Los Coladeros Episode 69: Nice
William Leandersson will be leaving us in the summer. He’s costing me almost £10k per month in wages, he’s got a whole year and a bit left to go, nobody wanted him — so I’m allowing him to go to the D2B’s Ponferradina in June for free. I suspect he might be stuck in that division for some time — or maybe he’ll fire them to promotion, who knows. He’s not actually that bad… he’s just never getting into the team here, is he?
It’s international week, and my players are in action all over Europe. Fernando Contreras fails to score in Spain U21’s 7–0 win against Armenia and Maxim Tsigalko fails to score in Belarus U21’s 3–1 win over Luxembourg, a game in which he should surely have had a boatload. There is better news elsewhere, however, as Tonton captains Sweden U21s, scores, and is named man of the match in their victory over Azerbaijan, while Tobros scores for the Greek kids, Skalidis makes his senior debut in a losing effort to Denmark, and, best of all, Arjen Robben signs a new contract with PSV — containing a minimum fee release clause. Sure, it’s £16.75m, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be activating it the moment I have any money to spend. Incidentally, if you could all send me your bottom dollars in the post, that would really help.
Drogba then scores twice for Ivory Coast in their friendly win over Zimbabwe in a bit of news I hope will prompt someone to take him off my hands, especially since he’s on the transfer list for the discount price of £0… but no, nothing. Selling players is virtually impossible in Spain, it turns out.
Back to domestic action and Barcelona win the battle of Catalonia with a hard-fought 1–0 win over neighbours Espanyol that makes me roll my eyes for about the fifteenth time today. They’re back to just two points behind us, but we’ve now got a game in hand: away to Zaragoza. I rope Mark Kerr back into the team along with Voulgaris, plus Clint Hill replaces the God of Inconsistency, Nikolaos Tobros. I’ve decided that Bergtoft can stay at right-back after playing well there against Oviedo, while Brenne and Moukoko also keep their spots in the team. Tonton, especially, has score three in his last two games for us and the Sweden youth team, putting in 10/10 performances along the way. I’m not dropping a lad who’s doing that sort of thing, especially seeing as — Skalidis aside — we don’t have many players who are even capable of that sort of thing.
Zaragoza have got Michael Bridges and they’re in the relegation zone; I’m not saying the two are linked, just stating the facts.
Ricardo Quaresma plays for Zaragoza these days, and at 21, he’s already some player. He torments Kalogeras down our left hand side, and with him firing bombs into the box, it’s genuinely amazing our opponents are so close to relegation as we head into the final stages of the season. Voulgaris has to be alert to swat away a Bridges header in the first minute, as expected after what I wrote in my pre-match notes, but shortly after Skalidis introduces himself to César Laínez with a mega drive that’s too hot for him to handle. Kalogeras floats the corner into the box, and would you adam and eve it, Nikos Andrielos soars like the mighty ostrich to power a header in off the bar for his first ever Coladeros goal!
It’s a great start, but things are about to get ropey. The first sign of something being amiss is Kalogeras crossing for Skalidis, who puts his header on goal out for a throw-in, which must be some sort of record — and from that point on, Zaragoza are all over us. Bridges fires two banana shots at goal that Voulgaris leaps across his goal to stop, then Jamelli and Ferrón both have a go from range, but our new almost Greek international makes spectacular saves to keep them at bay too. Eventually, though, one does get through: Ferrón, again, collects a pass from Chitiva and smashes a shot at goal from distance, it presumably moves in the air, because Voulgaris is rooted to the spot as it tears past him and claps into the back of the net for 1–1. To his credit, Voulgaris doesn’t let it affect him, and he’s alert to save once more from Ferrón before the break, while Clint Hill does a job on Michael Bridges to prevent him getting a header on target. Half time arrives, and we’re being outplayed by relegation fodder.
I make my move. Brenne, Arteta and Moukoko have proven themselves to be second-string players on the strength of their contributions so far, and with Louis van Gaal’s sweaty breath on the back of my neck, I go nuclear: they’re all off, and Bruno, Ronaldo and Samba are on. Defending isn’t working, so let’s try shock and awe.
It’s a pretty cavalier move, but it seems to do what I wanted, which is pin Zaragoza back in their half for a bit. Skalidis fires wide, Bruno clips the post, then forces Laínez into a fingertip save in the opening minutes. Kalogeras sticks another corner in, and not to be outdone by Andrielos, Benjamin Kibebe is up like a salmon on a trampoline to thunder home his first goal for the Wet Bandits, and what a time to score it — it’s 2–1! We scarcely warrant it, but god knows I’ll take it.
Luciano Galletti comes on for Zaragoza and I squeeze my buttocks together hard at the sight of him majestically taking down a Martin Posse pass and slapping a shot against our crossbar, and with just minutes left, Ricardo Quaresma skins three of my defenders on his way to hitting a shot that Voulgaris saves… and then smothers at the second attempt. Thank the good lord for that — this one is finally over, and Voulgaris has saved us from what would have been a devastating defeat.
After the game is over, Susan tells me that Tonton Zola’s contract is no longer protected and we could lose him to a tribunal fee. I briefly consider whether to give him a new deal, but ultimately choose not to; he’s still got three years left, we’d get decent money for him if someone did crawl out of the woodwork, and besides — what’s there to worry about? Nobody makes bids in this league anyway, apparently. I’m sure he’ll be hanging around for the duration.
Celta Vigo then go and do us a huge favour at the Bernabeu by holding Real Madrid to a 0–0 draw which means, if we win our next game against Alavés, we’ll be eight points clear of the Meringues with eight games left to play. In any other season, in any other league, with any other team, I’d say that would put them out of the title race — but we are Los Coladeros. Nothing is easy or predictable around here. Our win over Zaragoza did take us up to 69 points though, and seeing as this is Episode 69 of this adventure so far, I think it’s worth stepping back for a minute, basking in the glory of that coincidence, and saying quietly under our collective breaths: nice. Double nice.
It would also be nice if Alavés would come to Seville, leave their three points on the doormat, then sod off. I can’t imagine that’s going to happen though, especially considering they’re 12th in the table, doing far better than I would have expected, and have signed bloody Roberto Abbondanzieri in the winter window — as if Richard Dutruel wasn’t enough of a blockade. The good news for us, though, is that human chainsaw Óscar Téllez has been shorn from them by suspension, and their prospective replacements at centre-half are not great. It could be a field day for Skalidis, who needs no invitation to rifle a hat-trick in any given game — he obviously starts, along with a few other changes from Zaragoza. I’m sad to say that Simon Davies is in the last-chance saloon right now; after his phenomenal start to life in the Spanish sunshine, his ratings have plummeted recently, and his current form reads 7–6–6–5–6: for the uninitiated, that adds up to useless squared. Mikel Arteta hurries over to me with a fresh carajillo in time for kick off, clearly eager to make an impression. Don’t worry, young lad. Your big chance could well be in the offing.
Alavés play that weird everyone-stay-back formation that both Real and Barca both insist on, and it’s deeply annoying — especially when your outlet is Carlos, their lone striker, who has 20 for Pace, Acceleration, Dribbling, and Technique. Their approach is to simply put ten behind the ball, soak up all our pressure, then smash it long and see how many of my defenders he can get to fall over. It’s a tactic that’s taken them well clear of the bottom, and aside from an early Skalidis shot that Abbondanzieri obviously saves, we’re actually struggling to cope with our opponents’ route one tactics. The combination of Carlos and Roberto, their right mid, keeps the ball away from us for huge swathes of the first half, and it’s becoming quite irritating. We just can’t get the ball off either of them.
Fortunately, it all falls apart when they approach goal, as they don’t have the composure to put in a decent cross or a shot on target — and that’s where we have the edge. After 39 frustrating minutes, we put a back-to-front move together that features Andrielos, Kibebe, then Ronaldo, who passes through the lines for Skalidis to scamper in and clatter another long-range shot that zips past Abbondanzieri and in for 1–0 to the Wet Bandits — and make no mistake, we really have nicked this lead.
Half time comes and goes, as does Bruno — he’s sent home after another anonymous performance in AMC. Tonton steps into the breach and does precisely nothing to impress, completing only ten passes and having no shots in the entire second period. To be fair, I suppose, Alavés are playing with three DMCs so there’s very little wiggle room around their penalty area, but it doesn’t prevent Skalidis and Kerr from testing Abbondanzieri four more times between them, all of which result in saves from the visiting stopper. Carlos and Roberto keep running at us, future Colador Pablo Daniel Brandán comes on for them in the closing stages and does his best to get his transfer cancelled by putting three decent crosses into the box that, thankfully, result in competent defending from Hill and Andrielos — and after 93 long minutes, we’ve squeaked through with another win.
We should have beaten Alavés, of course, but I’m worried nonetheless. We’re just about squeaking past teams we would have annihilated earlier in the year. Where Barcelona are sweeping to 3–0 victories in Bilbao, barely conceding a shot on goal let alone on target, we’re doing nothing of the sort. As the season hits the flat for the final sprint, our rivals are stepping up and blowing their opposition away, while my players are taking their lead from me: nervous and tired.
We are, however, still five points clear of Barcelona in second. The Alavés game set a new club record high attendance, so bearing that in mind along with our lovely £4.2m black bank balance that’s come from a £7.7m profit so far this season — you’re welcome — I approach the board, cap in hand, and meekly suggest that we could really benefit from a stadium that’s bigger than a chicken coop if we really want to take this club to the next level.
I turn, bare my whole arse, and resolutely waddle out of the board room. That’s where you can stick your polite reminder.
I shuffle all the way out of the stadium and onto Chugger, much to the bemusement of Susan and the players, as we’re due in Valencia province for the first leg of our Copa del Rey semi-final against D2B’s C.F. Gandía. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve basically been given a bye all the way to the final of the Copa del Rey — our route to this stage has taken in Xerez, Real Unión, Binéfar, Éibar, and now Gandía. Real Unión are the only non-D2B side in that list, and they’re still in the Segunda, so there’s no question that against all previous luck, we’ve got ourselves a semi from very little exertion. Gandía are second in the D2B3, though, which means they’re not totally awful; the question is, are they going to be accommodating, peaceful and welcoming like their namesake Gandhi, or adopt a more Gandalf-like, you-shall-not-pass kind of attitude? I’m just distracting myself. We should be able to blow past them with a reserve team.
As I go to pick my players, I notice something interesting about my squad list. Maxim Tsigalko isn’t “Fgn” any more. What’s all this then?
Well, would you look at that? Maxim has gone and gotten himself a Spanish passport! Atta boy.
Oh well, silly me. Silly, silly me for thinking that I could rotate a few players in to play against a team two full divisions below us. They take three shots and two of them beat Costanzo, who is being sold in the summer as long as I can find someone stupid enough to buy him from me. We have eleven, all of which either miss the goal or, more often, are expertly fielded by the world’s greatest goalkeeper, José Ignacio Cepa. I’m getting so sick and tired of this.
We’re faltering in the league. We’ve been dumped out of the Champions League by, quite honestly, a very similar game to this. And now, we’re 90 minutes away from an embarrassing exit from the Copa del Rey, a tournament that’s been knocking on our door in lingerie since the first round. I’m not even angry any more, I’m just… disappointed. It’s going to be another very long walk home. Maybe I’ll pick up a stray dog on the way.
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