Valencia 3-2 Sevilla; All a Blur…

By: Anthony | January 21st, 2009

Well the title basically sums it up. I don’t know if it was the shitty stream that I was watching on because GolTV would rather show a Coppa Italia match, or if it was just the bombarding of goals that were scored in the second half. Yeah, probably the latter of the two.

I can’t have complaints about scoring two goals at the Mastalla and coming home with it. However I can complain about the fact we allowed 2 goals in the last 10 minutes when we were winning, that’s 100% unacceptable if we want to consider ourselves contenders for the Copa del Rey.

I expected a somewhat similar match to the one earlier this year at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, with two conservative lineups, not many goals, and for us to be able to go back home with a good chance of advancing to the next round. Boy was I ever wrong, the match was nothing like the one earlier this year, we got our fair share of goals and although we didn’t get the ideal result we wanted, overall, it’s not a bad one.

We started the match slow, sluggish, bad, awful, out of place, whatever way you want to say it, thats how we started. It wasn’t really due to our bad start though why Valencia took the lead, it was Adriano’s abysmal attempt at a back pass to Palop which was converted with ease by Villa once he latched onto it.

The only good news of the first half was when David Villa had to be substituted due to a knock he picked up and he was replaced by Fernando Morientes (how old is he now anyway?). That was about it in the first half, nothing to report, no good news, Fabiano had a couple shots but they were from distance and never really troubled the Valencia keeper, it seemed like everytime O Fabuloso got the ball he was surrounded by 4 men.

Before the re-start Diego Capel came on for Jesús Navas and personally I was wondering how this was going to work as Capel has less of a right foot than Robben (which speaks volumes really). Of course though young Diego who always seems to amaze me made an instant impact when he put in a perfect cross for Fabiano who headed it past Guaita who was caught way out of position. Apparently scoring a goal gives you the right to sit back and relax? I never knew that, but apparently thats what the boys thought because literally a minute after we scored Vicente had an open shot in the 18 yard box, luckily he forgot he was playing fútbol and not rugby as his shot sailed way over the crossbar.

On about the 70th minute O Fabuloso sparked some brilliant play when he beat two Valencia defenders, dished it off to Renato and was running to get the return pass when he was tripped but luckily enough Adriano was there to slide the ball past Guaita. Huge controversy on this goal as Adriano was about 2 metres offside but we all know how bad La Liga refereeing is, and it wasn’t called. In all fairness, I do admit it shouldn’t have been a goal, no way, it was so obvious, it was funny. There actually should have been a freekick just outside the box where Fabiano was tripped instead but whatever I’ll definitely take it, we haven’t got lucky at all this year so it was due really.

Just as it looked like things were over and we were going to be heading back to Nervión with a win and two vital away goals it wasn’t to be as Baraja received the ball from Mata (who fyi single handedly ripped us apart in the second half) skipped past both Escudé and Squillaci and put it past Palop. What the hell were our two centre-backs doing I couldn’t tell you.

It was a fair result, I mean going back home with a draw away and two away goals is good, we can just keep it at 0-0 at home or nick a 1-0 scoreline and we’re through… easy stuff!

Yeah right, nothing ever easy supporting this beloved team of mine, why do we always make things so complicated I’ll never understand…

Literally like 2-3 minutes later Valencia managed another goal as they had possession in our box and instead of clearing the ball, Romaric decides a little one metre nonchalant pass to the opposition would be better. Of course it had to be Mata on the receiving end who was have a killer of a performance and he hit a bullet which took a deflection off Navarro and went past Palop.

I couldn’t believe it, I was fuming, how the hell do you allow two goals in the final six minutes? What the hell was that guys? We can’t be doing this if we actually want to see ourselves winning anything this year. Absolutely brutal.

I want to put the blame on one man alone. No, not Romaric who obviously didn’t learn the basics of fútbol when he was 5 years old, but our lovely coach Manolo Jiménez. I really don’t understand his tactics… ever!!! He has a tendency of playing these stupid conservative 4-4-1-1 lineups and then after the game in his press conferences says he wonders why we can’t score goals. Simple Manolo – One striker means less shots which in turn means less goals. I understand Kanouté couldn’t play today as he was nursing a slight knock and I’d rather him fully recover instead of risking a further injury but for fuck sakes we have a perfectly capable striker in Chevtón sitting on the bench. When Capel came on he put on umpteen crosses that we couldn’t get on the end of because Fabiano was up there by himself and had too much ground to cover. When we play 4-4-2 we never fail to score, why not play it? We have nothing to lose.

The good news is that Kanouté will be back for next week when we play Valencia back in El Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán and him alongside Fabiano will hopefully seal Valencia’s fate and see us through to the next round.

For now we go back home and prepare to take on Racing Santander who have failed to meet expectations this year but are still always a dangerous side when they decide to play to their capabilities. I expect to see some of the fringe players getting a game in as Jiménez will probably want all guns blazing next week when we have something to prove against Valencia.