The Pride of Vallekas

A few months ago, Rayo fans woke up to this: CONVOCATORIA| 📋 Lista de 1️⃣9️⃣ jugadores para el debut mañana en la #CopaDelRey 🏆 #NumanciaMálaga ⚽️ #VamosMálaga 💙 👉 https://t.co/hlScwtJkhY pic.twitter.com/qFGrdvOnrQ — Málaga CF (@MalagaCF) October 23, 2017 That was a bittersweet moment - pride for a Rayista who was going to succeed at Málaga, but bitterness at the club for letting him go for free and not tying him down early enough. Midfielder Pablo Clavería slipped through the cracks. He wasn't renewed, and got tired of waiting - a depressingly normal situation for a smaller, cash-strapped club. This is the story of another player who slipped through. Like Pablo, he has a powerful shot on him. Unlike Pablo, it's key to his job. The striker made his name in his hometown of Madrid in the Tercera, after rising through the ranks of Galáctico Pegaso. He would play for the reserves in 2007, before playing for the senior team during the 2008-09 campaign. During the ...

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...

Follow Paul Reidy on Twitter here and on Instagram here . How long have you been a fan of Rayo and what made you support them in the first place? I discovered Rayo on my first ever trip to Madrid in 1993 and was introduced to the club by a friend living in the capital at that time. He mentioned the idiosyncrasy of the club, the neighborhood and the political aspect that surrounds the club. I went to my first game the following season and remember being pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the fans who were somewhat bemused to see a foreign supporter make the journey to Vallekas, as at that point in time the club had close to zero in terms of international profile. On regular trips to Madrid I would also ensure that the weekend flight worked around Rayo home fixtures. I later moved to Madrid in 2003 and one of the first tasks upon arriving in Madrid was securing a Rayo season ticket. My arrival coincided with relegation from the top flight and another subsequent relation to 2B...