The Pride of Vallekas

If you read the Porto piece yesterday , you would have seen the story of a player who lasted just 16 minutes at Rayo. But he was competing for the Q letter with another player, who lasted slightly longer - 58 minutes, to be exact. Felipe Miñambres, our ex-sporting director, once said that "we can't offer potential new players anything tangible; what we can offer them is affection and a shop window". Hugo Álvarez Quintas made just one league appearance for Rayo, and yet he deserves an entire article. And that's because he represents another facet of Rayo's transfer policy - the facet of resignation at the prospect of losing all their best players. This is the story of a player who used Rayo as a springboard for his career. Born in Vigo, Galicia, Álvarez made his senior debut with Tercera side Las Rozas, after playing youth football with Celta de Vigo and Real Madrid. He first arrived in Segunda B in the 2006 summer by signing for Rayo Vallecano, but played ...

Welcome back to the mini-series focusing on the technical players at Córdoba! This is part 2...you can read yesterday's piece - part 1 - here . Wow, two days in a row - that's a first! 24th August, 2014. It was Eibar's first ever goal in La Liga, in their first ever game in La Liga, their first La Liga Basque derby....their first of many. And it was a hell of a goal. In their own stadium, a player who was making his La Liga debut scored a free-kick from the tightest possible angle, just a few meters from the corner flag, just before half-time. The perfect kick of the ball to kick-start Eibar's dream season. The celebration by the 28-year-old said it all - not just the goal he had scored, but the struggle of being in that moment, in that stadium, in the top tier, in football at all, scoring a goal against a Europa league team. Exactly, four years before that goal, Javi Lara was without a team, having been released from yet another Segunda B side. By the...

Rayo Vallecano vs Tenerife. Starting Lineups Míchel and José Luis Martí both made huge changes to their squads. And who can blame them? This is a midweek game, in between two jornadas , in the Copa del Rey - a competition that Segunda teams see as a distraction from a grueling 42 game season. The midfield battle - fluidity vs rigidity Míchel experimented with the "midfielder on the wing" for the second time in his Rayo tenure - coincidentally, the first time was against Tenerife too in a 1-1 draw (8th April, 2017). Then it was Fran, yesterday it was Unai López. However, it is important to note that the positions were not fixed at all this game, and the midfielders, including Chori, kept dropping deep and/or moving forward. Theoretically, it should have meant that players would replace each other - but what it actually meant was that when Fran rotated with any player further forward, Tenerife were able to pounce easily in the central gaps that only a player with Fra...

Jordi Agusti, 34, is the Chief Operations Officer of a shop displays company. You can follow him on Twitter: @Totocompos He also recommends the Twitter account of Penya Jandrista - @losjandristas - as a great place to follow the club's day to day workings. How long have you been a fan of Girona and what made you support them in the first place? I've been a Girona fan since I was about 10 years ago, I started to support Girona because it is the team of our province and at that moment the team was playing in the Segunda B with the possibility to go to the 2nd division. Also in that moment it was one of my friends playing in the team (Albert Dorca, now playing at Alcorcón) Describe your first experience of watching Girona play? I don't remember the first experience but I remember the first season Girona played in the 2nd division because they played against some first division teams I used to watch on TV (Zaragoza, Rayo, Tenerife, Real Sociedad, Celta) and at that ...

Imagine a website that focused on sports medicine and Spanish football. If you can't, you don't have to...it's injuriesandmore.com , started by Twitter's @Vam_os - go ahead and follow him! A Cádiz fan, he talks about the various aspects of the club. So many, in fact, that this is a multi-part series! So welcome to The Cádiz Chronicles. Here, in part 1, he talks about Cádiz in general and the performance in the transfer windows... On Cádiz... Cádiz are one of a number of clubs whose fortunes I follow, based on a strong connection to the area. I've worked in Sports Medicine for many years, both in football and in other sports so my viewpoint on injury and fitness matters at club level tends to be a little bit different in terms of writing. As a result I can identify with the way in which players, managers and coaches think - so I can look at the game from another angle. The last couple of seasons have seen some exciting times for Cádiz. From just missin...

Good, attacking, ferocious football. That's how I would describe Compostela and their undying philosophy. A brand of play that has seen Compostela rise and fall on the ladder of Spanish football. Till 1986, Compostela were a stable mid-table third tier club representing the small regional town of Compostela in Galicia. However, that very summer they were relegated. They had attacked and attacked and fought with all their might, kicking and screaming, but went down - with the joint-worst defense in the league. But giving up their attacking philosophy was out of the question. It was that philosophy that saw them promoted to the third tier in 1990, promoted to the second tier the year after, and reach the top division in 1994. It was that philosophy that saw them lose the relegation playoff against Villarreal in 1998. It was that philosophy that saw them reach the quarterfinals of the 1999-00 Copa del Rey, defeating the likes of Numancia, Tenerife and Villarreal on the way - all...

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...

They called him el ultrahéroe de Vallecas at Rayo. In hell, he was their ray of hope. Born in Madrid, Pachón started his career in the fifth division of Spanish football, playing for Rayo Alúa in the 1995-96 season. He went on to play for Parla in the Tercera for the following two season, and was signed by Segunda club Leganés. After helping the club retain their division two status, in 2000 he moved to La Liga outfit Real Valladolid. He would go on to play 31 games in his first year and 24 in the 2002–03 campaign, but only seven in the other two seasons combined. Failing to make an impact, he was released in January 2004 and moved to Segunda outfit Getafe, proving an essential offensive unit in the club's first ever promotion to the top division - on 19 June, he scored all five goals in the decisive 5–3 away win against Tenerife. He was mainly used as a substitute in the following three seasons and also helping the side to the 2007 final of the Copa del Rey. Immed...

The fight isn't on the pitch. Carlos Aranda is known for his work ethic and his sheer determination. But that fight, that desire, that temperamental figure on the pitch is a result of the saddening circumstances off it. Carlos was born in Málaga, Andalusia. His father abandoned him when he was little, and at the age of nine, his mother - a drug addict - died of cancer. Raised by his grandparents, his training at local club El Palo was overshadowed by the training of an early adulthood - he would fish octopuses to sell to restaurants in Málaga. It was Vicente del Bosque who discovered the young forward at El Palo, and took him to Madrid - but he didn't fit in. The glamour didn't suit him, and he even tried fleeing the club - Real Madrid had to assign him a private tutor. "Mischievous", Vicente called him, many years later. Somehow, despite all the odds, he graduated but never played in La Liga; however, he played a small part in two UEFA Champions League-...

Yesterday, I wrote an article about Carlos Aranda, who holds the record for playing in La Liga for the most number of clubs - eight. If you consider just playing for a La Liga club, not actually playing in La Liga with them, that figure becomes nine. But I dug deeper, and found out that if you look at professional clubs (La Liga and Segunda), Carlos Aranda holds that record jointly with Moisés García - an astonishing 12 clubs.  Obviously, only if you use the second metric - by the first metric  Moisés García is top with 12 and Aranda comes joint second with 11 with a couple of other players. That record will be broken soon though - there are quite a few players who are at 11, and they still have a couple of seasons in the tank. So today, I look at a player whose records are unlikely to be broken anytime soon - Elche's Nino.  Even his name has the word modest in it. Juan Francisco Martínez Modesto, aka Nino, was born in Vera, Almería, and first appeared p...

Follow Jaime on Twitter here . How long have you been a fan of Huesca and what made you support them in the first place? I have been a follower of Huesca since I was very young. At the age of 5 or 6 we would go to the country with my friends. We used to get bored soon, and in the middle of the game we preferred to go out to the parking lot to play ourselves rather than watch the game. From then until now, with its highs and lows. It was not easy a few years ago to continue to Huesca. I remember watching TV to see how the team was or follow the re-transmissions of HIT Radio, the only medium that followed the team during the hardest years. Given the transfer windows and the squad that was assembled at the start of the season, is Huesca where you want it to be? The season of Huesca has been historical. No one at the beginning of the season could dream of something like that. Being fighting for the playoff at this stage of the season, against teams like Cádiz, Tenerife, Getafe or...

Follow Druso on Twitter here . A bit about yourself and your background My name is Druso Lopez, I am a 20 year old International Football Business at UCFB in Wembley, so is not hard to guess that I am a huge football fan and I would like to develop a career within the sport industry. I know live in London but I moved to the UK when I was 15, to a small town in Lancashire called Fleetwood and that's how I become a Fleetwood town fan. Also I like Manchester City, I am a huge football fan and watch a lot of football every week; English, Spain, Italy... I don't mind as long as the game is good, but I've to admit I'm a Premier League fan, I'm aiming to visit every football ground in London before 2018! How long have you been a fan of Tenerife and what made you support them in the first place? I was born and raised in Tenerife capital Santa Cruz and my house was just a 10 minutes walk from the Stadium; my dad and my grandad as most of my families were huge Teneri...

I interviewed Mikel Alonso in December 2015, where he opened up about his hiatus from professional football. You can read it here . He agreed to a second interview, where I ask some more questions about his experiences as a footballer. This is that interview. Before Real Sociedad, you were playing for Antiguoko. This is an academy that has produced amazing footballers such as yourself, your brother, Mikel Arteta, etc. What is it that differs it from other academies? Did you see anyone play there who you knew were going to be playing top level football - apart from yourself, of course! We worked a lot on technique and skills. It was a different kind of academy. The coaches made all the difference - Iñigo Santin, Pitu, Txurun, Oscar, Kepa Estebanez and many others. They loved this game and show us how to love it and understand it. We tried to look at the big picture of various game situations. They were inspirational. The managers were really passionate and tried to pick the b...

Some statistics after the 3-1 win at Girona: Míchel's Rayo have now only conceded three goals (one of them, against Getafe, was an own goal by Dorado) and has kept a clean sheet in its last three games.  Moreover, the franjirrojos have scored five goals in the last three games, two of them from Guerra. The last times Rayo scored three goals this season were the 3-0 win against Cádiz and the 3-3 draw with Numancia). The last time Rayo scored three away from home and won was on April 26, 2014, when Saúl, Larrivey and Seba Fernández gave Rayo a 3-0 win at Granada. There was some good news in Girona - UE Llagostera, the team that underwent six promotions in 10 years but was relegated last season to the Segunda B, earned a 2-0 win at home against Levante B, which seems them move five points clear of the relegation playoff spot in the Segunda B Group 3, easing relegation fears just a little. This win reminded me of the 3-1 win against Almería. In the 2013-14 season Rayo had...