Los Coladeros, Episode 9: El Descenso
On the road again. I just can’t wait to get Chugger on the road again. The Costa Brava is our destination, and after we lanced them 3–1 in our first ever game of professional football, we wave hello to the yellow and blue of Palamós CF, one of Spain’s oldest sides, with an ambition to finally overhaul Hospitalet and win this damned division once and for all.
I decide on a similar team to the one we’ve been playing recently because, honestly, why change it? Look at the state of these average ratings. Big mentions to Victory, Dunwell and the rocketing start of Trustfull in CM, but let’s take a moment to enjoy Sergio Sestelo, in particular — he was going to be my centre-forward until Dunwell signed, but he’s taken the ten role and showed everyone else how it’s done. Zinedine Zidane, eat someone else’s heart out.
Quite honestly, the first half-hour is immensely frustrating. 8th-placed Palamós have learned from the opening day and tell their defenders to actually try to stop us, which they do with great success. We break through five times, but on every occasion, some superb defending from Sotero and Bravo knocks Sestelo, Dunwell and Victory off balance, and we can only fire off-target. Down our end, Sjöberg, despite finishing the half on a six, makes one notable intervention to stop troublingly upright Palamós striker Willy as he bursts through our back doors with nefarious intentions.
On 35 minutes, the game really comes alive. Another tackle from Sjöberg ends up at the feet of Mustafa, who feeds Adolfo in the centre. He glides towards the Palamós goal, eventually sending the ball left for Jamie Victory’s marauding run. The Englishman rockets past right-back Buide and whips a cross into the area, where Sergio Sestelo — who else? — reacts first to guide a header past Rojas in the Palamós goal, and with our first effort on target, it’s 1–0 Coladeros!
However, our lead is short-lived. Soon after, Palamós manage to break our lines properly for the first time, and when the ball falls at the feet of top scorer José Luis Morales — 11 in 13 so far this season — he makes no mistake in thundering a high shot past Hugo to level the scores, and that’s how we reach the break.
I’m sure my opposite number, salady Palamós manager Cos, will be giving his goalkeeper the same team talk as me at half time. Try to romaine calm, and make a save in the second half, if you can. Lettuce win this game, and leaf Catalonia with three points. I’ll spare you the full repertoire.
His team talk is flimsy, and it only takes three minutes for Orlando Trustfull to continue his spectacular start in the famous silver and blue. Sergio Sestelo collects a Jaime pass and slides it through for the two-time Dutch international, and he makes no mistake with our second shot on target, rifling past Rojas into the top corner and restoring our lead. Rojas then decides to heed his manager’s advice, beating away efforts for a full 25 minutes — and while we’re firmly on top, Pinheiro is having a siesta back in our nets, leaving the door fully open for Morales to punish us again. With just his second shot on target, Morales strikes into the roof of the net and brings the scores back to 2–2, and I’m in the sky on the touchline. Hugo, lad. Make a f — king save will you.
Fortunately, my pre-match fawning over Sergio motivates him to grab us the winner we most certainly deserve. Mustafa makes incredible progress down the right and swings a ball into the box, Dunwell heads goalward, Rojas blocks yet again, but Sestelo’s timing is perfect, and he mops up the rebound to put us into the lead for the third time today. I try to make some subs to go along with my introduction of Karl Ready for Sjöberg, but the game clicks from 69 to 95 minutes with no further action, and just like that, we’ve won 3–2, and I’m not sure how to feel. My forward players are relentless, but Hugo… Hugo. He’s really testing me. Apparently you can get a seven for picking the ball out of your net twice.
I think Hugo’s going to have to sit a game or two out while I look for alternatives. Oscar Sidro should be able to do a job while I find a fourth keeper — let’s face it, Condom is really just a Spanish tickler to keep the players entertained on these nine-hour journeys to and from the east coast — but my search is going to be hamstrung by my severe lack of funds. Loan offers for Ian Walker and Paul Jones are both knocked back, but Sunderland accept my temporary bid for Thomas Myhre. I’m excited at the prospect of having an experienced goalkeeper to fall back on… but Myhre rejects the chance to come to sunny Spain, preferring instead to keep training with the stiffs in rainy north-east England. Fair enough, Thomas. You must be blind not to see the opportunity you’ve got here, and if there’s one thing we don’t need, it’s another keeper who can’t see properly.
I return to Elfsborg for their first-choice goalkeeper Johan Wiland, available for just £50k with his relegation release clause triggered, while also offering a short-term deal to free agent Sieb Dijkstra in a move that screams of desperation, but here we are.
Sadly, or perhaps fortunately considering who we’re looking at, there’s no time to get anything done before we welcome Novelda back to La Cartuja for our second return fixture of the season. We beat them 2–0 last time, and it was a merciless execution: they managed no efforts on our goal, while we pummeled them with 18. Only a miraculous goalkeeping performance kept the score out of a horror movie plot, but Novelda have never really recovered, floating just two points above the relegation zone as one of the lowest-scoring sides in the league. I can only wonder how many they’ll put past us today.
Your Coladeros boast three lineup changes for this one. As well as dropping Pinheiro for Sidro in goal, I decide to give Diabaté the chance to move off of his 5.0 average rating from one game with a start in DMC, while the thus far disappointing Torbjorn Nilsson drops out of the squad altogether, replaced in the lineup by Leandersson with young Lio returning to the bench.
The sound of 12,313 people simultaneously rolling their eyes is squelchy and stomach-turning, but with half an hour gone, I’ve already been forced to endure it twice. There have been two efforts on goal, one for each team, and the score — predictably — is 1–1. Adolfo has had a word with Sestelo at kick off and told him he can have a rest from being our arch string-puller, and he’s the man who opens the scoring, heading a Trustfull cross past Ángel and in for 1–0 to the Rainmakers. However, from kick-off, Novelda go straight up our ends and equalise through Madrigal, who converts a left-wing cross to peg us back immediately, with Sidro nowhere to be found. Fortunately, Ángel appears to be even worse than Sidro or Pinheiro, as right on the stroke of half-time, Adolfo rises to meet another Trustfull cross from deep and heads past the flailing away keeper to give us a 2–1 lead that could have been achieved if both teams had hung scarves from the crossbar as their last line of defence. Why so many people keep coming to watch this dreich, I’ll never know.
The goalkeeping in this division seems to be awful no matter who you get to play in there, and I’m having a similar problem at centre-half. While Richard Smith is an impenetrable battering ram, he seems to get his constant 8s by stealing all the tackles and headers from his defensive partner — now Johan Sjöberg, easily our best defender according to his attributes and reputation, can’t move off a 6 no matter what he does, and Karl Ready comes on to do exactly the same thing. However, an almost impossibly uneventful second half races by with very little action to speak of — the most exciting thing that happens is my substitutions, which is saying a lot — and eventually we run out 2–1 winners in one of the worst games of football I’ve ever seen. At least Diabaté nicked himself an 8 for winning one tackle and one header, and Orlando Trustfull’s campaign for a third Netherlands cap continues with another virtuoso midfield performance. Also, how Ángel is given an 8 for that, I’ll genuinely never know.
Bloody Hospitalet keep up their winning run despite the loss of star striker Aitor Aldeondo, but the cracks are at least starting to show. A 90th minute winner just scraped them past Figueres last week, then today, they needed a penalty to give them a 1–0 victory against Orihuela — two teams they would previously have taken apart with few problems. They remain two points ahead of us for now, but I’ve got a good feeling. As long as my goalkeepers start bucking their ideas up, I can see us slowly dragging ourselves in front of them before the season is up.
Speaking of which, and assuming he can hardly do much worse than what we’ve already got, Sieb Dijkstra accepts my contract until the end of the season, and joins up with the squad for our away trip to Nástic. God, this is depressing, but what do you do in times of crisis? Sign some people you’ve actually heard of. It’s comforting, if nothing else. And I’m not expecting much else.
Nástic were the early pace-setters in the D2B3 but have dropped off a little now, sitting nine points back from us in 4th place. They have a star goalkeeper in Felip and one of the best strikers in the division in Diego Ribera, whose name I initially misread as Ribena and a man who we’re going to have to keep a close eye on if we want to come away with a result today.
I’ll be telling Richard Smith to mark him since he’s my only consistent centre-back. I’m not happy with the average ratings of Johan Sjöberg, though I do feel like the game engine has some sort of vendetta against him. All I see is him winning tackles and headers at the back alongside Smith, but while the Englishman keeps gettings 8s, Sjöberg is stuck on an average rating of 6.25 from his first four games. Then again, Smith is averaging 4.9 tackles per game which is pretty outrageous when you think about it.
Sieb Dijkstra gets a start today because why not, plus I decide it’s time for Lio Tarachalski to stop being punished for missing training and have a run on the left side of my midfield three. Nobody else has staked a convincing claim for it, and he wasn’t doing badly before his indiscretion, so who knows — we might have Jamie Davies MkII on our hands.
After another quiet start, Nástic come to life in the 17th minute: Javi Pozo crosses into our box, captain Antonio Roa heads goalwards — Dijkstra saves — but the rebound drops to that man Ribena, and he crashes home the rebound for what the home side think is going to be the opening goal. That is, until, our fantastic referee and assistant combine to rule the goal out for offside, the breath returns to my blueing face, and Diabaté stands over the free kick, deep inside our territory. He smashes it forwards towards Dunwell, who chests the ball down, glides past Vaqueriza, shields the ball from Roa, turns and smashes a goalbound shot that Felip gets down well to save at his near post. Jamie Victory’s corner is headed away, Nástic counter attack, Sjöberg puts in a crunching tackle to stop them in their tracks, but the ball bounces loose and left-back José Méndez — one career goal in ten years — smashes the ball past Dijkstra to give the home side the lead.
Okay, we’re behind again. We’ve been behind recently, and we’ve still managed to come back and sort out the result we need — it’s not the end of the world. The rest of the half is quite even, with both defences putting up solid barriers and forcing most efforts off-target; Dijkstra is a spectator in our goal, while Felip annoyingly makes a couple of super stops from Sestelo and Dunwell, and eventually we reach the break a goal down, but I feel less like stamping on my own feet than I did 15 minutes ago. I use that positivity to rouse the players at half-time, and tell them to get back out there and grab us the equaliser we deserve.
Mere minutes into the half, Felip is already down at the feet of Sestelo to smother one of his trademark charges through on goal, then Mustafa collects the clearance on the right and switches the ball to Victory. He moves down the left flank, crosses to the near post, where Lio is waiting! TARACHALSKI! SAVED by Felip — but it’s free! SESTELO SHOOTS! Oooohhhh, deflected wide by Pallarés!
Nástic are rocking at the back; the corner comes in, it’s cleared, but only to Diabaté. He moves past a defender and into the box, Felip comes out to meet him, Diabaté skips past the goalkeeper — who takes him out on the way past! PENALTY COLADEROS, professional foul on Diabaté… and FELIP IS SENT OFF!! Nástic’s star player today, on a 9 when the foul happened, is sent for a cold shower, and Lio Tarachalski, my new actually-designated penalty taker with 18 for Set Pieces and 14 for Bravery (which I assume matters but probably doesn’t now that I think about it again), picks the ball up and places it down on the spot. There’s a slight delay as sub keeper José Ramón De la Fuente velcros up his gloves and takes his place between the sticks, having come on for Diego Ribera of all people, but here we go. Nástic down to ten. My best set piece taker stands over the penalty. Lio Tarachalski, restored to the first team today, runs up to the kick…
IT’S SAVED. SAVED BY DE LA FUENTE. Both Lio and I are crying as the ball is walloped downfield to Sjöberg, our golden opportunity squandered, but even still — there’s over half an hour to go, and we’re a man up. We can still do this. Tarachalski instantly drives a shot just wide of the target, before setting up Dunwell for a fierce shot that De la Fuente turns behind. Naturally, Nástic’s second keeper is even better than their first, punching away a corner and then saving spectacularly from Sestelo and Dunwell, before a very strange moment occurs: Dunwell chips into the box, Sestelo charges forward, the commentary notes that De la Fuente “fouls Sestelo while catching the ball”, every Rainmaker in the stadium expects a second red card and penalty… but no. Nothing. The game simply continues as if nothing has happened. De la Fuente kicks the ball upfield, and that’s the end of it.
I’m open mouthed in my technical area, and finally make some substitutions to try to get something out of this game — Ipoua comes on for Trustfull and we go two up, with a diamond in midfield and about 15 minutes to go. We have to get something out of this game, surely. Javi Pozo has the ball for Nástic in midfield. He advances towards us, skipping away from Sestelo — but that’s okay. There’s still plenty for him to do. He uses his skill to beat Leandersson. Fine. Just wait until he gets to Richard Smith. Pozo looks up, sees the twin towers of Smith and Sjöberg, decides not to bother, and instead unleashes a wild shot from fully 30 yards that rockets past Dijkstra, into the top corner, and just like that, the ten men of Nástic have scored a wonder goal to go 2–0 up with about 12 minutes left. Guess how many shots they’ve had? You got it.
We spend those 12 minutes not hitting the target, as the Nástic defenders summon every ounce of their Tackling 8s to hassle and harry us into wayward shooting — Sestelo, Adolfo, Dunwell and Ipoua all have further efforts that are slashed into the Nou Estadi crowd, and by the end, we look lifeless, hopeless, and defeated. Another unbelievable afternoon of lower division Spanish football is over, but this time, we’re on the receiving end.
There are tuna at the local market that are less gutted than I am. We’ve conceded either once or twice in every game we’ve played since my new lads arrived, and while I find it hard to believe they’ve disrupted my squad to that extent, there’s a definite pattern emerging, and it’s bothering me. I think I’m going to go ahead and continue to blame my goalkeepers. By my count, we’ve conceded 8 goals from just 12 shots on target in our last five games, so it feels like everyone is doing their jobs except our last line of defence. I briefly consider not playing with a goalkeeper at all and just chucking an extra man up front, since virtually every shot our opponents have is already going in… but no, no. I’m not that stupid, believe it or not. I’m just going to put Hugo back in and hope that some added competition from Condom and Dijkstra forces him to pull on his big-boy gloves and actually stop some shots.
In other news, Hospitalet continue their frankly impossible run of wins by beating Barcelona B 4–3 away despite only having one striker, and coupled with our loss, that opens up a five-point gap at the top of the table, with Burgos and Nástic snapping at our heels. Now is not the time for a horrible run of games that we’re going to struggle to get anything out of: we’ve got 6th-placed Figueres next, then 7th-placed Orihuela, then Barcelona B. Things are getting a bit testy at La Cartuja.
In happier news though, I’m confirming our first two summer signings, on free transfers from Ayr and Southampton respectively. And this time, I have a feeling they’re going to get some games.
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