly, about the next step in their careers. Understandably though, most fans don't see a player playing for their club as a job - as an honor, or as a responsibility, but certainly not as a job. One way professional football is harder, aside from the competition of course, is job security. One-year contracts are the norm for most teams. That, along with miserly termination clauses and relegation clauses that cut wages significantly means that Spanish football, and indeed football in many second tiers in the world, produce numerous journeymen who bounce around from club to club, with no clue w...