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發表於 2005-9-13 17:27:17
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Galicia on the up?
Phil Ball
They say that if you meet a Galician in a lift, you never know if he's going up or down. The proverb appears to relate to Galician men, who are famed for their reticence - although everything is relative in the noisy chat-room that is Spain. Galician women, on the other hand, have a reputation for shooting from the hip - matriarchs by default due to the tendency of their men to disappear to sea for rather long periods, sometimes to never return at all.
That's just an obtuse preliminary to pointing out the fact that Galicia has experienced its ups and downs over the years, and also to provide a cute metaphor for the fact that this weekend's new leaders, Celta Vigo, have been away for a season but now they're back.
After hitting the previously unknown heights of the Champions League two seasons ago, they managed to distract themselves sufficiently to be relegated. Now they're home from the fishing trip and they're top of the league, accompanied, curiously enough, by their regional neighbours Deportivo de La Coruña.
Both are on six points after the two opening games, and although they say that you can't really start to draw conclusions until November at least, two sides who were widely predicted to struggle this season have got off to a morale-boosting start.
There's nothing like the feel-good factor to sustain you through the whizz-bang opening month of September, and the Spanish are particularly big on getting the kick-off right, gloomy fatalists that they can be when the chips are down.
It's strange though, how the public perception of teams (and thus regions) can change so quickly here.
Deportivo won the millennium league title, the first time it has ever gone up to windswept Galicia, and Celta, seemingly from nowhere, reached the UEFA quarter-finals in both 1999 and 2001, playing some tremendous stuff along the way. Now everyone's acting surprised at this revival - temporary though it may be.
Nevertheless beneath the statistics, Celta's eyebrow-raising win at Real Madrid was a strange one, to say the very least. The omens were none too good for the visitors. Their manager, the professorial-looking little Fernando Vasquez, can now breathe a sigh of relief, since his last two visits to the Bernabéu, as boss of Las Palmas and then of Valladolid, ended in 7-0 and 7-2 defeats respectively.
Fortunately for him, Madrid still looked like a collection of occasionally inspired individuals as opposed to a functioning unit, and Celta were impressive in defence - convincingly smothering Madrid's attacks in the final third - but the winning goal, a 'fantasma' (ghost) effort by Cannobio which cannoned off the bar but never bounced over the line, was perhaps a signal of good luck for the season, at the very least.
Then again, there are lies, damned lies, and football records. Celta last won in the Bernabéu (1-2) in 1998, but have to go all the way back to 1955 before they can boast about scoring three goals on the hallowed turf of the nation's capital. Mind you, they did lose that game 8-3.
Apparently, in the forthcoming Under-17 World Cup tournament to be held in Peru, a new 'intelligent' ball is to be given a trial. Infused with a microchip, the acoustic signal emitted will be picked up by the ref's ear via a sensor, meaning that this particular brand of juicy controversy is about to bite the dust. No more Michels against Brazil, no more Russian linesmen, no more Wichita linesmen.
Of course, many corners of Spain have had a right good laugh this weekend, since controversy in the Bernabéu usually relates to Real Madrid having been handed a fortnightly favour by the country's weaker-willed officials, so Ramirez Domínguez, all the way from traditionally friendly Andalucía, take a bow.
Then again he did award the hosts a dubious penalty for a fairly innocuous tackle on Baptista, but more than made up for it by awarding Celta an equally dubious one, and then disallowing a perfectly legal goal from home debutant Robinho.
The young Brazilian once again looked a bit useful, but with 75% of his team-mates seemingly occupying the same midfield position as himself, things looked a little messy out there.
Also, rather like last season, the way to score against Real Madrid is to simply cross the ball high into the box. Their goalkeeper has never fancied catching them (as witnessed during Spain v Serbia in midweek), and their centre-halves have never perfected the art of jumping off the ground.
Gravity is a problem for both Helguera and Pavón, so the sooner Jonathon Woodgate gets matchfit, the better. Sergio Ramós also made his home debut, coming on for Pavón in the second half, and he ran around pointing his fingers and shouting quite impressively.
In short, the jury is still out on the 'new' Real Madrid. They'll have to do rather better on Tuesday night in Lyons, with the French leaders looking a much more confident outfit at the moment.
Deportivo, allegedly the posher of the two top-flight Galician clubs, have now won both their opening games 1-0. Last season's goals-against record of 47, though not overly tragic, was in fact their worst showing in that department for fifteen years, so they should sleep happily in their two clean sheets for this week anyway. Mind you, nobody should get too excited about beating first Mallorca then Atlético Madrid in their first two games, but there you go.
The winning goal this weekend was also scored in the 94th minute, by Capdevila, predictably once an Atlético player. He also thumped a defender to the ground just before he did it, but no-one at the Riazor was complaining. Having lost Luque, Fran and Mauro Silva over the summer, there was an air of pessimism hanging over their already famously pessimistic supporters.
But Sevilla's ex-manager, Joaquín Caparros, has returned a bit of bounce to their game, despite his reputation for building physical, often aggressive teams. The sight of the curious little Munitis in full flow during the second half was balm to the eyes of the Coruña faithful, tired of the cautious old Jabo Irureta, who, despite bringing them the league title in 2000, they nevertheless considered a depressing old windbag.
And talking of old windbags, wouldn't it be nice - for Diego Forlan at least - to score the winner in front of his former manager on Wednesday night in the Champions League encounter between Villarreal and Manchester Utd?
Not that one has anything against the English side, of course - but just to prove a point or two. Betis v Liverpool should prove interesting too, since any Spanish player who turns in a half-decent performance can probably expect to find himself signed by Rafa Benitez in the January window. Watch out - Rafa's about.
But anyway, this weekend belongs to the Galicians. For the moment at least, they're going up in that lift.
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發表於 2005-9-13 15:02:04
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