The Pride of Vallekas

Yo-yo clubs are defined by their uncertainty. They go up and they go down. They remain relevant one season and are just as quick deemed irrelevant in the next. In other words, yo-yo clubs are easily forgettable. His face conveys the stern gaze of a man who had seen a lot - maybe too much. White streaks in his hair and his grey beard make the 35 year old look 53. But his role as a footballer demands him to draw on every experience. Creaking legs are shielded from scrutiny once the ball lands on his feet. Always looking to control, pass, create. Always looking to win the ball intelligently. Always looking to score from dead ball situations. He is Abel Gómez. And this is his story. There is more to Andalusia than Seville. Abel was born in Seville but spent most of his life in Granada. As a child he started playing at Atlético Monachil, located in Monachil, Granada, and later at Granada 74. Seville's Sevilla did spot him, and he graduated from their academy, playing for their...

Exactly a week ago, the post for the day was " From Rayo to Rayo - the story of Alberto García ". It was the story of a goalkeeper who started at Rayo (Rayo Majadahonda) and is now at Rayo (Rayo Vallecano). It was the story of two Madrid-based clubs named Rayo, who gave him a clear shot and helped him advance his career. But this is a story of someone literally going from Rayo to Rayo. And, at the age of just 28, his story is only just being written. Arribas' story is a mixture of opportunity and luck, achievement at an early age partly due to hard work and partly due to circumstance. It started in his hometown of Madrid, where he rose the ranks of Rayo Majadahonda, and where he made his Tercera debut during the 2007-08 campaign. What followed was a rapid rise into professional football. In 2008, he was signed by Rayo's reserves, also in the Tercera. However, his talent earned him a loan move to Segunda B side Navalcarnero in the second half of the 2008-09 seaso...

In another episode of "Statistics", the third one since March 2017, here I rank every team based on their league position as well as the average property prices outside their stadiums. Note that high property prices don't indicate the prosperity of a club, just the location - even if the winner of the housing league was also the winner of La Liga. For example, Eibar is one of the poorest clubs in the division but house prices are not cheap. Rayo Vallecano was poor and housing prices were low and their sporting performance reflected that but that doesn't indicate any trend. If you're a modest club, financially sound, and not in the capital of your autonomous community (housing prices are low) then you might just punch above your weight - Málaga, Celta Vigo and Villarreal are examples, but counter examples include Granada - so even that trend is hard to justify. In other words, this is not scientific - just a bit of fun. *price in euros per square meter of...

Speculation is a fool's game. On the 24th of June, 2014, three players were presented at the Estadio de Vallekas. A signing from Real Madrid in the first division, a signing from Mallorca in the second, and a signing from Real Jaén in the third. Jozabed was the last of those three in order of reputation. Maybe in order of former club prestige too. But there was no doubt among fans of the La Liga club that Jozabed was the last in order of ability. Two seasons later, Jozabed became Rayo's cash cow, leaving for four million euros to Fulham despite being relegated . A 24-year-old Sevilla graduate from Mairena del Alcor, Jozabed finished his formation in Sevilla's youth ranks, and made his senior debuts in 2010-11 with the C-team. He was promoted to the reserves (Sevilla Atlético) in the summer of 2012, in the Segunda B. However, seeing no opportunities to break into first team football, Jozabed rescinded his contract and joined second-tier Ponferradina in February 201...

Ahead of Rayo's game against Real Zaragoza, this is a quick piece on their tireless right winger "¡Ari, ari, ari, Toquero lehendakari!" It was the 2008-09 Copa del Rey semi-final against Sevilla. At the San Mamés, the old San Mamés, Bilbao were leading 2-0. But they were not safe - Sevilla had won the first leg 2-1, and a goal at Bilbao would keep them alive. Step forward, Gaizka Toquero. Fernando Llorente presses David Prieto and gets the ball off him, but the defender has blocked the only possible angle Llorente can exploit to score. Meanwhile, the other center back, Federico Fazio, is quickly moving towards him. He passes the ball into empty space. Halfway through the pass, Bilbao fans are already celebrating. Toquero made the lung bursting run from the halfway line and positioned himself perfectly for the pass. Fazio turns around and runs back to where he was - where he should have been - but it’s too late. Controlled with the left boot and finished with t...

Sometimes, I have thoughts and snippets that don't always deserve a full article, but also don't deserve to go into the heap. In other words, welcome to my drafts folder. Watch out for this type of article occasionally - on Sundays (Sunday Snippets) and Thursdays (Thursday Thoughts). The secret to long throws, their power (up to 60 kilometers per hour), and the distance traveled (up to 38 meters), is the technique. The explosive force that makes the long throw successful comes from the the shoulders and lower back. The release angle never exceeds 20 degrees, so that the ball increases its velocity and does not dip quickly - otherwise it can be easily cleared. They called him the catapult. No, not Morten Gamst Pedersen of Blackburn, or Rory Delap of Stoke City - even if they had the same technique. No, they say that about Marius Stankevičius - a former Sevilla, Valencia and Córdoba defender, currently seeing out his career in amateur football in Italy with AC Crema 19...

Following his retirement as a player in 1989, which included 15 first-team seasons at Real Madrid, Camacho began coaching in Real Madrid's coaching staff. His first professional experiences were spent at Rayo Vallecano (1992-93) and Espanyol (1994-96), both of which he helped promote to the top division. After a spell at Sevilla (1996-97), and another spell at Espanyol (1997-98) where he led Espanyol to a Europa League spot, in the summer of 1998, Camacho took over Real Madrid's first team, but left after only 22 days over disagreements with the club's management. Camacho succeeded Javier Clemente as national team manager in September 1998, after a shock 2-3 loss in Cyprus in a Euro 2000 qualifier. The tide quickly turned under the new boss, who led the side to the final stages, where it bowed out to eventual champions France in the quarter-finals. Two years later, Camacho's team lost in the same stages to South Korea, now in the 2002 World Cup; following the contro...

A 24-year-old Sevilla graduate from Mairena del Alcor, Jozabed joined second-tier Ponferradina in February 2013, leading his club to just a place off the promotion playoffs. They were behind Las Palmas in the league table, but were level on points, head-to-head points, head-to-head goal difference, head-to-head goals scored and even goal difference; only number of goals scored could separate them. He then joined Real Jaén, where four goals and 12 assists in 36 league matches couldn't prevent relegation to the theoretically amateur third-tier of Spanish football in 2014. He took the punt and joined Rayo in La Liga. It was a gamble, a huge one, and no one thought about the signing working out. Two years later and with 10 goals and 3 assists not enough to save Rayo Vallecano, Jozabed was on his way to Fulham. He has since gone to Celta Vigo on loan, and now plays with them permanently. But why do I bring this up? In 2014, not many fans could really say that Jozabed was...

Donning the number 9 shirt, José Carlos had the ball at his feet on the right wing. He dribbled the ball infield towards the edge of the box, faked a shot and fooled the entire defense - all with his left foot. He then shifted the ball to his right and took a shot from outside the box that goalkeeper Manu Herrera saved at the near post. His left foot was deadly. A Recreativo academy player and Sevilla graduate, he was ousted - despite his value to the Sevilla team, and despite his speed and trickery making him the perfect impact sub - by new coach Gregorio Manzano. Cartagena in the second division took him for six months, before AEK Athens signed him permanently - along with Juan Cala - in the summer of 2011; another new coach, Marcelino, refused to put his faith in him. Reuniting with Sevilla coach Manuel Jiménez, José Carlos gained his form, and some versatility too - whether in central midfield, the wings or just behind the striker, José Carlos was playing with a renewed vigor. ...

A travel blogger's perspective on Vallekas! Andrew Gillan is the founder of "Mis Viajes En Fútbol", a travel blog that explores stadiums ranging from popular to obscure. His blog can be found here . You can follow the blog on Twitter here , and follow Andrew here . A little bit about yourself and your background I'm from Northern Ireland, but for the last few years I've been living in Spain and working as an English teacher, firstly in Galicia, but now in Andalucía. Previously I worked in sports journalism and did a lot of media work for my local club Coleraine FC. What made you become interested in visiting football stadiums around Spain? Really just a love of live football and seeing it in different places. If I travel somewhere for a weekend, I'll make those plans based around a match (or two if possible!) What was the idea behind the blog Mis Viajes En Fútbol ? It's basically just an outlet for me to do a little bit of creative football...

You can follow Adrián Fernández on Twitter here . How long have you been a fan of Córdoba and what made you support them in the first place? I've been a fan of Cordoba since I started to get interested in football, when I was a kid. The reason I follow the team is because it is from my city, and since I started to follow them, I felt very represented. Describe your first experience of watching Córdoba play? I do not remember the first time very well, because I was small, but I remember the relegation to the Segunda B (third division) in 2005. It hurt a lot, and it was at that moment when I felt that I loved Córdoba CF. To an outsider - how would you describe Córdoba's playing style, what it means to be a fan of the club, and what it means to be a player of the club? Córdoba has a very changing style of play. It depends on each rival. To be a player of Córdoba means not to surrender and fight until the end (we ascended to La Liga in the 93rd minute), and to be fan, ...

It was the 31st of July, 2015, and Elche fans were outside the stadium. The season was long over but not for these fans. They had fireworks in their hand, but with every passing minute it looked like they would be unused. Elche had come 13th but for the first time in their 92-year history - in fact for the first time for any club in La Liga history - had been relegated for non-sporting reasons. The team was relegated for not paying their debts on time. So what were the fans waiting for? Elche had until midnight to pay €4 million, otherwise they would be relegated to the Segunda B - Spain’s amateur, third tier where automatic promotion doesn’t exist, money is scarce and newly-relegated clubs can go out of business. If Elche were to be gone, they would be gone forever. Many players tore their contracts and left the club, in effect waiving the unpaid wages Elche owed them. Some players delayed their payments. Fans were urged to buy season tickets and shirts and sponsors were desp...

Salamanca traveled to Albacete to compete for promotion to La Liga with an impossible task on their hands. They had to overturn a 2-0 deficit away from home, against a side that entered La Liga's relegation playoff spots on the final day, and who had scored 44 goals in the league - just four less than Salamanca themselves. As the clock ticked towards the 90th minute, Salamanca were winning 1-0 yet in danger of losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Born in Tudela, Navarre, Urzaiz began his professional career at Real Madrid's B-side, making his debut in Segunda División in 1989. Despite being a successful youth international, he did not make any La Liga appearances for the first team (however, he did play one game against Odense BK, in the 1990–91 European Cup). Urzaiz spent the 1991–92 season on loan at Albacete Balompié, making his top flight debut when he came on as a substitute against Athletic Bilbao in October 1991. In early 1993, he was loaned to Celta de Vigo...

I would like to start with an apology. On two different occasions on this blog ( here and here ), I mentioned something to this effect: "Jordi Gómez, Cristaldo, Gazzaniga, Tomás Mejías and Pablo Iñiguez will return to their parent clubs, and Miku, Baena, Ebert, Embarba, Lass Bangoura, Quini, Nacho, Raț, Manucho, Amaya, Aguirre, Dorado, Dovale and Toño are all out of contract. Basically, unless there are any contract extensions, we have no goalkeepers, a center-back (Zé Castro), a left-back (Johan Mojica), a right-back (Ernesto Galán), two central midfielders (Fran Beltrán and Roberto Trashorras), an attacking midfielder (Santi Comesaña), a left winger (Álex Moreno) and a striker (Javi Guerra)." I naively used transfermarkt.com in writing that - never doing that again. Marca recently came up with a list of contracts expiring at the end of the season, and it reads more like this: " Cristaldo, Gazzaniga, Tomás Mejías and Pablo Iñiguez will return to...

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...