The Pride of Vallekas

One of those days yet again! My piece on Paulo Gazzaniga, who moved to Tottenham, on his season at Rayo for CartilageFreeCaptain. You can read it here .

My new series, called the Silly Season Accumulator, lists all the rumors that have ever been mentioned on the internet about Rayo. Yes - all of them. Just to show you how ridiculous this machine is - a machine that creates meaningless content masquerading as journalism. If that's harsh, that's because the irony is that more rumors gives me more material. And that material gets in the way of the stories that matter. Here's all the rumors for this week. It's less this time, because once again the actual news took precedent: Kakuta is interested in coming back to Madrid. Rayo, Leganés and Getafe have all been offered the player. Johan Mojica has been linked with a return to Columbia - Junior and Deportivo Calí are all interested. Numerous outlets reporting that Zé Castro has rescinded his contract - but no word from the club yet. 33-year-old Aitor Sanz has been linked to numerous Segunda clubs, including Rayo. He prefers to stay at Tenerife though. Manucho's...

In the heart of Puente de Vallecas, sporting, institutional and political turmoil have wrecked the institutions of a club that didn't deserve it. Rayo Vallecano, freshly relegated from La Liga, has had three different managers and was just outside the relegation zone with a squad that looks largely unchanged from last season. A signing's (Roman Zozulya) right-wing political views caused the left-wing fan base to protest, and caused Javier Tebas to criminalize fans who were then defended by left-wing political parties such as Podemos and Izquierda Unida. It led to the player returning to Real Betis, and not being able to play anywhere else for the rest of the season, and FIFA making a historic exception by allowing the player to play for four clubs in a single season. And then a Podemos-led coalition called Ahora Madrid tried declaring Javier Tebas persona non grata in Puente de Vallecas for not respecting freedom of speech via a motion in the regional council, a motion that...

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...

There are many story lines about the 90 minutes of football that took place that can be dealt with. One is the fact that a stadium that can hold 6,500 thundered against the incessant support of 150 fans who chanted Rayo until the game was over and the players had very visible smiles on their faces. Another is the fact that Rayo have picked up 11 points out of a possible 15. Or that they won just their third away win of the season. Or the fact that Gazzaniga saved Rayo from a late UCAM Murcia onslaught. Or that Ernesto Galán may be the most underappreciated defensive right back there is. Or that Fran Beltrán was excellent as usual. Or that Patrick Ebert's free kick to set up Javi Guerra's goal was perfectly set up for Javi's head. But, once again, Rayo were losing control - Santi Comesaña was having an off game and Trashorras looked tired. And, once again, the savior was not recognized. His shirt number says number eight but it is just that - a shirt number. ...

Failure is a strong word. It means a lack of success, collapse, the cessation of required action. Yesterday, I didn't want to fail. I failed because of me. I had an article ready and couldn't post it - but that's an excuse. As every second ticked towards the 10 o'clock mark I could feel myself becoming more and more frustrated. I was going to fail and I couldn't do anything about it. In just over a month I'm so addicted to daily blogging that the withdrawal was immense - symptoms including crankiness, anxiety and hyperactivity. 26th March will go up on the Hall of Shame, whether I like it or not. The irony of not having written for a day is that it gave me something to write about the next day - something that is amazing in its counterproductive nature. Today's post features the games against Numancia and Espanyol, the teams that the men's and women's teams played respectively. It also features what was supposed to go up yesterday ...