The Pride of Vallekas

Every time he was destined to fail, he did not. Every time he had to take a step back, he was back where he began... Guardiola was a product of Lorca Deportiva CF's youth system, and made his debuts as a senior in the 2009-10 season, in the Tercera. In the summer of 2010, he signed with Segunda B club Jumilla. It was his first Segunda B season - and it ended with relegation, with Guardiola playing less than 1200 minutes. It looked as if Sergi Guardiola would be consigned to the Tercera - and his February 2012 move to CF La Nucía in the same tier was a clear indication of that. But miraculously, in August of the same year he was given his second shot in the Segunda B with Ontinyent. But once again, he barely got game time - playing just 1059 minutes - and moved to fellow league team Getafe B in January 2013. Once again, he was back in the Tercera. And once again, he bounced back - scoring nine goals with Novelda in the 2013-14 season and earning a move to Segunda B side Eldens...

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...

Welcome to a new mini-series - yes, the mini-series I love to start but always struggle to finish. This time, I'll try not to. This one focuses on the technical players at Córdoba, hence the name The brains of the Blanquiverdes . (I think that is why I do these mini-series - I like coming up with names like that.) Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it! In a market where clubs can rarely offer more than a season-long contract, where teams desperately fill their squads with loaned players and youth hopefuls, where players can risk being unemployed for long periods of time if they don't sign whatever is on the table, a player's loyalty depends more on the club than the player themselves. Loyalty is rare. But Carlos Caballero Pérez is a rare kind of player. Not technically - just like many midfielders in Spain, he is a brilliant passer of the ball, creates chances out of nothing and is adept at free-kicks. And many teams noticed him from an early age. One of them, unfo...