The Pride of Vallekas

Linares coach Pedro Pablo Braojos once told him that he didn't have what it took to succeed in the Segunda B. He would turn out to be right. Mohamed Diamé was born in the Paris suburb of Créteil and he was selected to attend the Clairefontaine academy between 2000 and 2003. He would then move to Lens, beginning his professional career in 2005 with the club's reserves, but left two years later after facing health problems. He was told playing again would be risky. But he took that risk - as well as the risk of playing in another country - by recovering and immediately signing for Segunda B side Linares in July 2007. He played 31 games for the club - starting just 14 of them - and clocked 1292 minutes. Linares coach Pedro Pablo Braojos once told him that he didn't have what it took to succeed in the division. He would turn out to be right - Rayo Vallecano, a team not in the Segunda B but in the Segunda, saw a player with raw potential. A dynamic midfielder with ...

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...

On a small football field in Madrid, Alfredo Di Stefano stepped on for a veterans match. He was retiring, and this was his sendoff. Used to large crowds and noisy football stadiums, he probably was thinking - where am I? Spain's districts are divided into neighborhoods, or barrios . South west to Puente de Vallecas is the working class district of Villaverde, where a small barrio of about 18,000 inhabitants resides. It has historically been isolated, from the north and east by the railroad, to the south by the old Army Car Park and to the west by the old highway to Andalusia (A-4). 40% of the population is made up of immigrants - in the 1960s, immigrants from Extremadura, Andalucía, Murcia and Castilla La Mancha came in hoards, looking for a way to escape the poverty of their towns. On Rocafort street, a small football field is home to CD San Cristóbal de los Angeles - one of the most prestigious youth academies in Madrid. The academy that produced Raúl of Real Madrid, and ...

That's right! Give the Facebook page a like here for updates on blog posts and sneak peaks on future posts! A while back  I spoke to NUFCBlog.co.uk about Mohamed Diamé and how at Rayo he developed into the most sought-after prospect in world football: "They had Danny Drinkwater – we had 33-year-old club legend and pass master Míchel. They had Christian Fuchs and we had 39-year-old left-back Carles Llorens. They had Kasper Schmeichel and we had David Cobeño. They had Mark Albrighton and we had Jofre. They had Riyad Mahrez and we had Miguel Albiol. They had N’Golo Kanté, and we had Mohamed Diamé. And while each of those players have stories that are worth sharing, the last one sticks out the most." Now that I've spoken about Mo Diamé, it's time. Here are the other stories. "It was an agreement between clubs. What happened was that I did not want to leave, I was very comfortable at Rayo; we were going to play in Europe and I wanted ...

Three of Álex Bergantiños' four goals in La Liga for Depor have been against Barcelona. Here are those goals. Scene 1: 12th May, 2017. Riazor. In the 74th minute, a corner is whipped in from the left wing to the far post, and Jordi Alba, who is marking Álex, watches him rise above him and head the ball into the net. And this just days after Barcelona overturned a 4-0 deficit and won 6-1 against PSG. Scene 2: 20th October, 2012. Riazor. Barcelona were 3-0 up after 17 minutes and cruising, but it went from 0-3 to 2-3 to 2-4 to 3-4 to 3-5 to 4-5 with 12 heart-stopping minutes left. That game had literally everything: a ludicrously good Leo Messi hat-trick, a yellow card for the least offensive man ever - Juan Carlos Valerón, and the finest own goal ever by Jordi Alba - a delicate volleyed lob over his keeper. And it was Bergantiños who scored the second for Depor to inspire the comeback. Scene 3: 12th December, 2015. Camp Nou. Barcelona are 2-0 u...

What makes modern football so beautiful is that some - few, but some - players love the game, or love a particular club, and stay for a reason other than the paycheck - like Javi Fuego rejecting a 800,000 euro move to Club Brugge in January 2012 because he loved playing at a club that couldn't even pay its players. In a dizzying array of red and white, spurred by the battle cries and fervent arm movements of Pepe Mel, a 45 year old bespectacled former striker, newly-promoted Rayo Vallecano were punching well above their weight. The club that was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, that couldn't pay its players and whose fan base actively hated the owners had a men's team that had just been promoted from the semi-professional third tier and was outside the top ten for just two jornadas, and a women's team that was winning the league. In the 2008-09 season, at the Campo de Fútbol de Vallecas, there was a team, plucky, beautiful, and aggressive. And it was win...

I wrote about Mohamed Diamé and his time at Rayo for NUFCBlog.co.uk. You can read it here .

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...