The Pride of Vallekas

When I sent Elizabeth the questions via email, she responded: "Good grief. Are you doing a PhD in Rayo fans?" Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new subtitle of the Rayo aficionado project. She is @LizzieCarrEllis on Twitter - give her a follow! A bit about yourself and your background I’m a journalist living and working in south-east England, but I’m originally from Newcastle. I lived eight years in Scotland, where I supported Hibs (Hibernian), and then eight years in Madrid. How long have you been a fan of Rayo and what made you support them in the first place? I thought I’d be an Atléti fan at first but they never grabbed me. My husband was reading up about Rayo and we both really liked the ethos: anti-fascista, etc. and the strong sense of community. Plus the tickets were affordable - and you could get them - and one day we just really wanted to see a live football game so we went, we won and that was it. Describe your first visit ever to Vallecas and the sta...

Given that now Baena has also signed for Granada - that's three Rayo players to the club in two years - you can excuse the frustration that I feel. And it may not even be the end - Manucho, Ebert, Nacho, Dorado, Dovale and Miku, among others I'm surely forgetting, are all free to sign for other clubs.  Granada have taken legends from Rayo - Juan José Collantes, Piti, Tito, and now Baena too. And what makes it even more painful is that it's so simple. Money talks. TL;DR: I hate Granada. He was just one of three players to stay with the club from 2004 all the way till 2008, when Rayo jumped out of the well and into the Segunda. The name? Juan José Collantes, who joined Rayo midway through the 2004-05 season also at the age of 21 after roaming around in Villareal (Juvenil), CD Onda, Palamos CF, and Racing de Santander B. A right winger, he would score 12 goals in the 2007-08 Segunda B, and along with Sergio Pachón (16 goals), Míchel (10 goals) and Piti (7 goals) g...

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...

In February 2009, de la Vega was arrested in connection with an anti-drug operation in the Spanish capital. After eight days, he paid €30.000 in order to be released from custody. Former footballers Predrag Stanković and Txutxi were also involved in the plot, among others. In 2014 (confirmation in 2015) de la Vega was one of two persons acquitted, as five other people received sentences that ranged from four to 12 years. Predrag and Txutxi were condemned to nine years in 2014 (confirmation in 2015) for smuggling 950 kg of cocaine into the country. After emerging through Rayo Vallecano's youth system, right-back Carlos de la Vega went on to play with amateur sides Alcalá and Alcorcón, also from his hometown of Madrid, until well into his 20's. He did not have his first taste of full professional football until the 2008–09 season (he had only played one match with Rayo's first team in 2002–03's La Liga, two minutes) when, after returning to Rayo in the previous ye...

Last week, the striker who promised Valladolid he'd score 40 goals and actually scored five, the striker who became friends with fellow lusophone Diego Costa, the striker who has played in Turkey and England, Greece and Spain, and who took four seasons to reach 97 league appearances at Valladolid reached 100 league appearances at Rayo in three. It's interesting to think that Manucho started out as a left-winger - and a pretty good one at that - in his native Angola. Nowadays, he revels in the super sub role, coming on in the last 10 or 20 minutes as Rayo's plan B. He isn't quick by any means, but he brings direct play, a powerful header and a central focal point to the attack. And hard work - lots of it. Out of the 100 league games, Manucho has started in just 31 (of which he has completed the full 90 minutes in 27). That's right - Manucho has had 69 substitute appearances. And while 14 goals in that time sounds measly, those 100 league games total a mere ...

I found it interesting going through past games and highlighting individual performances - so here's more of them... It’s 2012, Paco Jémez’s first season in charge and it’s a mess. Three wins and a draw from nine games leave them in 15th place. Meanwhile, Málaga had lost just once in that same period, were 12 places above in the league table, were playing in the Champions League and hadn’t dropped a single point. A team that contained Demichelis, Joaquín, Isco, Saviola, Camacho and Jesús Gámez, were beaten at home by a team that had cost a total of €0 to assemble. The win was symbolic of a huge change in fortunes – Málaga were winless in their next four fixtures and Rayo were on the ascendancy, finishing in a record 8th place with a record 53 points – only to be cruelly denied a Europa League place due to financial difficulties. If you really want to understand Piti's impact on Rayo's 2012-13 season, just watch this game. It's not just that he scores both go...

You can read part 1 here , part 2 here , and part 3 here . In the 1949-50 season, Rayo changed their white shirt for the current uniform - one with a red diagonal strip crossing their chest. River Plate visited the city to play a friendly against Real Madrid. The managers of Rayo visited the Argentinians, legends back then, to honor them and the humble club let them their stadium to train, where both clubs played an informal game. Some days later, a box from Argentina found its way to Vallekas - full of River shirts. Even though the shirts had the kid size, the club adopted the River shirt as its own. Despite Atlético Madrid wanting them to wear their shirt, Rayo kept their new shirt and never changed it, since the agreement with the colchoneros only lasted one year. Corporations are not inherently evil. Some are good to people and benevolent to their employees, but this is not the rule, it’s the exception. The pursuit of profit supersedes everything else. We don't think o...

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...

In Rayo's attack, a dizzying array of white and red, it is typically the player who plays "in the hole" who ends up scoring most of the goals, often playing as a deep striker. In modern times, Emiliano Armenteros will be credited as the first to perform admirably well at this role. His 20 goals in the 2010-11 season proved critical to Rayo's promotion to La Liga. The next season, it was Michu (15 goals). The season after, it was Piti (18) and for another two seasons it was Alberto Bueno (11 and then 17).  And while And while Michu, Piti and Bueno were already Segunda caliber players, immediately making an impact on La Liga outfit (Rayo), it was Emilio's story that really stood out. Emilio Armenteros, after having played as a starter from ages 19 to 21 at Independiente, was signed by Sevilla but largely played for the reserves. At 23, in 2009, Armenteros moved to Xerez on loan but only played 1560 minutes as the Andalucians were relegated. He would then ...

On the 14th of March, 2017, I wrote an article called the true Rayistas (read it here ), honoring those who stuck with the club from the 2002-03 La Liga to the 2004-05 Segunda B: We seem to think that footballers form emotional attachment and loyalty to their clubs, but being a professional footballer is a job - and that job is their means of survival. Which is why we celebrate, and revere, and treasure those who genuinely care about the club, put their money where their mouth is and stay on. They didn't need to. They weren't expected to.  And yet they did. There is no heroism in it. It damages career prospects, takes a toll on the bank account, and history won't remember much about the club, much less the name. But there are three more people to honor - those who stayed with the club from 2004 all the way till 2008, when Rayo jumped out of the well and into the Segunda. The first is Miguel Albiol (yes, Raúl Albiol's older brother), who arrived at Ra...

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 ...

John Mothershaw of oviedofans.blogspot.com  and I collaborated on a preview of the upcoming fixture. It was published on his blog here  and also on OviedistaNorthWest  here . And it's right here on this blog too. But before you read it, send John some love on Twitter here . And while you're at it, to me here  too. Thanks. I love you. Sarthak Given the summer window and the squad that was assembled at the start of the season, is Rayo where you want it to be? Not even close. Rayo managed to keep all their La Liga starters, save right-back Tito and midfielder Jozabed - and even then Rayo brought in adequate replacements. Maybe Rayo fans underestimated their losses, but even then being joint-bottom is quite unexpected. Currently, Rayo are joint-bottom in 21st - do you think they have what it takes to survive in the Segunda? Given that even if you don't count Real Oviedo they still have to play six of the top ten, my money is not on them staying up. The l...