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Showing content with the highest reputation on 13/05/17 in all areas

  1. I think I'm right in saying that it was Fabio Capello who used him the most and had most confidence in Guti. I can't depict the moment you've described in my mind mate but I'm sure it's there. Where Guti would play well was when the opponent would sit deep and defend in numbers... If you gave him time to think, he'd invent something radical and special. His problem was when Real would face top sides that would go out to beat Real Madrid like for example a Barcelona, Valencia or Athletic Bilbao who had a great record against Real at the time. Against those sides he tended not to play because he'd get caught in possession and his work rate for a central midfielder wasn't optimum. Infact, a bit like Mesut Özil at Arsenal strangely enough. On the Barcelona side of things, there was a player of magical majestic moments that unfortunately never ruled the world like many thought he would and definitely how I thought he would. What happened there nobody knows but the world could've been his oyster. He is one of the Johan Cruyff kids, a total invention by Cruyff and he couldn't have picked a better seed to nurture because it came from a royal historic crop being none other than the grand nephew one of Real Madrid's greatest ever players, Paco Gento. This player's name was Iván de la Peña. Nicknamed "The Little Buddha" (El Pequeño Buddha) I don't know if you have knowledge of him mate, but this kid was amazing Spike... Trust me! This isn't nostalgia here or even some move to add a Barcelona player of some sort. This player should've been destined to become the best player in the world at the time and for a long time too. But whatever it was, there was something that just didn't finalise it and I'm talking minute details that never finished it all off cleanly like polished titanium... He was brushed titanium, beautiful and faultless but you wanted to see that final push where he'd be the finished shining article so as to worship as a footballing god in the best part of the pitch as a midfielder. His eye of the needle passing, the measuring of his passes, the weight, the power and out and out vision was that of god like status. His technical ability was almost perfect with a very low centre of gravity due to his typical northern Spanish stature of shortish but stocky. And his vision for beautiful goals was sublime! I still remember the day he was signed by SS Lazio in 1998 was a very sad day because the Barça fans loved HIM most of all the star names and they all thought he would be the one the future would be built around. Incredibly, De La Peña ended up at city rivals RCD Espanyol in his latter years where is where most people will remember him as a sporadic (a-la Guti) player of magical moments. But that wasn't the kid Cruyff placed in the side. The 'Little Buddha' was to have been Cruyff's master stroke and believe it or not, Cruyff's failure to finish him off was part of the legend's fall out with the Barcelona board who had been platting behind his back to have any reason to push him out as he had become so so powerful... Those times were almost like Shakespeare's play on Julius Caesar where Brutus finally sticks the knife in the back, only that this was the now down to be massively corrupt pst president, Josep Lluis Núñez. Many great players wore the Barça colours, but the only one that was ever permitted to be a poster in my bedroom with those colours was Iván de la Peña. One of the biggest frustrations in football for me to be honest.
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