Los Coladeros, Episode 4: Un sueño me envolvió

11 min readSep 23, 2019

I’m almost entirely distracted by my preparations for Barcelona B, but not enough to ignore a significant news item that lands in my inbox. The Swedish press, disgusting gossip rags that they are, report that all is not well at Elfsborg. Flat bottom of their Premier Division with just seven games to go, relegation seems inevitable unless they can turn things around quickly — and that’s not sitting kindly with quite a few of their players. Remember, this Elfsborg have some serious talent, including Jonas Lundén, and most of them have relegation release clauses — so you can bet I’ll be keeping a beady eye on their fate. However, in the short term, an U21 international defender by the name of Johan Sjöberg is so unhappy that he’s given an interview with one of the yellow-tops decrying his manager and demanding a move. Only too happy to oblige, I meet his value and offer a contract that he seems to be happy with. He looks a player. As long as I can get this disgusting £150k release clause out, we’re going to be in business — and maybe I won’t need to play Bastida ever again. A man can dream.

Okay. Barcelona B. This is going to be an incredible test. I’d take at least half their team in a heartbeat, especially a 17-year-old Andres Iniesta, whose attributes overall need some work, but with 20 for Creativity already, plus three goals and two assists in just two appearances, he’s obviously their star performer — even in a team that contains Fabio Rochemback, who’s thankfully injured today, and Brazilian forward Geovanni. Eugh… I just got the most awful chill. We can pretty much only be delighted to see that there’s no Messi, since he was too young to make it into existence by 2001 — thank goodness. Add him to the mix, and I don’t see how anyone gets past this lot.

After defeat last time out against Orihuela, my players seem a bit dejected going into this one, and it’s my job to rouse them. If there’s one thing you can’t afford to do when you’re away at Barcelona, it’s feel beaten before you even get onto the pitch. Frankly, their under-14 team would probably give us a game, so all I can really do is point at my chorizo and hope the players know what I mean. We’re all at least united by the fact that nobody speaks Catalan, so we’re all aliens here. Let’s use that energy to show them what we’re made of. Sergio Sestelo, with his Real Madrid links, has a general atmosphere of hatred around him as we enter the dressing rooms at Miniestadi — and then it hits me. I have my tactics. Give it Sergio.

I have grave concerns about the way Barcelona line up. In their last two games, they’ve played very defensively and slapped teams around on the counter with a 5–3–2. Today, they’ve decided they’re going to go for our jugular. This could be a battering.

And it is.

The first action of the game comes in the tenth minute. Dunwell beats Okunowo for pace and thumps a shot that Jorquera saves and Oleguer clears, but the attack isn’t over yet. Javi Cárcaba picks up the loose ball and feeds Adolfo, who jostles his way to the byline and crosses to the near post — Lio Tarachalski is there! He heads at goal, Jorquera saves, but can only parry! LIO FOLLOWS IN!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL COLADEROS! Ten minutes on the clock, and Lio Tarachalski gives us the lead!!

Barcelona line back up from kick off and do what any wounded animal would do when backed into a corner — pass it to Iniesta. Geovanni runs straight at my defence, Zevenbergen gets a foot in, but the ball falls for the La Maisa trickster on the edge of the box and he smacks a low drive that Pinheiro has to be alert to save. However, after that, we’re back on the attack again: Dunwell shoots narrowly over, then Sestelo knocks down for Adolfo just inside the box, he finds some space and gets a shot away — Jorquera saves! But Tarachalski is there again! LIO TARACHALSKI! GOAL!! IT’S 2–0! WE’RE 2–0 UP AGAINST BARCELONA B! There’s a free-scoring Lionel bossing it in Barcelona, but he’s wearing white and blue!

Barcelona kick off again. Geovanni surrenders the ball immediately to Sestelo, who finds Mustafa on the right. Tarkan advances down the flank, crosses into the box, Dunwell heads at goal — Jorquera saves again — but this time, Sestelo has followed in! I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M SEEING! We’re 19 minutes in, we’re 3–0 up, and we’re completely carving Barcelona apart!! The Catalans back off from their attacking approach, which could neuter us, but instead gives us even more space around their box. Sestelo and Mustafa combine again to get the ball to Adolfo, and he whips another cross into the box for Dunwell — he beats Peña in the air, and this time Jorquera can’t get there! DUNWELL SCORES! IT’S 4–0 AFTER 25 MINUTES! I honestly don’t know how to deal with what’s going on here. Did I do this by accident?

Everything Barcelona try, we stop, and go straight up their end of the pitch with sizzling verve. With 15 minutes to go until half time and four goals up, we’d be forgiven for taking our foot off the gas — but that’s not what happens. Oh no. The Stormbringers are ruthless, and in the 37th minute, Adolfo lifts yet another ball into the box ahead of Tarachalski, who dribbles past Oleguer and whomps in a furious effort for his hat-trick, and then, right on the 45, he chips a ball forward for Sestelo, who heads down, and Adolfo finally gets the goal his play has deserved, half-volleying past the hapless Jorquera for — and make sure you’re sitting down for this — a 6–0 half-time lead.

Frankly, this is absurd. I make no changes at half-time, but after a reasonably even first 15 minutes of the second period, I decide to give a few lads a run out: Bruylandt comes on for Zevenbergen, and I give Eduardo Benito a chance to notch his first goal for the club in place of Dunwell. We’re creating so many chances, he’ll probably never have a better opportunity — against Barcelona B, of all teams — and in the 78th minute, his name goes up in lights. Victory takes a long throw, Sestelo flicks the ball on for the umpteenth time, and Benito lashes a volley past Jorquera to complete an absolutely insane night of football. Louis van Gaal, watching his reserve charges from the stands, was gone before the half-time whistle. 12,000 Barça fans sat and watched the whole of that humiliation, and if we hadn’t announced ourselves to the rest of the country before today, we sure have now: a flood is coming. The Rainmakers have arrived. Keep your B sides — we’re the A Team.

The players are ecstatic after the game, and with Chugger’s windows having been removed to get some air into him, the ride back to Andalusia is joyous and blustery. I buy ice creams for the whole squad, with extra sprinkles for Lio, Adolfo and Sergio, and plan to spend a good few celebratory hours in my new favourite vermutería when we get home.

The only disappointment I have in the wake of this result is seeing Mike Duff go to bloody Hull City in Division Three — a literal step down from D2 Cheltenham — for £425k. I was obviously in for him too, but he turned down the chance to talk to me, and is now going to rot in the North-East of England for at least a year. What a waste. We’ll have him the moment they fail to get promoted.

There are still three months until the transfer window re-opens, but it hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for checking in with my Player Search list. I’ve been on the lookout for a DMC who can… I was going to say cover for, but let’s face it, replace Javi Cárcaba, and the more familiar names — Marcel Mahouvé, Tommy Svindal Larsen and the like — are all beyond my reach. However, today when I had a glance at the fan mail from the agents of players languishing on free transfers that get delivered to my hotel room every morning, one caught my eye. It’s a declaration of interest from 27-year-old Ivory Coast international Lassina Diabaté, who was pushed out to sea by Bordeaux when his contract expired at the end of last season and is still seeking a new home. He has a French second nationality, so no work permit nonsense to go through, plus he’s better in virtually every area than Javi — so a contract is summarily fired straight towards him.

He quickly agrees, and his acceptance fax arrives on the same day as that of Johan Sjöberg, so I confirm both, and draw some extra red circles around December 15th on the Welcome to Irthlingborough calendar Susan got me as a thank you gift. It genuinely can’t come soon enough. Even though we’re doing extremely well and I’m really delighted with the players I have, we’re still a threadbare squad, only a couple of injuries away from disaster. We needed reinforcements, and now, we’ve really got some.

By my count, I’m only a third-choice ‘keeper away from having a pretty much completed squad. I’m going to look for one over the coming weeks — I can’t afford to have such a dreadful run of injuries or suspensions that I end up with no goalies and have to put hapless outfield players in nets. Can you even imagine something so stupid happening? You’d have to be a pretty appalling manager to let that go down, let me tell you.

My scouts tell me that our next opponents, C.F. Gavá, are an average team that we should turn over easily — but I’m seeing that star striker Joel has six goals in six games, so I won’t be quite as blasé about the threat they pose. Having said that, I’m not so much preparing for them as looking at us, and what I see is a team that just beat Barcelona 7–0, and we’re about to stride out into the sunshine in front of the Cartuja Ultras. I don’t think I should change anything, do you?

Our rabid season ticket holders, all part-owners of the club who regularly fly in from every corner of the world to watch the team play, give the players a standing ovation as they appear from the tunnel and cheer every single one of their names as they’re read out by the tannoy announcer — it’s me, we don’t have a tannoy announcer. Every single man in that starting eleven hears it, feels it, and reacts accordingly.

We give Gavá the Barcelona treatment, and they are comprehensively thrashed by half time. Dunwell, Tarachalski and Zevenbergen have all already tested visiting keeper Alvaro before Javi Cárcaba, who’s obviously heard the news about Diabaté’s imminent arrival, reacts first to a Jamie Victory cross and smashes a low drive home for 1–0 in the 15th minute, and by the 20th, it’s two. It’s another assist for Jamie Victory, who whips a corner into the box and Adolfo rises highest to pump a header past Alvaro.

Gavá are offering nothing in return, and ten minutes later, after we’ve held them away with one hand and slapped them around the face several times with the other, Sestelo is shoved over in the box and we finally get a referee who feels it appropriate to award us a penalty. The players do their traditional arguing and shoving over who should take it, and in a move that makes me disappear into a tight ball on the ground, Brian McGovern is the one who puts it down and takes a deep breath. That’s central defender Brian McGovern, Set Pieces 4, Finishing 3. The man who thinks he’s the one to be our penalty taker today.

It doesn’t matter. We’re playing so well that even he can’t miss, and after he blasts his spot-kick into the roof of the net, we’re 3–0 up after half an hour — and not finished yet. Sestelo, who’s been running through unmarked all day, gets on the end of a Lio through ball to slam past Alvaro for four, and after Gavá’s only decent player so far, Germán, goes off injured moments later, their fate is inevitable — and just to take the piss fully, Lio and Sergio combine once more for the latter to notch his brace right on the stroke of half time.

Everything is seriously coming together now, and I can barely believe the form of Lio Tarachalski, who’s got two assists today after his hat-trick last time out and is earning every penny of that £90 per week contract. I make no changes initially for the second half, but after Michael Dunwell gets in on the act, volleying a Mustafa cross high past Alvaro for 6–0, I decide to yank my important players to keep them safe, and that pretty much signals the end of the game. We’ve scored 13 goals in two games, and kept both our opponents at almost total arm’s length — though it must be noted that Pinheiro was called into action four times today, and fielded everything with great assurance. Look on the bright side, Gavá fans: you’re better than Barcelona B.

In the wake of yet another win, I get a bolt of inspiration. Remember I said we were only a third choice keeper away from having a total squad? Well, I know just the man — and he was in my back pocket all along.