The Pride of Vallekas

If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. Saúl Berjón knows. He started his struggle in the fourth tier and made his way to the top flight. And every step of the way, in every league that he played, every team that he joined and left, he knew, and understood, which risk to take. It's not just his career though - it's the way he plays. He usually resides on the left side of the attack, and he will take even the smallest sliver of anything that could be called a "chance'. He's the one sharing one-twos, whipping crosses into the penalty area, playing formation-splitting passes and skipping between defenders while in possession. His natural instinct is to beat his man or thread a pass through sets of defenders, rather than maintaining possession by playing it sideways or backwards. He gives the team verticality, to use the technical term. He is the risk-taker. The creative hub. The go-to sou...

He runs at you with the ball. He looks at you. Determination in his eyes, seriousness in his look. A tinge of fear slowly sends shivers down your spine, as you stand back and hold your ground. In that one second, it's on. There can only be one winner and one loser. No surrenders, no take backs, no half-hearts. No change of mind. All in. In that one second, it's war. A player named Guerra started in the lower categories of local club Vélez with his twin brother Emilio, progressing from teams ranging from the benjamín to the cadete till the age of 15 . He would play for Málaga in the cadete and juvenil teams till 1999, where Manel Casanova, the head of La Academia at the Rosaleda club, engineered his move to Espanyol to the juvenil team in the División de Honor for the 1999-00 season. Over there, position coach 'Tintín' Márquez changed his position to that of striker; before then, he had played as a midfielder, in the center or on the wings. He subsequently g...

So far, he has played 207 games at Rayo, 119 at Celta, 64 at Las Palmas, 12 at Numancia, 75 at Real Madrid B and 122 at Barcelona B. Yes - if Roberto Trashorras plays this weekend, he would have played 600* professional games in a long and illustrious career.  I feel bad for Trashorras. He started out in the Segunda B at the age of 18, reached the Segunda at 24 and then La Liga at 30. His story is one that shows that hard work and dedication can take you places, and that age is no barrier to success. And then after five years of La Liga glory the club that put in faith in him got relegated. Of course, I'm happy and grateful that he stayed as a Rayo fan - but I wouldn't have begrudged him if he'd taken that offer from Deportivo. He deserved to stay in La Liga. I wrote about him here , but that is just a snapshot of his career - a career about which I'm finally going to write about. So, let's "continue" that article... Trashorras took his ...

So, Trashorras claims that Tebas threatened him with a 10000 euro fine if he supported the Bukaneros, Zozulya may be given clearance to play for a fourth team this season - a historic moment in which FIFA were compassionate (now how about that), and Paco Jémez is under increased pressure, something he described as "if Luis Enrique's hair is grey at Barcelona, he'd lose it in Mexico". But today's post is about the Segunda. Seeing as Rayo now occupy the relegation spots with a relatively unchanged team from the one last season a bit of a note about the league wouldn't be amiss. The fact that Javi Guerra, who scored 13 in La Liga, has scored 4 in the Segunda so far, and is the top scorer (joint with Ebert and Moreno) is surprising. And yes, the fact that Rayo aren't playing well justifies it, but is it simplistic? Perhaps Rayo haven't adapted to a competition that overvalues speed and trickery - Míchel said he would bet on Lass Bangoura but against...