It was an eventful Halloween, with the Champions League sides getting their games out of the way as early as possible, and several Barcelona players interrupting the press conference at Getafe dressed up as ghouls. Andres Iniesta, who is so pale he always looks like he’s seen a ghost anyway, was not among them, but the next day the Madrid-based press was huffing and puffing about a lack of respect, and so forth. This is major news, as you will appreciate. Barcelona won 2-0 (at Getafe) and according to the press should therefore not have been mucking around, but one supposes that if Real Madrid had done the same, it would all have been seen as a jolly good jape.
Real Madrid themselves beat Las Palmas 3-1 at home in a rather insipid affair, lightened by the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal meant that he has now scored against all the sides who currently inhabit the top flight. Las Palmas have never won in their history at the Bernabéu, but did manage to score a goal – the first one that the hosts have conceded on home territory this season. Perhaps it was because St Keylor Navas was injured and his place was taken by the more mortal Kiko Casilla, who was making his official debut for Real Madrid. He played and looked just fine, despite the rumours that he was only signed because his surname is a mere ‘s’ short of the previous incumbent at the Bernabéu, now playing out the autumn of his days at Porto. Madrid scored early on through Ronaldo and Isco, and looked like emulating the previous occasion when Las Palmas visited (7-0), but decided to preserve their energies for the more taxing test of the visit of PSG on Tuesday night. Such is the big sides’ approach to things these days, but Las Palmas (and Getafe later in the day) probably weren’t complaining.
Anyway, it was the kind of weekend where one was tempted to go for the ‘5 things we learned’ formula, so popular in sports journalism at the moment. I’m never quite sure of the value of this article type, since the number of things we’re supposed to learn seems strangely arbitrary (5, 10, or 12.5?) and anyway, we often learn absolutely nothing from a football match, save the fact that the entrance fee is too expensive and the kick-off time (particularly in Spain) is absurdly late. With reference to the latter, I attended the Real Sociedad v Celta match at 22.05 on the aforementioned Halloween, hoping to get some close -quarters insight into the Celta phenomenon. How many things did I learn? Well – I think there are three main conclusions to draw, but that’s because five is too many.
The first is that Celta are a very good team, and that if you want entertainment this season, look no further than them. Real Sociedad are also capable of attractive stuff (when David Moyes allows it) and buoyed by their 4-0 win at Levante last week they were up for the challenge. As a result the first half was particularly pleasing, with both sides serving up some frenetically vertical stuff, no holds barred. Sociedad deservedly went in 2-1 to the good at the interval, courtesy of yet another two goals from Imanol Agirretxe, but Celta came back strongly in the second half, after the excellent David Zurutuza limped off and the hosts consequently lost their shape. But Celta would probably have prevailed anyway.
There’s a slightly gung-ho attitude in there, presumably cooked up by coach Eduardo Berizzo, who inherited Luis Enrique’s useful season at the helm of the side. Berizzo, a disciple of Marcelo Bielsa, uses a clear-cut system of Barcelona-type harrying, high up the pitch, after which the parallels with the Catalans stop. Once Celta get the ball, it’s like watching the lights flash on a pin table. Players suddenly burst forth in all directions, offering vertical options to the player in possession. Apart from the excellent midfielder Daniel Wass, who sometimes likes to play it sideways, almost all of Celta’s movements are giddily fast and vertical, putting opposing defences on the back foot. Wass was actually masterful in Anoeta, always making the right decisions, always releasing the ball at the right time, always involved. His whipped in cross for Iago Aspas’ 2-2 equaliser was brilliant, and basically impossible to defend.
The second thing learned was that Celta are not quite so masterful in defence. Andreu Fontàs, a product of the Masia, looks a little unsteady, and goalkeeper Sergio, despite occasional grandstand performances, seems fairly ordinary. This is not to criticise, but merely to speculate on whether Celta can maintain their Champions League position, or even better, stay within challenging distance of the leaders. Pablo Hernandez’ wonderful last-minute winner was an article of faith rather than of strategy, but you can’t fault Celta for ambition. They’re definitely the best side to watch at the moment in La Liga, and their win was the first time they’ve taken three points home from Anoeta this century (the last time was 1999). Real Sociedad played well. It was just that Celta played better. The third thing, therefore, is that Sociedad are better than their league position suggests, but it isn’t quite working for them yet. They’ll come good.
On Sunday I paid my annual visit to Eibar, but to see Rayo Vallecano, as opposed to Real Madrid or Barcelona. Eibar won 1-0, and are nestled nicely up in 6th position. ‘Euro-Eibar’ shouted a group of fans as I left, and crazy though it sounds, at the moment it’s the truth. Eibar and Rayo are the two poorest teams in the top flight, in terms of their annual budget, but in other ways they are the richest. The natural solidarity between the two clubs, however, does not stem from their brothers-in-arms politics but rather from 2007, when both clubs were in the Segunda Division ‘B’ and met at the end of the season in Ipurua (Eibar’s ground) for the promotion play-off, which Eibar won. Instead of celebrating their triumph, the Eibar players consoled their defeated opponents, and refused to celebrate the win until Rayo had changed and were on the bus home. The Rayo players didn’t forget the gesture, and were further moved when Eibar fans travelled down to Madrid at the end of the following season to support Rayo in the subsequent play-off, which they won. Now, eight years on, both are in the top flight, and any game between the two is worth attending, if only because you get the feeling that this species of occasion is teetering on the brink of extinction.
The game was intense but short on quality, played under a shirt-sleeved autumnal sun. The weather is volatile up here, and on a bad day Ipurua can look like Mordor, but on Sunday the surrounding mountains and ice-blue sky framed the tiny ground beautifully. Rayo seemed short on inspiration until Lass and Manucho came on, but for Eibar two players stood out. One of them, Keko (Sergio Gontán) played a single game for Atlético Madrid back in 2009 and has since wandered Europe in search of a team that would appreciate him – and he seems to have found it in Eibar. Stocky and strong in a Sergio Agüero sort of way, he must rate as one of the finds of the season. Rayo couldn’t cope with his movement off the ball, and his intelligence on it. Gonzalo Escalante, their new Aergentinean defensive midfielder, also stood out, and like Keko was recruited from the Italian side Catania. Eibar’s scouts obviously have good instincts, honed by necessity as opposed to wads of money.
The whole Eibar thing, sustained by a howling crowd of 5,000, is wacky and slightly bonkers, but a necessary experience, given the growing impersonality of the corporate experience of live, top-flight football. Nerea, the woman who provides the press with free coffees, wandered over to my desk after about half an hour and remarked, ‘You were here last season, weren’t you?’ to which I nodded my assent. ‘If I’m not mistaken, you have a little bit of milk and one sugar’ she announced, triumphantly. Next season, if they make the Europa League, I guess she’ll be a little busier, but I’ll bet she still remembers.
