General La Liga Discussion

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, SirBalon said:

I feel for Adams on that one...  It must be hard to obtain quality Spanish assistants while living and working in Spain. 

They're all in London doing bar work 

[Dave]

On 17/04/2017 at 1:38 PM, SirBalon said:

Adams' "mental health" issues have their source and stem from the bottom of a bottle. He is a drunk and always has been (I actually know him quite well)... He's a great guy though and I can only wish him the best to ge honest. 

I thought he had recovered from his alcohol problems a long time ago?

[SirBalon]

38 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

They're all in London doing bar work 

I've got a good one working for me. 

[SirBalon]

29 minutes ago, Aaroncpfc said:

I thought he had recovered from his alcohol problems a long time ago?

He definitely has from his major alcohol problems years back. But he's still a dabbler. 

[Bundesligafan93]

I dont get why Granada hired him. They Will go down for dire unless Ramos steps out

[Dave]

On 20/04/2017 at 4:27 PM, SirBalon said:

He definitely has from his major alcohol problems years back. But he's still a dabbler. 

Has there been any efforts to bring him back to Arsenal either with the academy or an ambassador? Just seems mad to me that most of the figureheads of English football on the 90s have found some sort of role in football but him and Seaman seem to struggle.

[Honey Honey]

David Seaman lost his powers when he shaved the tash off

[SirBalon]

37 minutes ago, Aaroncpfc said:

Has there been any efforts to bring him back to Arsenal either with the academy or an ambassador? Just seems mad to me that most of the figureheads of English football on the 90s have found some sort of role in football but him and Seaman seem to struggle.

Just look at the history involving Arsene Wenger and all past iconic figures with the club.  He is well known for not wanting to give past players a chance and very few (mainly submissive figures) have remained working there.  In recent history involving Wenger...  Vieira, Overmars, Pires, Adams, Bergkamp, Arteta and Henry who are all involved in coaching or football associated jobs have all had to look elsewhere.

He's been called a dictator and some laugh at that but the facts (more than just this subject) are all there to be seen and judged.

[...Dan]

But on the bright side he scored on his Calcio Deficiency debut today.

[Spike]

@SirBalon How talented was Redondo in his La Liga prime? Seems to be someone that isn't talked about that much.

[SirBalon]

50 minutes ago, Spike said:

@SirBalon How talented was Redondo in his La Liga prime? Seems to be someone that isn't talked about that much.

Why have you come out with that? 

For me he was a brilliant player...  A favourite of mine in the Madrid side at the time.  Still remember that move he pulled off at Old Trafford that left me with my mouth open.  He did have problems with consistency though in my opinion.  He was always good but at times he was amazing.

Why do you ask?

Another player I loved a bit further back was at Atlético Madrid, Paulo Futre...  Along with Luis Figo, my favourite Portuguese players of my time.

Edited May 5, 2017 by SirBalon

[Spike]

1 minute ago, SirBalon said:

Why have you come out with that? 

For me he was a brilliant player...  A favourite of mine in the Madrid side at the time.  Still remember that move he pulled off at Old Trafford that left me with my mouth open.  He did have problems with consistency though in my opinion.  He was always good but at times he was amazing.

Why do you ask?

Another player I loved a bit further back was at Atlético Madrid, Paulo Futre...  Along with Luis Figo, my favourite Portuguese players of my time.

Watching old videos on Youtube. Started on Hierro free-kicks and just kind of watched whatever came up next.

[SirBalon]

35 minutes ago, Spike said:

Watching old videos on Youtube. Started on Hierro free-kicks and just kind of watched whatever came up next.

So you've seen that Redondo move at Old Trafford I would expect.

Lots of great great players get lost in translation these days with all the marketing behind a few usual suspects.  The rest are entities of the moment and kind of get forgotten by many unless they're really avidly into football, and I mean football.

[Spike]

1 minute ago, SirBalon said:

So you've seen that Redondo move at Old Trafford I would expect.

Lots of great great players get lost in translation these days with all the marketing behind a few usual suspects.  The rest are entities of the moment and kind of get forgotten by many unless they're really avidly into football, and I mean football.

Yes, he makes it look effortless, twice as impressive considering he was a defensive-mid. Glides past three defenders and opens up the defence for Raul. Ridiculous.

His feud with Passarella is also very entertaining. 'No earrings, long hair, or homosexuals'. 

[SirBalon]

1 minute ago, Spike said:

Yes, he makes it look effortless, twice as impressive considering he was a defensive-mid. Glides past three defenders and opens up the defence for Raul. Ridiculous.

His feud with Passarella is also very entertaining. 'No earrings, long hair, or homosexuals'. 

hahahahaha  Yeah...  I remember that very very well!  He managed to get all of them to cut their hair as it was the fashion back then for almost every Argentine player to have long hair.  If I remember rightly, even Batistuta cut his hair as did Sorín.

[Spike]

1 minute ago, SirBalon said:

hahahahaha  Yeah...  I remember that very very well!  He managed to get all of them to cut their hair as it was the fashion back then for almost every Argentine player to have long hair.  If I remember rightly, even Batistuta cut his hair as did Sorín.

I was reading something very interesting about Argentine managers the other day. It alleged that their personalities and political views reflected their managing approach. Liberal Menotti v Conservative Bilardo. I imagine a man like Pasarella would prefer a 'Simeone' to a 'Messi'.

[Spike]

I've read some fantastic stories about Bilardo. Apparently he was furious when his team conceded from a set-piece during the 86 final. He was scowling for hours afterwards, it ruined it his day! He would also call players on the telephone at random of hours of the night and question them' 'WHO ARE YOU MARKING TOMORROW?' and would berate them until they got it right. He would also take underperformers down to the local parks and make them train in public while hurling abuse at them.

Haha, fantastic stuff.

[SirBalon]

4 minutes ago, Spike said:

He would also call players on the telephone at random of hours of the night and question them' 'WHO ARE YOU MARKING TOMORROW?'

It must run in Argentinian blood because Diego Simeone is the same...  He calls players on the telephone all the time and there's an anecdote when they won La Liga under Radomir Antić (96 I think it was) and he visited the hotel room of every single player in the squad that night and returned to his own room in time to get up.  Obviously he didn't get any sleep but I feel sorry for Kiko who apparently was the last player he visited that night. 

My favourite character to read (although he wasn't or isn't exactly controversial) in the Argentine football world (he's an idol of mine) is "El Flaco" César Luis Menotti.  A god of football and we can forget, Guardiola, Bielsa, Herrera, Aragonés or Ferguson.

[Spike]

5 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

It must run in Argentinian blood because Diego Simeone is the same...  He calls players on the telephone all the time and there's an anecdote when they won La Liga under Radomir Antić (96 I think it was) and he visited the hotel room of every single player in the squad that night and returned to his own room in time to get up.  Obviously he didn't get any sleep but I feel sorry for Kiko who apparently was the last player he visited that night. 

My favourite character to read (although he wasn't or isn't exactly controversial) in the Argentine football world (he's an idol of mine) is "El Flaco" César Luis Menotti.  A god of football and we can forget, Guardiola, Bielsa, Herrera, Aragonés or Ferguson.

Oh, I know of him. I mentioned him earlier. Are there any stories about him you care to divulge? 

[SirBalon]

17 minutes ago, Spike said:

Oh, I know of him. I mentioned him earlier. Are there any stories about him you care to divulge? 

There's lots of funny ones with him like one when he was coach for Barcelona and they were playing Manchester United and he took Maradona off after 15 minutes because he wasn't doing what he told him to do and instead started to drop deeper and deeper looking for the ball.  Menotti says that Maradona wasn't one to ever reproach his coach back in the day (at least not him) so he got his wife to do it after that game to which Menotti told the whole dressing room the next day back at the Camp Nou.

But my favourite is one where Menotti was coach with a youth team back in the day when he was starting (can't remember the club, could be Boca) and there was a player Gregorutti (I hope I've got that right because I'm telling it off the top of my head).  Menotti says that this kid was amazing and had the capability to be a great player but that he was the laziest player he has ever coached.  He just wouldn't run...  So Menotti had a bright idea and before training the next morning Menotti got up really early and went to pick pineapples at a field near his dad's house.  Apparently pineapples picked right off the tree are extremely prickly.  So at training everytime Gregorutti didn't run like Menotti wanted to, he threw pineapples at him hitting him with each and every one of them.  From that moment Gregorutti was known as "El Piña" (pineapple in Spanish) 

But for me the fascination with Menotti is when he talks football...  I have listened to and read for hours and hours on end everything he has to say.  The man is a bloody genius.

In Argentina they say you're either a Menottista or a Bilardista because of their contrasting beliefs on how the game should be played.

Edited May 5, 2017 by SirBalon

[Spike]

@SirBalon I only caught the tail end of his career but was Guti simply a case of 'world class' talent unfulfilled due to a poor attitude? I remember moments of magic but other than that nothing.

[SirBalon]

9 minutes ago, Spike said:

@SirBalon I only caught the tail end of his career but was Guti simply a case of 'world class' talent unfulfilled due to a poor attitude? I remember moments of magic but other than that nothing.

For some reason I've stopped getting alerts on the @ function... Have to have a look at my settings tomorrow morning.

Guti was an extremely gifted player with some extraordinary flashes of utter brilliance. But you said it yourself... His career practically means nothing of any note and he never even managed to be a feature for Spain. His attitude was terrible and very public too which doesn't win you any privileges with your coach whoever he may be. He is a cult figure for the fervent and fanatical Real Madrid fan though with his famed hatred for Barça being one of the reasons for this.

But he was gifted and a shame he threw it away in various different ways. There's one particular piece of play that comes to mind nearer the end of his career where he backheels a deliberate pass for a goal but I can't remember who it was against only that I remember thinking it was magical and inspirational. 

Edited May 12, 2017 by SirBalon

[Spike]

4 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

For some reason I've stopped getting alerts on the @ function... Have to have a look at my settings tomorrow morning.

Guti was an extremely gifted player with some extraordinary flashes of utter brilliance. But you said it yourself... His career practically means nothing of any note and he never even managed to be a feature for Spain. His attitude was terrible and very public too which doesn't win you any privileges with your coach whoever he may be. He is a cult figure for the fervent and fanatical Real Madrid fan though with his famed hatred for Barça being one of the reasons for this.

But he was gifted and a shame he threw it away in various different ways. There's one particular piece of play that comes to mind nearer the end of his career where he backheels a deliberate pass for a goal but I can't remember who it was against only that I remember thinking it was magical and inspirational. 

One moment sticks out in my head. I will probably never see it again, nor remember who it was against. Guti was doing nothing and then split the entire team open with one pass, it must have been a forty metre pass, gracefull and effortless, it looked like something that Xavi would dream of. It really seemed like he had no right doing such a thing!

[SirBalon]

7 hours ago, Spike said:

One moment sticks out in my head. I will probably never see it again, nor remember who it was against. Guti was doing nothing and then split the entire team open with one pass, it must have been a forty metre pass, gracefull and effortless, it looked like something that Xavi would dream of. It really seemed like he had no right doing such a thing!

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.

 

[SirBalon]

Tony Adams hits out against his club and the internal politics

 

In Granada's final fixture date in La Liga Santander, club head coach Tony Adams sent a message to the board and the internal politics that have been ruling it for a number of years.

The local journalists forgot about the fact that there's one more futile and meaningless game to play in Spain's first division and instead bombarded Adams with questions about the team's performances since he took the reigns and the fact that there is no substance in their football.

Adams very cleverly diverted the answers to the questions in an intelligent manner (something I find particularly amazing coming from him) toward the way the club has been run for a number of years.  These were some of his more interesting quotes that will probably only be understood if you really follow Spanish football to it's every little detail.  Remember that the owner of Granada CF is the Italian magnate Giampaolo Pozzo who also owns Udinese in Italian football.

"It would be very positive if we finished the season with a victory at home"

"We were all very excited and eager with the project we had designed for Granada, but the signings weren't the ones we requested and required.  I hope to be permitted to turn Granada CF into a football club because in many aspects in recent years this is not what it's been."

"Granada in recent years hasn't been a football club at all and has been more a player agency for other clubs."

"I understand the frustration the fans have since I joined but the job I want to do is based on running a football club that owns its players and its own destiny.  I hope to be able to achieve this in the future by using the academy first and foremost and from then bringing in players that the club actually owns and not nurturing for clubs in Italy and England."

Granada CF isn't unique in this and there are many others around Europe like Vitesse Arnhem in the Netherlands or AS Saint-Etienne in France as stand out examples.