Graham's Blog

Last week I had the pleasure of working at an event at the brilliant Manchester Football Writing Festival.
The great Sid Lowe and I talked for a couple of hours and took questions from the floor on many aspects of Spanish football. The event was at St Anne’s church in the Deansgate area of the city, organised by Matt Gardiner, from the Waterstones book shop round the corner.
I’ve presented many events since I published my first book, on FC Barcelona, and every time I’m impressed by the level of engagement from the people who go, and the fact they are willing to wait in a long line to get a book signed or ask a question face-to-face after the show. Maybe I’ll see you at the next one.

GH

The first part of this event is available below, and can be downloaded via Audioboo. Part two coming soon.

After he orchestrated Manchester United’s 4-0 win over QPR yesterday, Ángel Di María was joined by his socio, Juan Mata, for a post-game interview with Geoff Shreeves (it’s a little way down the page here).
Di María was asked about the free-kick with which he opened the scoring, one of those that appears to be a cross, but is aimed at the bottom corner of the goal. Mata translated his answer – ‘I’ve been practising them in training’ – with an arch-villain grin. He has already seen what’s coming from his new team-mate – like the kind of rapier assist pass from which Mata completed the scoring.
This was a player just back from international duty, and one who has yet to fully assimilate at his new club. But Mata and the rest of the United players already see him as a catalyst. A player who may not always deliver the kind of man-of-the-match individual performance he put in last night, but who will raise their collective game, and one capable of game-changing moments.
As I wrote here for Paddy Power when he joined – Di María is a great fit for United.  

Finally, here’s a clip from BBC Five Live from the time United were closing in on the deal. As I say here: I’m sad he left La Liga.

An interesting game. Atlético’s second consecutive Liga win at the Bernabéu, having spent from 1999 until 2013 unable to beat Madrid. A big gap, now, between Barcelona at the top of the table and Real Madrid.
Aside from all that here’s three things to mull on after an embarrassing night for the European champions

1) Iker Casillas is under enormous pressure
Many from the UK who come to a major match in Spain complain about the atmosphere. UK stadia are adversarial places. The away fans add loads to the spectacle and give the visiting team something to hang on to when their energy dips or if they are trying to claw back a negative scoreline.
On the other hand, Spain’s biggest stadia can be a coliseum on a night like this. Eighty thousand fanatical fans at the Bernabéu last night – at least 99% of them Madridistas. The advantage? It should be a wall of noise. A wall of loyalty. A Phil Spector wall of sound – taunting Atlético with the result in Lisbon and giving the players in white a feeling of invincibility and responsibility. But after the first goal, a dreadful piece of defending from Benzema who simply allowed Tiago to muscle in front of him as the corner kick dropped perfectly at the front post to gift Atleti the first goal, a significant chunk of the Bernabéu turned on Iker Casillas. Although the error was not, I’d say in any way, his. Several times when he was in possession of the ball he was whistled and jeered – by his own fans – until the dormant, loyal part of the stadium began to chant:Iker! Iker! This last happened when Mourinho was at his worst at Madrid. It divided, it caused rancour which exists to this day and it debilitated Los Blancos.
Vicente Del Bosque commented last week that the thing which was most damaging Iker, his form and confidence, was “losing the faith of the Madrid faithful”. They pay their money. Spain’s a democracy. They are free to do what they want, I guess. But to me they are moronic, disloyal and becoming part of the problem. And the hard fact, the realpolitik is that whether Casillas is or isn’t culpable for Madrid’s weak start (three measly points against Cordoba so far) there will come a stage where the manager will lance the boil and make a change. And if Ancelotti feels that Keylor has the key to Madrid’s Billy Smart’s Circus defending at corners, then that might be sooner rather than later.

2) Xabi Alonso is the ghost at the feast    
Although the criminal act [in football terms] committed by Florentino Pérez was the decision flow which decided: Ángel Di Maria wasn’t worth a proper salary raise; that he could be replaced by James Rodríguez; that Madrid wouldn’t notice the loss of his hard work and his creativity … this game also started to give notice that allowing Xabi Alonso to go to Bayern without there being a proper replacement was beyond foolhardy.
Look at the game. Toni Kroos and Luka Modrić played adequately for some of the 90 minutes as the two central midfielders in what was, until Madrid totally lost any semblance of shape, nominally a 4-4-2. But neither player was the commanding, organizing pivote Madrid now lack. In fact, Los Blancos played so high up the pitch that for large spells that pivote was Ramos. Pushed up in behind a midfield which was laying siege to Moyá’s goal. Ok so far as it went.
However, when Atlético profited from a greater game plan, better team shape, more cohesion and the introduction of Arda Turan, the lack of Alonso, or a player who matches his positional sense and defensive responsibility, became blindingly obvious. Kroos, too wide, couldn’t close down the throw in. Arda, already totally isolated, is waving his arms to attract attention just on the edge of the box. No player in white reacts. Juanfran’s cut back is exquisite, just fabulous. Ramos makes a horrible error in following the cross, not Raúl Garcia, and leaves his man completely free. Luckily for the Spain international it’s not Garcia who scores, thanks to his ‘leave’ because of Arda’s call. But where was Modric? Running into the frame just as the Turk has swept the ball beyond Iker. From the time that the throw is taken to the time Arda scores, any number of players could have reacted and closed the Atleti substitute down. But no-one did.
What’s more you could just see the ghostly image of Alonso’s white shirt where he could and should have been – bang on the edge of the box, shutting down the winning goalscorer. For whatever reason Alonso was allowed to go it was a strategic error by Madrid – not because the Basque can last forever, nor because he’s the perfect footballer at nearly 33. But because, right now, they don’t have a replacement and that specific fact has now cost them two horrible defeats and six goals conceded on the last two games.

3) Atléti have replaced Diego Costa … but well enough?
It’s now clear that they’ve lost their two best players, Diego Costa and Thibaut Courtois, yet managed to stay ahead of Madrid. No mean feat. The evidence is of three Madrid derbies this season resulting in two Atleti wins and one draw. Yet there’s a job of work for Diego Simeone – on the training ground as much as when he’s back on the touchline following his ban.
I admit, now, I’m no fan of Mandžukić. Able in the air, a decent link-up player but a stroppy man, full of nasty habits on the pitch, constantly whining to the ref and, off field, with a Kevin the Teenager tendency, so far as those at Bayern indicate. Also, in pure football terms, not the guy you pay your money to be thrilled by. He’ll win them games – when the ball’s served up. But he can’t even begin to replace the movement, the hard work, the pressing, the showing for the ball and the channel running which Costa gave Atleti.
When the champions are on top and pummeling a team then the way they use the ball via Koke, Juanfran, Siqueira and Gabi will surely give the Croat headed goals. But when Atleti are caged in by a team which is their equal or which is on better form then Simeone will need to perm, cleverly, between his now vast strikeforce to find the pace and the counter-attacking instinct which can help win Atleti those elusive and 24-karat away points in the mid-term months of January-March when ‘things ain’t working’ and the title can slip away meekly.
Can Arda, Cerci, Raul Jiménez and Griezmann give him the pace plus goals which they lost to Chelsea? Something for El Cholo to work on.

Breakthrough players – since I moved to Spain, this has definitely been one of my favourite topics. Usually it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but this season it’s a little like having your nose pressed to the window of the sweetie shop. Oliver Torres will benefit from a year at Porto, especially if he gets regular high-level match experience – but he’s a gem of a footballer and it’s sad that what’s likely to be his breakthrough season comes in Portugal, not Spain.

Juan Bernat was an established talent, as was Alberto Moreno, but for each of the full-backs this would have been a year where they were expected to command, to lead the team, to embellish their game with assurance and authority – again, each of them will be doing so in a foreign league: Bundesliga and Premier.
Then there’s the immensely exciting Jesé. He broke through like a Tyson right hook in the first part of last season … but the impact was curtailed by his horrible ligament injury. As he’s not due to be back  until the winter, and then will have to find both form and his place in the team, we won’t be getting the fun and the excitement of his  breakthrough season as a consistent first-team starter across 10 months this time, either. Sad.
So there’s extra importance, to my mind anyway, on how a handful of players either emerge or pogress.

1 Aymeric Laporte (Athletic Bilbao)

Define breakthrough? He’s just turned 20 but he played 35 times for Athletic in the league last season. Fifty appearances over the last two seasons. There are elements here which remind me of Sergio Ramos at his best. Powerful, daring, full of competitive appetite – sometimes raw, but this is an exciting footballer. Tests? Coping with both domestic and UEFA football; breaking through into the plans of the France manager Didier Deschamps; helping Athletic reduce their goals against tally [38] in case scoring goals is harder to come by this season.

2 Munir (Barcelona)

Given the stench of board mediocrity, player and coach complacency and general decline, how FC Barcelona require evidence that it’s not all about the €180m spent on Neymar and Luis Suarez in the last 12 months. Munir is one hell of a talent. Audacious, blessed with both skill and creativity but the appearance of a guy who has that most precious of abilities – finding himself in the right place at the right time.
The new UEFA Youth Champions League helped his development greatly. Top scorer in a competition where Barcelona became inaugural champions, he not only hit the net home and away against a variety of different defensive styles, he scored the most daring long-distance lob in the final of that competition against Benfica. He’s been accelerated through three different Barcelona teams: Juvenil, Barça B and now the first XI in the space of a handful of months. Obviously, talking about breakthrough players can be risky. I saw Jean Dongou as possessing all the movement, pace, finishing power and eye for goal which should have, by now, made him a top-squad regular, instead of still trying to regain his prolific touch in the B team. That said, Munir looks not only to have won Luis Enrique’s trust, but in finishing pre-season top scorer he has impressed senior players, too. Here he comes, world.

3 Denis Suarez (Sevilla)

Without him once having been disrespectful about Manchester City, this is a kid who found that there were fewer benefits to living and developing in England than he believed there would be. His technique and his thrill at taking an opponent on marked him down as a very high-quality prospect at 17 [hence City’s interest in transplanting him from Celta to their youth system]. But he wasn’t physically ready for Anglo Saxon values in football and in the short time since he’s been back, he already looks much more comfortable. Full of ambition and, like a young Sergio Canales, full of the sheer joy of running at [and past] opponents from midfield positions, he can be uplifting to watch. He’s got a trick, he’ll give goal assists and the Sevilla crowd should quickly adopt him as a figure who is emblematic of their craving for show and style. Still under contract to Barcelona for another three years, he gives the impression of a guy in a hurry to make an impression. He’ll give value for a Sevilla season ticket.

4 Isaac Cuenca (Deportivo de La Coruña)

Nobody who knows me will be surprised by this one. His last couple of seasons have been horror stories. His age, 23, doesn’t really count against him, given that he’s lost two entire campaigns, and then some, to a brutal series of knee ligament problems. When he broke through he looked a guy who brought pause to the play. When everything else and everyone else was haring around at breakneck speed, Cuenca would seem to have more time, more balance, more vision than the rest. He’d not do the old chulo thing of slowing the game down by putting his foot on the ball – what he had was a vision of two or three plays ahead of where the ball and players all were before possession reached him.
Elegant, creative and with the threat of laying on oodles of goals for team-mates, it was fascinating watching his intelligence. In the moment he laid on a Champions League semi-final goal for Sergio Busquets against Chelsea, it looked as if Cuenca’s career was turbo-charged upwards. Not so. Chelsea knocked them out, Cuenca’s knee was ripped up over and again … and now his contract with Barcelona has been torn up by mutual agreement. Depo, his new club, will be fighting to stay away from relegation and there’s the nasty prospect that even if he’s blessed with basic fitness then it can be the elegant players who are discarded first. But coach Victor Fernandez has always understood man management, has always liked to give a premium to ability over height and power and is well placed to help Cuenca move on from his bitter last two years. More, Cuenca is likely to have another unfilfilled talent, Canella, behind him on the Depo touchline and they could form an intelligent and effective partnership. My fingers are crossed for this kid pretty much more firmly than anyone else in La Liga this season.

Should Frank Lampard pull on the Manchester City shirt on Sunday and play at Newcastle it’ll be the culmination of a decade of previously unrequited admiration. Not from City, but from Txiki Begiristain, their director of football.

Just over 10 years ago, Steve Kutner was representing Patrick Vieira as the French international was antsy to bring his Arsenal career to an end and experience continental football again. Real Madrid were desperate to sign such a commanding footballer, especially at a time when they were also courting Arsene Wenger, who admits to having met representatives of the Madrid board on a number of occasions. Knowing that their biggest rivals were in a position to sign Vieira, Barcelona – as they do – wanted to at least be in the fight, if there was one.

At that stage Begiristain had been football director at the Camp Nou for just over a year and the club was frantically re-building. He called Kutner over for a meeting –  not to tap the player up, but to try to get a handle on whether the Madrid move was likely and what Vieira’s salary terms might be. Barcelona had already introduced their pyramid salary structure where, at the base, you’ll find the majority of the squad, then in tiers of decreasing size you’ll find clusters of two or three players, right up to the peak, where Ronaldinho was then and Messi is now. It soon transpired that Barcelona, then much more parsimonious and keener on value for money than they have become (yes, that is a euphemism for better-run) wanted to place Vieira at a level of the pyramid which wouldn’t in any way match his financial aspirations.

Without too much regret and with a noticeable alacrity, Begiristain shifted his discussion with Kutner. If he had been all business before, the Basque now spoke with a new enthusiasm and eagerness.
“Right! You’re Frank Lampard’s agent – how can we get him? What do we have to do to secure a footballer like that?”

I’ve often asked Frank about FC Barcelona and that is the club he’d have chosen to play at if he’d gone to Spain, one against whom he’s enjoyed some fabulous tussles and where he scored a goal which constantly rates as either his favourite or in his top three: the unfeasible chip over Victor Valdés to get a draw in that pulsating 2-2 Champions league draw in 2006. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a move which could happen, given his importance to Chelsea then and in ensuing years, plus his devotion to the club.

When he did leave it was Ferran Soriano and Brian Marwood who set up Lampard’s freedom-of-contract move to New York City, where he’ll play with David Villa and where it’s not out of the question that Xavi will end up in due course. There was, at that stage, no question, no discussion of the free-scoring midfielder joining the English champions.

But when Lampard and Kutner were in New York to seal his move there, they encountered Txiki Begiristain again and the subject of playing for City until … City were ready to start their pre-season training in Manchester and Charleston was raised.

There is no question that NYC have a fabulous start-up property in Lampard – top footballer, fine pro, good ambassador, star. Nor any question that it’s been a matter of great satisfaction to Begiristain that, 10 years on, he’s finally got his man.

GH 15.8.14