Spanish Football 2007/08

[AFII]

The players want to get rid of Koeman so they don't care about the league games anymore. The Real Madrid players did the same when wanted to get rid of Queroz a few years ago.

It's very disrespectful against the supporters and the club but the players simply don't care.

[AFII]

Koeman Sacked As Valencia Coach
Preliminary reports from the Mestalla indicate that Ronald Koeman has indeed been relieved of his duties as first team coach of Valencia CF.

La Opinión de Tenerife confirmed around one hour ago that the Dutchman had received his marching orders less than 24 hours after his side's 5-1 capitulation at the hands of Athletic Bilbao.

Dutch sources, including De Telegraaf, have also stated that Koeman is no longer employed by the Mestalla outfit, with the club hierarchy having decided shortly after the commencement of their 18:00 crisis meeting to sack the former PSV boss.

Koeman arrived at the club in November 2007 following the sacking of Quique Sánchez Flores, but he has endured a torrid time in his brief tenure as coach.

Despite winning the Copa del Rey, the side's Liga and European form has caused the club hierarchy to end his contract. In In 22 Liga games in charge of Los Che, Koeman amassed four wins, six draws, and 12 defeats.

In doing so he amassed a tally of 18 points - a total that Quique took just nine games to achieve before his own sacking.

Koeman leaves Valencia with a place in Europe next season, but for the time being, they have five games left to save themselves from relegation, from which they are just two points distant.

Bastille Day

While these reports remain unconfirmed, word is filtering through from La Opinión that Koeman's sacking is part of a massive cull of senior figures at the Mestalla.

His immediate assistants, José Mari Bakero and Toni Bruins Slot, are said to have joined him on the chopping block, but so too are sporting director Miguel Ángel Ruiz and technical secretary Antonio Fernández.

Should these reports turn out to be true, then the board have clearly wasted no time in instituting massive, wholesale changes to the backroom staff.

These would follow hot on the heels of similar switches at boardroom level. The current president, Agustín Morera, only took over recently from Juan Soler, who resigned due to health reasons.

Morera was joined today by vice-president of sports Rafael Salom, CEO Jesús Wollstein, and board member with legal responsibilities José Pastor for a crisis meeting, which apparently resulted in Koeman's sacking.

The quartet were later accompanied by Salvador González 'Voro', a current club delegate and former first team player. Voro is likely to be announced as caretaker manager for the final five games of the season.


http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=667894

[Joe King]

Wow. Very surprised, I thought it would have been until the end of season but no messing about is there?

I think a lot of managers will be interested with this job next season. They will have a fresh slate (can't get lower than this) possibly a huge kitty and European football.

[Harv]

Wow. Very surprised, I thought it would have been until the end of season but no messing about is there?

I think a lot of managers will be interested with this job next season. They will have a fresh slate (can't get lower than this) possibly a huge kitty and European football.

they didn't have the time to mess around mate. The player hated him, and they would have been relegated if he was not sacked

[Finnish_Red]

He had the worst (league)track record in the whole history of Valencia CF according to a commentator on sunday.

If they go down Valencia will be first ever Copa del Rey winner to get relegated.

[Joe King]

they didn't have the time to mess around mate. The player hated him, and they would have been relegated if he was not sacked

Of course. It was a shame they got rid of Mini-Mourinho (Quique Flores) Him and his scarves.

[Zapater]

Can I ask why players like Mata/Silva are taken as acceptable targets on here when they are in a relegation threatened team and are far from world beaters and scorn is put upon suggestions of players from teams lower down the PL? Even if they are immensely talented is it not reasonable to assume that their current position is not indicative of a fighting mentality, or is everyone convinced that Koeman is in fact the worlds worst manager (despite doing fairly good jobs in his last two/three posts).

I'm sorry but Valencia is not Wigan or Reading or any other small team. I'm not a massive fan of Silva tbh but there's no denying his quality. They played in the CL last season and had a 2 really competitive matches in the semis against Chelsea and knocked out Inter. Having a complete disaster season they still manage to make up the nucleus of the Spanish NT too. They have been hilariously bad this season but still we can't say that they are not a quality outfit.

Bad management from the top down has really shown the bad effects it can have on a team. Soler sacking Carboni as a sporting director was a shocking decision. We have to look at Corinthians were relegated this year too. **** happens but at the end of the day things usually make themselves right.

Marcelino is rumoured to take over at the end of the season. In either Segunda or Primera he'll be a great replacement. Most people say he's a great coach, I've heard a lot of people call him the next Rafa Benitez.

[Joe King]

Marcelino is rumoured to take over at the end of the season. In either Segunda or Primera he'll be a great replacement. Most people say he's a great coach, I've heard a lot of people call him the next Rafa Benitez.

He's also linked with a few jobs in the Premiership and also the Real Madrid job according to a certain Balague but this link would back your idea

http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=88540

[dww]

I can't help feeling though that the attitude of players of that talent to play so terribly is a bit of a worry. Maybe Silva was a bad example but people link us with half the Valencia and Zaragoza squads and debate the decision to sell FSP when they are all involved in a relegation battle in the Primera division yet players who have been cracking like Wilson Palacios in the PL get no credit whatsoever on here or more widely (although apparently United are now interested).

In terms of the Chelsea matches is that not a bit of a red herring as we have beaten them twice in CL double headers and still need to improve to overhaul them in the league?

When you say things usually make themselves right I suspect the reality is that money talks and so long as a club has this they get a lot of opportunities to turn it round. However it is worth looking at Leeds, Forest and half the Championship to see that current status is not a guarantee of future success.

[Zapater]

Zaragoza too are a similar case, they aren't a really big club but I think they were a bit over ambitious. They saw saw that if they improved they could really hit that 4th place so they spent a lot of money and it really didn't pay off. They have a good squad too and plenty of good players but their management and change of management has been really bad to them. I think that the sacking of Fernandez was really a bad decision.

[Nic83]

If valencia do go down it will be a travesty

[AFII]

If valencia do go down it will be a travesty

A well deserved travesty after the way they treated Rafa. They have even removed him from their title winning pictures.

[Nic83]

Bit harsh there dude, I was on about for the fans. Our owners are cunts too according to most so imagine it happened to us. i doubt we'd be saying we deserve it as our owners are ****s!

[-V-]

I will laugh if they go down. Easy pickings for us

[Craig_H]

Barcelona lost 2-0 at the Riazor tonight

If Real Madrid beat Bilbao at the Bernabeu tomorrow and Villarreal fail to win at Real Betis, Madrid will be champions tomorrow night.