This column made the point last week that the Easter period was often make-or-break time, and although La Liga still has seven games to go, the intense period of three games over seven days has certainly left its mark. Apart from Cordoba’s looming relegation, after losing 2-0 at home to Elche, nothing is as yet definitive, but Barcelona’s draw at Sevilla – coming as it did after leading 0-2 at one stage, has re-opened the title race as many suspected it would. In the first week of May Real Madrid must visit them too, and they won’t be looking forward to it. Now that the two-stallion race is as good as confirmed, Madrid’s best hope lies in Barcelona’s visit to Atlético in the Calderón the week after that – assuming, of course, that they win all of their other games.
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There’s something slightly awry about the current situation in La Liga, with the smaller sides dismissed as cannon-fodder, as inconvenient obstacles on the path to the title – minor pot-holes on the road to the significant games, with the Champions League included in that category of course. For Eibar’s visit to Real Madrid, Toni Kroos and James Rodriguez were suspended, but they will hardly have been devastated at not being able to play. Gareth Bale was injured but Iker Casillas, Karim Benzema and Dani Carvajal were all handed a rest and plonked on the bench. Tuesday’s quarter-final in the Champions League, which only requires a quick trip down the road for Real Madrid, was foremost in Carlo Ancelottis’ mind, and the game plan against Eibar was simply to ensure the points as quickly as possible, so that others could earn themselves an early bath and a rest too. Everything went to plan, with poor Eibar offering up a mere token resistance, almost as if they were an irrelevance on the pitch. On their big day out, Eibar’s hosts had their mind on other things. It was like getting an invite to the royal banquet and being seated a long way from the top table.
Keylor Navas, in a rare appearance between the sticks for Madrid, suffered the same problem that he always suffers when he manages to get a game, namely that the teams he is picked to play against rarely muster a shot on goal. Eibar managed one on target, from their centre-back Raúl Navas. Apart from that, it was largely what the Spanish call dismissively a ‘pachanga’ (kick-about), a term used to describe a situation where there is no tension, no real possibility of losing. Madrid were never going to bother scoring nine, as in their previous home game against Granada, and so Eibar went home with a reasonably dignified-looking 3-0 defeat, and still every possibility that they can conjure up the six or seven points required to extend their top-flight adventure into a second season. But their performance lacked the conviction of their pre-Christmas selves, as if they had accepted their roles as the temporary weekend inconvenience. With the score at 2-0 and Madrid cruising, Luka Modric was taken off, soon to be followed by Sergio Ramos and Marcelo – two players rarely substituted in normal circumstances. You can’t blame Ancelotti, but there’s something wrong about this. Cristiano Ronaldo also scored his 38th league goal of the season, which is ten more than Eibar’s entire haul for the season so far. Oh well –perhaps in another space-time dimension, Eibar are the big guys and Madrid merely their playthings. It would make a half-decent science-fiction novel.
Whatever, it’s been an intense week of football, and because of the holidays I watched rather a lot of it, a circumstance that led me to reflect on why we elect to watch certain matches and not others, given that digital television does offer up a whole gamut of possibilities and I do have the fortune to live in an area where three top-flight teams are practically on the doorstep. But it seems to me that football journalism often misses the point because by its very nature it is meant to be an impersonal analysis, devoid of any partial sentiment, or any personal connection. In a crowd of 75,000, 99% are there out of personal conviction and therefore require the post-match objectivity of the 1%. It’s a fair exchange. But personal connections to football are more varied and interesting than simply being a paying spectator.
For example, in midweek the first game I chose to watch was Athletic Bilbao and Valencia, for the sole reason that the home side’s attacking midfielder Unai López was on from the start. López was the kid I noticed straight away when my own son was invited to train with Antiguoko, Real Sociedad’s feeder team almost nine years ago – and when you watch your own kid play alongside someone for a few years, week in week out, you know the features that mark out the top players from the ones that will make the grade, but who won’t play at the top level. López was a small bundle of dynamite, an outrageous talent at eleven. He was completely focused, tactically and technically precocious to an unnatural extent. It was only a matter of time. As he is the first of my son’s ‘cantera’ (quarry) to hit the big time, it not only makes me feel old to watch him play against Valencia but it also comforts me to know that I wasn’t dreaming back then, and that he really was blessed with that something extra. Then I watched Atlético and Real Sociedad (2-0) because I support the away side and also because I’m happy for Atlético’s Antoine Griezmann, another player whom I watched grow up. I wish he hadn’t scored, but he stuck to his promise and didn’t celebrate.
Then on Saturday I wandered down to the bar to watch the aforementioned Real Madrid v Eibar game, as much out of curiosity than out of any fantasy that Eibar might spring a surprise, and then went home to follow my son’s game on the BBC website in the Scottish Lowland League, against East Kilbride. It’s a painful thing, not to be able to watch him, but live blogs and occasional highlights soften the blow. 1-2 down at half-time, I couldn’t access the line-ups but suspected that he was on the bench. As the game went on and the score remained the same, as a defensive midfielder I knew he wouldn’t get on – and I was right. My attention then turned to the English Conference where my hometown team Grimsby were playing at home to Wrexham, trying to keep alive their hopes of automatic promotion back to the professional league where they belong, but alas they lost 0-1 and will have to settle for the play-offs. It was turning into a tough weekend.
But variety being the spice of life, these personal connections at so many different levels make the football more meaningful, although it’s always a good idea to keep a distance too. The game being essentially absurd – twenty-two men being worshipped for kicking a piece of bonded polyurethane about –means that you have to take it in doses. This meant that I could only watch the second half of the splendid game at Sevilla on Saturday evening, because my wife wanted a motorcycle lesson (from me), but I did manage to get us back home in time for Kevin Gameiro’s equaliser, a goal that might prove significant come the month of May.
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— Manuel Lecona (@leconasagrado) April 12, 2015
And then, darn me if there wasn’t yet another game at 22.00, between Celta and Rayo Vallecano. The personal connection was simple enough in this case, in that I like Rayo as a club and I like the way that Celta play, so it seemed a good enough excuse. I was rewarded by a fantastic, albeit one-sided game that ended 6-1 to Celta, with a kid (Santi Mina) the age of my son, scoring four goals. Surprisingly, three players his age or younger had already managed this feat, but they all scored them between 1929 and 1934. One of them was the splendidly named Pablo Pombo, from Racing Santander. However, no young ‘un had done this again until Saturday night.
Finally, to end an exhausting week’s leisure, I took my wife on the motorbike to see Real Sociedad v Deportivo (she declined the invitation to take the reins) and was further rewarded by what may be one of the three best goals of the La Liga season. Take a look at Chory Castro’s goal in the second half, a similar goal to the spectacular shot from Marco Van Basten against the USSR in 1988. Deportivo, with a new manager (Victor Sánchez del Amo) played well, and deserved their point. They didn’t look like a relegation-threatened team, and their on-loan winger from Benfica, Ivan Cavaleiro, was sensational. Sociedad couldn’t handle him, and Deportivo should be digging deep to keep him for next season, assuming they stay up. To conclude, I’ll be watching the Madrid derby on Tuesday night and the PSG V Barcelona game the following evening because they’re massive events and I like Spanish football, but I have neither preferences nor emotional connections to any of the four sides. In a comforting sort of way it spares you any pain, a necessary rest from what has been an emotionally exhausting holiday.
