The Pride of Vallekas

Ball-winning, combative midfielders have become something of a thing on this blog. And Iriney is no different - robust in his challenges, yet technically sound. Signings from foreign clubs seem to always be suspicious - but we often forget the back-story and the desire of players to succeed in a foreign country and dismiss it as opportunism. Clearly, that can't be said of Iriney. 21-year-old midfielder Iriney moved to Rayo Vallecano from São Caetano - where he made his senior debut - and joined the club while in La Liga in January 2003. The club was relegated at the end of the season, but Iriney stayed on - he would go on, like many others, to stay at the club and remained an undisputed starter. However, the club went through a second successive relegation - and was plunged into the hell-hole that is the Segunda B. Almost the entire squad left the club. In fact, only four players stuck with the team from the first division to the third. Right-back Mario Gómez, center-back Die...

This is a continuation of part 3 , where we looked at players who moved from Granada to Cádiz in the 2011-12 season. Other examples involving non-Spanish players should not be ignored either - there's Scottish midfielder Ikechi Anya who was born in Glasgow and moved to Oxford when he was seven years old. Anya joined the Wycombe Wanderers youth team in the 2003-04 season at the age of 15, having been released by Oxford United, where his performances earned him a debut at the age of 16 in September 2004, becoming the club's youngest ever player. He was released in the summer of 2007 and signed for Oxford City, before being snapped up in January 2008 by Halesowen Town. In the summer of 2008 he joined the Glenn Hoddle Academy for two years and in February 2009 signed for League One side Northampton Town. Northampton manager Stuart Gray was keen to re-sign Anya on a long-term deal at the end of the season, but in July 2009, he joined Sevilla Atlético, the reserve side of Sevill...

Tom Canton is an aspiring football journalist with a love for Spanish and Austrian football. His diehard support of Arsenal, in addition to following Austrian double winners Red Bull Salzburg and Catalan underdogs Espanyol, has led him into the blogging and podcasting world. When he is not contributing to FutbolPulse and Outside of the Boot, you can find his Kentish charm on his YouTube channel hosting The Gooner Talk - an Arsenal focused channel reviewing each individual match win, lose or draw. Check out the The Gooner Talk YouTube Channel here , his Outside of the Boot profile here , his FutbolPulse Profile here and follow him on Twitter here . How long have you been a fan of Espanyol and what made you support them in the first place? I have been following Espanyol for around 3 seasons now. My love for Spanish football has grown exponentially over the last half decade and when it came to deciding which side I would look to follow in a more fan-like fashion, I decided on ...