Los Coladeros, Episode 6: Quick on the Draw
We’re sitting pretty at the top of the league with ten games gone, and it’s a great feeling. I honestly had no idea how we’d start this season, considering I arrived at a training ground on August 4th with no players, so to be sitting at the top of the pile and raining down misery on everyone else is fantastic to see. Sergio has been awesome so far, Adolfo certainly worth the £300k we paid to take him across town — plus he’s the one who takes us on our nights out around the Alameda, which is priceless — and along with Michael Dunwell’s presence up front and the surprising form of Lio Tarachalski, we’ve got a great little core. I’m excited and impatient for 15th December, though: the reinforcements I’ve organised are going to take us from being one of the top sides in the division to the outright best, I’m sure of it. There’s no way the players we’ve got coming can weaken us.
However, there are still eight long weeks and seven arduous fixtures between now and then, so we might as well keep plugging away with them. Next up: U.E. Llieda, who — with 15 points, a goal difference of +1 and 10th place in the league — must be one of the most average sides in Spain. My players will be a similar bunch to last time, except for two obvious changes: Nicolas Saïu, despite his goal against Gramenet, gets a mention in the dictionary under the definition of “limited”, so he comes out for the freshly-fit Javi Cárcaba, while my patience with Bastida has totally run its course, so he drops out of the squad forever and is replaced today by Antonio, who’s actually making his first start for the Rainmakers after four sub appearances so far. With my trusty chorizo at the ready, I tell the players that they have nothing to fear from anyone in this division any more, and to just go out there and play their way. Hugo, if you could play slightly better, that would be great too.
Unfortunately for us, the first half is characterised by an immaculate goalkeeping display from veteran ball-grabber Carles Busquets, veteran Barcelona stalwart and father of young Sergio. He parries two close-range efforts from Michael Dunwell to keep the Englishman at bay, before belying the ageing process to fly around his goal and save from Lio Tarachalski’s volley and a Ben Zevenbergen drive. At the other end, Hugo heeds my request to be less crap as he makes two top saves from David and Nano in the Lleida forward line, and we reach the half at zeroes despite the best efforts of both teams.
With no obvious changes to make, I leave the players as they are and tell them to lanzar a few more balóns into the box second half — and would you believe it, they seem to understand. Five minutes in, we get a corner on the left, and Zevenbergen goes across to take it. He raises an arm, swings it in, and even I’m stunned to see Antonio celebrate his first start for the Rainmakers by catapulting himself through the air and connecting with a towering header to give us the 1–0 lead we’ve been searching for!
Lleida react by coming out to attack us, and we creak and groan under the pressure. My wing-backs, in particular, are having a torrid time against the visiting wingers — especially Mustafa against Horjacada, who seems to beat him every time the ball goes down our right. Eventually one of the crosses he digs out is only half-cleared by Smith, striker Dani Marín takes it down, steadies himself, and whips a shot across Pinheiro and into the top far bins for 1–1. There’s still half an hour to go, but it’s a less than riveting affair; both teams seem content with a draw, and although I move my players around a bit in the hope it might spark some new attacking verve, instead everyone just shrugs and runs down the clock. The game finishes after an hour of football and half an hour of cañas in the sunshine with a probably fair 1–1 draw.
Elfsborg’s relegation is confirmed and more than half their squad have their relegation release clauses triggered. Cue eight separate bids from me, a kid in a candy store at the sight of an excellent, promising young team of up-and-coming superstars having their confidence destroyed by the humiliation of being relegated from a league they should be challenging for. William Leandersson, Kristoffer Arvhage, Jonas Lundén, Daniel Ung, Martin Andersson, Johan Wiland, Lars Nilsson and Hans Berggren are all in my crosshairs, and though I expect to get none of them since their wage demands are going to be ridiculous, plus most of them will have some childish concerns about language and lifestyle, just one or two would be great acquisitions. Naturally I’ll be going all in for Lundén, the jewel in the crown, plus I await Landskrona’s inevitable relegation for the chance to nick Alexander Farnerud from them too.
I also take former Bolton Wanderers loanee and red-card collector Djibril Diawara on trial to see if he’s got what it takes to play the destroyer role in front of my back four, but no sooner has he shaken my hand in the lobby of La Cartuja…
Don’t you worry lad. You and your agent can both move right on.
More bad news floods in. Not only am I turned down by most of the Elfsborg players for ‘lifestyle’ reasons — they must have heard about the chorizo — Alexander Farnerud’s potential is hyped by the international media, prompting £1.2m bids from Inter Milan, Galatasaray and Paris St Germain. If the idiots just waited a couple of weeks they could have him for £230k, but resigned to losing the lad, I simply sit back and wait to see where he ends up. Could have been a player for the Rainmakers, Alex, but you go now. We’ll see you again some day.
A shard of light suddenly penetrates the clouds that have gathered around me. William Leandersson, youngest and most impressionable of the Elfsborg players, has ignored the sound advice of his parents, peers and close friends to stay where his development will be looked after to instead join us in December. He’s certainly one for the future, but in the shorter term, he’s already five stars better than Steeve Gustan in every position they both play, so I’d be happy to call on him if we were short. Gustan goes on the loan list, I reach for my back-patter, and everything feels a little brighter in the world.
And the darkness returns. Bastida declares himself unhappy with his lack of football and is suddenly unsure about his future, which is a coincidence since I feel exactly the same — and with the chances of him ever playing for me again hovering down near absolute zero, I transfer list him for £100k. Some people from a club supposedly called Ribadesella offer £35k, which I accept — I would have taken a plate of jamon and some kind words — and the deal is agreed quickly. Immediately, Bastida goes down injured for three weeks with a “damaged shoulder”, probably from carrying all his bullshit around with him ever since he got here. We won’t light any candles for his departure.
Then, my fitness coach Juan Cordero — John Lamb to his mates — reports that Lio Tarachalski, of all people, has shown up late to training with a distinct lack of match fitness. Later that afternoon, I receive word that Michael Bruylandt has done exactly the same thing. Incensed, I hand them both official warnings and drop them out of the squad for our forthcoming game against Castellón, which they both accept and say they’ll never do again. Well, see that you don’t. With all the players we’ve got coming in, you two squirts have got very little room for about-fuckery.
It’s not great preparation for a game against the team who are 4th in the league, but there’s very little I can do. Neither Lio nor Bruylandt are fit enough to take up places in the squad for this one, so some rotation is necessary: Steeve Gustan comes back into the team on the left of my midfield three, and forgotten man Francisco Cobo takes the final spot on the bench. A couple of the Castellón players are unhappy because they think the club is underachieving, which is a bold declaration when playing for a side who are currently on course to reach the post-season promotion playoffs rather comfortably, but whatever — it will hopefully be to our advantage. They’re one of the few teams in the league with an even smaller squad than we have, especially with only two centre-backs to their name — any injuries would be catastrophic. I check that we’re set to Hard Tackling, and away we go.
Castellón striker Abel is caught offside in the first action of the game, and Pinheiro comes forward to take the free kick. He lobs it upfield towards Gustan, who takes a first touch and looks insecure. Unchallenged, he meekly advances forward with the ball, then stops and glances around. There are no passes on, but no challenges coming in either… so he keeps going. And going. Eventually he reaches the Castellón penalty area, still desperately looking for a pass to a more capable team-mate, but with everyone marked up and the home defence still not taking his possession of the ball seriously, young Steeve realises there’s only one thing for it, pulls back his left foot, and unleashes a blockbuster of a shot that fizzes past Javier Oliva in the Castellón goal, and would you believe it, it’s 1–0! Only in the team because of the indiscipline of his peers, Steeve Gustan gives us an early lead with what I suppose you can technically call a 50-yard run and golazo finish. Well, well, well.
Five minutes later we go from one unlikely goalscorer to another, as Adolfo wins a corner from a shot that’s deflected behind, Ben Zevenbergen swings it over, and Richard Smith powers a header past Oliva for 2–0. We are all over Castellón here, and continue to create chance after chance, but put all of them off target — and then, the inevitable sting in the tail, as Javi Sanchis launches a long clearance over the heads of my centre-halves, Miguel runs onto it, and places a shot past Pinheiro to drag the hosts back into it at 2–1 with their only shot on goal.
However, the secret weapons I didn’t realise I had aren’t finished firing just yet. Right on the stroke of half-time, Adolfo is fouled again, this time wide on the right. Jamie Victory jogs over to take it, and whips and inswinging free-kick into the area, where goal machine Richard Smith climbs highest to head home his second of the day and restore our two-goal lead. 3–1 is the score at half time.
I can’t really change much at the break, so we head back out and look fairly shaky. My forward players are misfiring all over the place, Sestelo and Dunwell are almost completely anonymous, and suddenly Castellón are swarming onto us. Cárcaba is having a shocker in DMC so I change him out for Victory and put Underwood at left-back to try to stem the tide, but when the hosts introduce winger Chito to the fray in the 70th minute, it turns entirely in their favour. Chito is a man possessed and Tarkan can’t stop him tearing down the left and crossing for captain Salillas to reduce our lead to 3–2, and just as I think we’re going to cling on to a precious win against a top-four rival, in the 93rd minute, Salillas puts a free kick into our area and Chito bullies his way above all my defenders and thunders a header past Pinheiro to leave me yelping in my technical area at our surrender. From 3–1 up to 3–3 at full-time, we’ve really bottled this one. Chito gets man of the match for his 20-minute cameo, and in contrast, my forwards trudge off looking fatigued and out of sorts, the pressure of their previously phenomenal form finally coming back to bite them. I’m really looking out for December 15th now.
I’m made to feel better by the fact that this isn’t the most absurd comeback of the day.
What a game in the Second Division proper, which sees Terrassa, 5–2 down with ten minutes to go against Levante, come back to draw 5–5 in a new record high-scoring game. I can only imagine the number of pieces my laptop would be in if that had happened to me.
I try to put the disappointment of our last-gasp capitulation, combined with Jonas Lundén’s outright rejection of my advances, to one side, as it’s not long before we’re welcoming yet another bunch of Catalans to La Cartuja — this time, it’s Mataró. You might remember them from such scorelines as their record-breaking 8–2 win over Gavá at the beginning of the season, plus they’ve enjoyed a 5–2 drubbing by Castellón, a 3–2 win over Mallorca B and a similar reverse against Alicante since then — so it’s reasonable to deduce that their games usually result in goals at both ends. Our form recently has been pretty unspectacular, with my front four contributing zero goals in our last two outings, so while I’m concerned that similar profligacy could turn us over today, on the other hand, Mataró’s porous defence could well be the springboard from which I can relaunch my potent attack. Just hit the bloody target lads.
The first twenty whole minutes of this game are desolate, with no action to speak of — and just as I’m starting to wonder what’s happening, the players suddenly remember that this was going to be a high-scoring game and start taking some shots. Mataró winger Óscar lays the ball on a plate for team-mate Pere Tarradellas to strike high at goal, Pinheiro makes a spectacular save to deny him, but Óscar is first to the rebound and tucks it away to give the visitors the lead in the 22nd minute. As the teams head back to line up for kick-off, Sergio Sestelo finishes downing a nearby litre of Red Bull, and our resident Madridista suddenly comes alive. From kick off, Dunwell lays it back to him, and he sets off on a blistering run towards the Mataró goal, jinking past two away defenders before smashing a low shot past José and in to equalise just a minute later.
Sergio keeps ducking and diving all the way to half time, stays on the pitch to practice his running while I’m giving the rest of the players their team-talk, and sets about Mataró once again from the moment the referee starts the second 45. Within five minutes, he’s flicked up a Jamie Victory throw-in wide on the left and caught a ridiculous golazo volley that flies in at the far post to give us the lead, then another five minute later, Victory, Tarachalski and Adolfo combine to play the ball into his path, and he lashes his hat-trick goal past José and in for 3–1 to the Rainmakers with 35 minutes left!
Two minutes after that, Adolfo has a goal disallowed for offside, naturally, but with Sestelo simmering just above the surface of hyperactive, it’s only a matter of time before we score again. José is performing heroics in the visiting nets, but after I introduce Gustan for Tarachalski and he chests down a Victory throw into the path of Michael Dunwell, there’s only going to be one outcome — and the young Englishman wallops past José to give us a surely unassailable 4–1 lead with 25 minutes to play.
Not so, because Tarradellas is not satisfied with his contribution today, and — inspired by Sestelo, I assume — creates his own ridiculous goal out of nothing. He lines up a free-kick on the right, which he slaps into the face of Jamie Victory, and the ball lands back at his feet. He sets off on a mazy run, easily past a prone Victory who’s writhing on the turf with a broken nose, but also around the attempted challenges of Javi Cárcaba (Tackling 3) and Ben Zevenbergen (Tackling 2) before hitting a furious strike into the top corner to bring the score back to 4–2.
Mataró have three further glorious chances to make me set fire to the stadium at full-time, but to the relief of everyone inside the ground, they all sail harmlessly over and wide when they should really score, and we manage to run the game out for a deserved victory. My blood pressure is back to 230/110, just like the good old days, and it feels… well, not good, but familiar. Familiar is good. I hope I get health insurance with this job.
Our couple of draws recently take us down to second in the league behind the wailing sirens of Hospitalet, but it’s all good. I both feel confident that we’ll catch them by the time the season ends, and also, we only need to get into the top four to make it into the promotion playoff. That’s when the real action starts — the 16 top teams from the four D2B divisions are then split into Champions League-style four-team groups, and the four winners of those get promoted. Convoluted? Yes. Necessary to win this stage of the league? Absolutely not. But I want it anyway. Clear the path, Hospitalet. We’re coming to getcha.
If you’re enjoying Los Coladeros, please consider clicking and holding the Clap button to recommend the series. It really helps! Thank you ❤
