The Pride of Vallekas

His story is not unique. It is a story of a family fleeing violence, settling in a foreign land and making a name for themselves through hard work. It's the story of a striker named Tariq Spezie. It's a story that interested me because his brothers (Omar and Nura) were born in Dubai, a city I've lived in. And he was born in Sharjah, merely an hour away from Dubai. His Italian father from Verona (who worked in a tire company) and Spanish mother from La Mancha - which explains his last name Sevilla - saw the political situation in the region worsen. It eventually led to the Iran-Iraq War, and the family relocated to Italy with their one-year infant, and later to Spain. Tariq played youth football in modest clubs in Catalonia, such as Racing Blanenc and Vilobí, and supplemented his fluent Italian with Castilian and Catalan. However, he moved to Valladolid due to a family relocation, and made his senior debut with Real Valladolid B at the age of 19. He would compete the 1...

Three months ago, the 31st of March to be exact, right here on this blog , I said: "I've been compiling some stats for a long time - so watch out in the coming days for them." Oops. Welcome to part 2 of this Statistics series. In part 1, I compiled of teams that never won away in the top three divisions since 1990. This is a list of teams that were relegated for non-sporting reasons from the Segunda B. In o ne word: Madness. 1985-86: In group one, Deportivo Alavés (5th) and Palencia CF (7th) were relegated for economic reasons - their places were bought by San Sebastián CF (8th) and Pontevedra CF (9th) respectively. 1986-87: Mallorca Atlético (21st) gave up their seat and were relegated. 1988-89: In group two, CD Cala Millor (15th) were relegated for economic reasons and replaced by SD Ibiza. Also, FC Barcelona Aficionados (11th) were relegated to the Tercera because Barcelona Atlético were relegated to the Segunda B, and they were replaced by AEC Manlleu...

Sergio Asecas is 19 years old and was born in Burgos. He studies Audiovisual Communication there and loves the city, and that translates into love for the club. Just to clarify, he supports Burgos CF, the team founded in 1922, disappeared in 1983 and refounded in 1994, which is nowadays the main team in the city of Burgos. Real Burgos is the historical team that reached the first division in the 90’s, founded in 1983 - it stopped playing when Burgos CF was refounded, but it started to compete again a few years ago, playing nowadays in a lower category. You can follow him on Twitter here . If you want to find out more about Burgos, Sergio recommends  two really good websites where the members discuss about the season, the club and those things - click here and here . How long have you been a fan of Burgos and what made you support them in the first place? I’ve been a fan of Burgos since I became interested in football at 6-7 years. However, there was a time (from 9-14 ye...