[GJ17]

but those are regular PL writers. I meant world press and newspapers (Gazetta Sport, Ole,etc..)

[Beast]

GJ17, on Dec 15 2008, 01:21 PM, said:

but those are regular PL writers. I meant world press and newspapers (Gazetta Sport, Ole,etc..)

they are the experts in the liga.... what you are talking about are news reports like Reuters or ESPN reporting the result..nothing more

This post has been edited by Beast: 15 December 2008 - 11:25 AM

[Warik]

Beast, on Dec 15 2008, 11:12 AM, said:

what rest of Europe ?? Tim,Guillem,Sid..etc all spoke about Ramos effect and madrid...

I think he is talking about the "normal" people beyond the media. Most of them are talking about Barça.

Anyway I dont care if most media sources are talking about Real. Think about it, it is perfect for Barça that people forget about us, gives us the peace and quiet we need to keep working.

[Beast]

the only normal people you are talking about is Barca fans in relation to the Classico...
take all the quiet you need.. its best for us..


Monday’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 15

Monday 15 December 2008 10:00
GOOD DAY

Víctor Valdés

It’s high time La Liga Loca paid its dues to the one player that even the most barmy of Barça fans would still see swiftly swapped for an Iker Casillas-shaped shot stopper, if the chance ever came up.

Valdés’s clean sheet on Saturday means that Barcelona have yet to concede a goal in their mini league of mayhem against Sevilla, Valencia and Real Madrid. The much-mocked Barça goalie only really had to make proper saves on two occasions, against Drenthe and Palanca, but he did what he had to do when the time came.

The Madrid press claim that Barcelona weren’t at their best on Saturday night, but this humble blog thought they played at a fairly decent level, but were blocked out by a team desperate not to be given a hefty hiding.

La Liga Loca has previously rambled away on Barcelona’s patience this season, and it will do so again as Pep’s Dream Boys kept on pushing forward for the whole match, perhaps in a more constructive manner towards the end of the game than in the first half.

“We wanted to run faster than the ball,” complained Guardiola on his team’s frenzied start to the game.

With an eight-point lead over their nearest challengers, the league looks done and dusted, which is a bit of a shame considering the high hopes everyone had for a four-way funfest at the beginning of the season. When does Big Brother start again?

Metzelder, Cannavaro

Real Madrid fans may have been watching the first 15 minutes of Saturday’s game from behind the sofa - or perhaps the chaise longue - considering the ostentatious opulence of the Bernabeu fanbase, but some fantastic work from both Metzelder and Cannavaro may have drawn them out.

Before the match the omens were not good for the centre back pairing. The slow, sluggish German had barely featured this season, while Fabio Cannavaro had spent the campaign tossing himself about like Ever Banega on Miss Spain night.

But their better-late-than-never interventions meant that both Eto’o and Messi were pale presences for much of the game - well, someone had to be without Iniesta.

Heck, even Fernando Gago looked good - the first time La Liga Loca has ever written those words.
Atlético Madrid

“We are recovering from the unfortunate start to the league we had,” beamed Javier Aguirre after Sunday night’s 2-0 win over Betis that puts Atleti back into Champions League contention - because the rojiblancos have had so much fun this year.

Most importantly of all, the three points lifts the rojiblancos above Real Madrid. Sadly, Deportivo could not complete their part of the winning bargain to give much of Spain even more of a giggle on Monday morning.

Valencia

La Liga Loca would like to give a detailed breakdown of Valencia’s hard-fought win over Espanyol on Saturday night. But it can’t. And that’s thanks to, TV station, La Sexta’s (more on them later) blatantly rubbish attempts to broadcast the game.

The action from the Mestalla was constantly interrupted by advertisements, split-screens or fascinating shots of Barcelona players driving into the Camp Nou car park sporting natty winter hats. They didn’t even bother broadcasting the final 10 minutes of the encounter.

If it was a Deportivo game, then La Liga Loca would have been grateful. But instead, this was quite a crucial clash both at the top and bottom of the table.

Sevilla

Another side doing fairly well in their mini-marathon against the big boys. The 1-0 win over Villarreal - a victory that should have been a whole lot bigger, no thanks to an off-form Fabiano and Kanouté - gives Sevilla seven points from their four fearsome matches and moves them into third, equal with Valencia.

While, president, José del Nido’s cracking claims that “Manolo Jiménez is the best coach in the world and this is the best team in the world,” may be a tad exaggerated, Sevilla continue to be a solid but unspectacular side.

Getafe

Getafe’s opening goal in the 4-1 win over Mallorca owed a great deal to a huge 9.9 point dive from Uche, but Getafe’s previously shot shy strike force has been warming up nicely with seven goals in two games, to go with the four against Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Pedro López

One day, Valladolid’s right-back is going to have a YouTube reel that will lead to a billion dollar move to Barcelona. His only goal for Valladolid last season was a thunderbusting thwack to beat Iker Casillas. And his only strike so far this year was Sunday’s chip over the despairing Deportivo keeper from near the halfway line.

BAD DAY

Rafael Van der Vaart

Whether a losing-it La Liga Loca is coming down with something serious or is feeling uncharacteristically charitable, but it feels a little bit bad for putting Madrid into this bad day bracket. But, hey ho, anyway.

Despite Saturday’s defeat that sees Real sink to sixth, it was a gutsy performance from most of the side - with Guti the notable exception - but the match was a big black mark against the name of Rafael Van der Vaart. And deservedly so.

Although the Dutch midfielder had a bright start to the season, the former Hamburger has done diddly-squat to justify his reputation as a midfield maestro. On the pitch, he is prone to vanishing from games whilst off it, Van der Vaart has a reputation for moodiness.

Juande Ramos’s decision to field an unfit Wesley Sneijder and then, newbie, Miguel Palanca speaks volumes over how little faith the new manager has in the Dutch disaster.

Carlos Gurpegui

A good day for Athletic with a 3-0 over Sporting in wet, freezing conditions, but a very bad one indeed for poor old Carlos Gurpegui.

With five minutes left in the game, the midfielder came on to replace Fran Yeste, but only lasted two minutes after being stretchered off with a broken nose and concussion after a horrific clash of heads with, Sporting keeper, Iván Cuéllar.

“The injury to Gurpegui means that we are not 100% happy,” admitted, Athletic boss, Joaquín Caparrós after their third home win in a row.

Espanyol

It’s time for a rare but always welcome edition of ‘Paul from Barcelona leaves the Catalan capital to watch Espanyol lose’. This time, our pain-loving Perico has been to Valencia to watch a 2-1 defeat.

“The opportunity for free stuff doesn't come along very often for yours truly. So when the lovely Laura told us she knew Unai Emery and called him there and then, free tickets were ours.

That is why, dear readers, I attended yet another away match just for the blog.

A not-full-by-a-long-way stadium with about 200 Espanyol fans "swelling" the crowd.

Espanyol set out their stall by being very defensive and hitting Valencia on the break and took the lead through Roman Martinez.

Then, in a Barça style refereeing decision, the man in the middle sent off Rufete for two yellow cards. One for a foul that wasn't a foul and the second for a handball that was more bad control than anything else.

Here's the painful bit, the ref didn't even see it. His view was blocked. So, with echoes of the Nene incident, we are down to 10 men and the big team who had not been playing well has a lifeline.

You can guess the rest. Two second half goals gave Valencia victory. The second was good by Vicente. Espanyol had defended very well and deserved a point. Kameni and Jarque stood out.

Two strikers for Xmas please Santa and an investigation into why we've had two players sent off against big teams while we were leading when the four so-called fouls should have amounted to just one yellow.

Barça beware. You have competition in the crap fans league.”

Paul, Barcelona

Mallorca

Oh dear. The 4-1 loss to Getafe may be the end of Gregorio Manzano’s reign at the Ono Estadi. Especially after his pre-match comments complaining of the side’s financial problems. “The club is in an untenable situation,” grumbled the soon-to-be-unemployed coach.

Osasuna

The 1-0 away defeat to Recreativo had to hurt for Osasuna. But thanks to the scrappy nature of the bottom of the table, the season is not yet done and dusted for the Pamplonans who are just five points from safety, despite having won just one game all season.

“We played like we’ve never done before but lost as always,” sobbed, manager, José Antonio Camacho after their latest loss.

Joseba Llorente

La Liga Loca has no idea what was barking up the Villarreal striker’s biscuit on Sunday, but Llorente looked like he was in an enormous strop as soon as the game started.

Llorente saw red after two bad challenges - the second a high-footed shocker - and then preceded to pick arguments with much of the Sevilla side whilst flouncing off the pitch in the heftiest of huffs.

La Sexta

This rant will not make much sense to those readers outside of Spain, but here goes anyway. It’s hard to fathom how the channel can simultaneously be so good at covering football, and so bad.

Their Super Saturday-style minute-by-minute show on Sunday evening is a joy to watch thanks to the genius presenter Patxi Alonso - whose wardrobe department picked out a t-shirt with the inexplicable slogan: ‘Who the f*** is Mick Jagger?’ for this weekend’s programme.

But their coverage of live matches reached a new low on Saturday night, firstly for their terrible treatment of the Valencia game and for their frequent fondness of covering up the entire screen during the Camp Nou clash with pointless graphics telling you Guti has run 4.2km and that Barcelona are seventh best in La Liga for winning right-sided corners.

And that’s not even mentioning, lead commentator, Andrés Montes. The channel's appalling derby coverage was a uniting factor for papers both in Barcelona and Madrid who branded the transmission as dismal in their Sunday editions.

.

[LaFuriaBlaugrana]

A Spain XI for a fairer fight on Wednesday

Wednesday 11 February 2009 12:00

It’s relatively rare to be invited to a Spaniard’s home to be entertained. And with good reason too, considering it makes more sense for your Tupperware parties to take place in a tapas bar where they are fairly liberal on drumstick dropping and bone tossing.

But when you are finally let into an Iberian abode, the hosts can be very hospitable indeed, so long as you are not attached to one of their adorable daughter’s faces at the time.

For this reason, La Liga Loca calls upon the Spanish FA to make some radical changes to the squad to take on England on Wednesday night.

At the moment, its not even close to a being a fair fight. They have invited Capello’s crusaders into their homes, only to humble and humiliate them.

To help the bigwigs running the game in Spain with their decision making, the blog has some suggestions to help Stewart Downing feel a little less out of place.

AS predict tonight’s England XI to be James, G.Johnson, Ferdinand, Terry, A.Cole, Beckham, Carrick, Lampard, Downing, Agbonlahor and Crouch.

So, this is La Liga Loca’s XI to help make the sleep-inducing 10pm kick-off a little more even...

Santi Cañizares / David James

The former Valencia man may not have seen too much action this season since being moved out of Mestalla, but Santi has the cool hair and inability to cover his near post to make him a perfect partner for England’s No.1.

Ivan Helguera / Rio Ferdinand

La Liga Loca has selected a defender who plays like a duck against a footballer who looks like one.

Carlos Marchena / John Terry

What’s needed here is a filthy, constantly outclassed, slow-witted brute loved by home fans but universally loathed by everyone else. Come on down, Carlos Marchena.

Fernando Alonso / Ashley Cole

Whiny, money-obsessed, not as good as they like to think and a tendency to change teams once toys have been thrown out of pram. A perfect pair.

Guti / Glen Johnson

The Real Madrid man will be slightly out of position but La Liga Loca simply cannot leave out a footballer that looks like this, these days.

Penelope Cruz / David Beckham

Fancied the world over, owns a house in Madrid, recently admitted to preferring Italy, has spent far too much time in Tom Cruise’s company and looks fantastic in shorts. As does Penelope Cruz.

Enrique Iglesias / Frank Lampard

With his portly reputation and tendency to blast balls over the bar, Maniche would have been an excellent choice. But, seeing as he’s Portuguese, La Liga Loca has gone for little Enrique as the perfect match - inexplicably loved by millions and only has a career because of a famous father.

Any Spanish ‘X-Factor’ winner / Michael Carrick

Both produce feelings of despair and indifference whenever you see them play.

Andrés Montes / Stewart Downing

La Sexta’s lead commentator and Middlesbrough’s wizard of the wing are two footballing figures who provoke the same reaction from vexed viewers. “I can do better” and “please God, take me now.”

César Azpilicueta / Agbonlahor

The Osasuna full-back is another footballer who will be pushed up front to play out of position. But, most importantly, he’s another footballer who is completely unheard of outside his native country and whose name will be unpronounceable to the local commentators.

Angel Arizmendi / Peter Crouch

To match the England player with the heading ability of Kryton from Red Dwarf, La Liga Loca has chosen to promote a legend of the Spanish game - and the second division - to make sure the laughs are shared equally on Wednesday night.
----
BRILLIANT!

[Lemmiwinks]

[GJ17]

You missed the guti link

[Metaphysical]

that is spot-on.

ESPECIALLY the john terry one.

[Lemmiwinks]

Sevilla (3rd) vs Real Madrid (2nd)

While Pepe goes off to think long and hard about what he has done and perhaps considers rugby as a future career - after all, it’s a sport where stud-raking and trying to boot people’s heads into the stands is fair game - Madrid must take the trip down south to take on Sevilla, a side who may or may not fancy trying to win this game.

After the scenes of violence at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night - especially the sadly overlooked dustup between Cata Díaz and Marcelo, the most unfortunate mismatch since Maniche sat on a picnic stool - there could well be more fireworks on Sunday night according to Christoph Metzelder in an interview with AS.

“Sevilla are going to be going out with a knife in their bags, no doubt,” predicted the defender.
La Liga Loca is unsure if it is the accessories on a field of play or the lethal weapon that the Spanish authorities are going to be most troubled by.
Could go either way. A bit like the game.

LLL Prediction - Home win

[Raed]

LMAO!

[yusuf423]

lol, missed this thread

[Lemmiwinks]

I know the game has gone but this was my favourite LLL in a while, put the link at the bottom because the pics are pretty good too....

Quote

Billions gather for Copa del Rey clash

Wednesday 13 May 2009 12:00
A few days ago, AS wrote that 35,000 batty Basques would be making the trip down to Valencia for Wednesday’s Copa de Rey final.
Not the first time - and almost certainly not the last - the paper was quite wrong with its prediction.

La Liga Loca’s own reliable sources - the hopeless cases who claimed last season that David Albeda had played his last game for Valencia - are murmuring that up to 45 million supporters from the unpronounceable lands of the north have made the trip to Mestalla by donkey, bike, car, bus, train, plane and boat.

Unfortunately, only eight of those actually have tickets to see Spanish football’s big night. But it’s two more than the visiting Barcelona fans have got.

In its attempts to model the tournament on the English FA Cup final, the Spanish authorities have decided to keep a good 99.99 percent of the tickets back so that federation suits along with families and friends and anyone who fancies buying their cast-offs for 500 euro can enjoy a nice night out.

And because making a quick buck and Spanish football go hand-in-hand like La Liga Loca and Penelope Cruz, Mestalla should be jam-packed with thousands of less than royalist supporters all ready and willing to boo and barrack the national anthem and the King for good measure.

“These are two teams that represent a very important social mass in their countries,” notes the independance-declaring King of Catalunya, Joan Laporta.

So worried are the FA’s bigwigs at embarrassing catcalls aimed at the royal family that the stadium’s speaker system has been pimped up by a group of mullet-sporting ché chavs to such an extent that even readers in England will be able to hear the King’s theme tune being blasted out at chant-covering, bat-exploding volumes.

"Everybody say 'goodbye eardrums'"
Wednesday’s game will be the sixth cup final between the two teams, with the last being an explosive punch-up back in 1984.
With a bit of luck, there will be a repeat of the scintillating scenes that the BBC would be no doubt tut that no-one wants to see on a football pitch.

Athletic manager Joaquín Caparrós is certainly promising some blood-and-guts on the night by declaring that “we’re going to play hard. We haven’t come here to pay tribute to anyone.”

This is has caused panic in the ranks of the Catalan press who are calling for help - sorry, protection - from the referee Medina Cantalejo, a gentleman Pep Guardiola points out that “Caparrós knows well.”

“We’re not asking for favours from anyone, but just that the referee applies the rules fairly,” writes the favour-asking Josep Casanovas in Sport.

Mundo Deportivo, meanwhile, is maxing out its on-line survey software by asking its less Neanderthal-like readers to decide who is the better player between Xavi and Orbaiz or Messi and Yeste.

Once again, the final encounter has again been jammed away at 10pm on a Wednesday night in a too-small stadium well before the end of the season and not as a showpiece campaign finale as the editorial in AS calls for.

And once again, extra-time and penalties will see the clash finishing at around 1am.

But this shouldn’t take anything away from a match that should be a lot of fun and well worth a cheeky punt on the 7-1 odds being given for an Athletic victory.

It’s a final that some of the great names of Spanish football’s past have taken part in.

Clubs that once were giants but now see their best days long gone, perhaps never return. Clubs like Arenas Guecho, Sabadell, Elche, Racing Ferroll and Real Madrid.

http://fourfourtwo.c...-rey-clash.aspx


Todays:

Quote

Football fiestas and a Florentino frenzy

Thursday 14 May 2009 12:00
Barring witchcraft or a Bear Stearns-style collapse, Barcelona will be picking up at least two trophies this season, meaning yet more arrests in the Catalan capital from bottle-chucking culés.
Wednesday night’s total reached around 45 say Sport - and increasingly hysterical levels of hype from a bonkers Barça-barmy press.

Pep’s Dream Boys’ fairly comfy 4-1 Copa del Rey win over Athletic sees both Sport and Mundo Deportivo blasting “Champions!” on their front pages on Thursday, and in a very giggly, giddy mood inside.

“Losing to Barcelona, the best team in the world is no dishonour,” writes Sport’s Josep Casanovas simultaneously ruffling the Basque battlers' hair and completely ignoring the existence of Manchester United.

“Madrid have not won the cup since 1993,” chuckles Fernando Polo in Mundo Deportivo, noting the second most important statistic of a night when Barcelona lifted the trophy for the 25th time.

Heck, even the mad-for-Madrid AS are a little excited by the event, with editor Alfredo Relaño commenting Barça have “played football like angels (LLL missed that part of the bible) and they’re going to win titles in doing so - definitely two, maybe three.”

Marca merely plump for an admission on the front cover that “they’re very good.”

One down, two to go for the Dream Boys
The paper’s main concern on Thursday is what it sees as an appalling act of censorship and media manipulation during the coverage of the game - something that some at the paper are fairly adept at themselves, as it happens.
During the broadcast by state broadcaster TVE, the channel cut away when the national anthem was about to be played and, by chance, when a cacophony of catcalls was about to be hurled in the direction of the attending King Juan Carlos from the two sets of supporters.

At half-time the channel apologised for their ‘error’ and replayed the moving moment with the jeers removed and an image added of a proud, royalist Athletic Bilbao fan with his hand on his heart.

“In a move of pure Francoism, TVE opted for censorship,” rants Thursday’s editorial, condemning the TV station’s decision.

The paper also reports other royal-protecting events such as Gerard Piqué having a Catalan flag taken off him when climbing up to the podium to collect his medal from a very disgruntled-looking king.

But such polemical goings-on were forgotten less than 12 hours later with the return of a certain Florentino Pérez to the world after “three years, two months, 13 days, 16 hours, 30 minutes” of silence according to a very happy Marca.

Madrid’s Hotel Ritz was the setting for a bursting-to-breaking-point press conference, broadcast live on a number of channels where the former Real president announced his aim to retake his rightful place on throne of Castle Greyskull - a declaration received by a loud round of applause from the cap-doffing, fawning journalists present.

“I kept a respectful silence for three years,” explained Pérez on his reclusive behaviour. “It was my best contribution to the stability of the club.”

His decision to quit in February of 2006 was “the wrong one” admitted the candidate, saying that he only had the best interests of the club at heart at the time.

In a 13-minute speech littered with bubbly buzzwords such as ‘revitalisation’, ‘renewal’ and ‘solidity’, Pérez detailed plans to build a sporting city for the youth system, hinted that a roof would be stuck on top of the Bernabeu (one can only wonder which company the construction magnate will be handing the contracts to) and teased that Jorge Valdano and Zinedine Zidane would form part of his managerial team should he win June’s presidential poll.

After the speech, the number one candidate took questions from journalists for a good hour (until La Liga Loca got bored, basically - he may still be talking right now) and swerved any attempts from hacks to squeeze information from him on who his transfer targets would be, admitting only that “Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players in the world.”

La Liga Loca already has an idea what the front pages of Friday’s press are going to say.

[Raed]

This is a better summary than one I posted in the Real Madrid thread. I missed this post and thanks Lemmi for it. I did not understand or conclude s*it from Perez's interview, and quite frankly not ready to discuss any names. Before anything else, I am just waiting to see who will be surrounding Perez, hoping it would Zizou and Valdano for real. Perez is a fox and he knows how much we love those two, it was the only way he was going to get in, not that the economic situation does not help him nor that Real Madrid's humiliation did not set up a perfect stage for him to come back especially with his power to bring the best of them to the club.

I have a feeling the dutchies won't like Perez's presence, some of them will be axed for sure. Robben will stay, I don't think he is going anywhere but I would not be surprised if Sniejder, Van der Vaart and Drente were all sent somewhere else *cough* Morratti is an old 'friends' of Perez *cough*.

I personally thought he was not going to run but now that he did, I am hoping for the best. The other candidates were and are a fucking joke. Bilic as a coach? Are you kidding me?

Back to Perez, I am not sure as to how he would deal with Raul.

[LaFuriaBlaugrana]

GOOD DAY

Diego Forlán

By the end of his 32-goal campaign, the Atlético forward was scoring the kind of efforts that, had you pulled them off on your PlayStation, would have made your friends beat you to death with a lamp.

Atlético Madrid

The cathedral bells were ringing in a distinctly doomy way as La Liga Loca made its way down to the Vicente Calderón on Saturday night. There were thunderclouds quite literally gathering above the stadium.

As the game against a nothing-to-play-for Almería kicked off, streaks of lightning tore through the sky and the heavens opened onto the fans below.

Unfortunately, there is no spooky or supernatural ending to this particular tale. Unless you count Atleti playing out a fairly comfortable, Champions League-qualifying, drama-free, professional win as something worthy of The X-Files.


"This could be a case for Mulder and Scully... oh no, hang on..."

Getafe

It would have been a travesty had Getafe gone down, considering the side hadn’t spent a single minute in the drop-zone. In the end, they survived by the skin of Michel’s blindingly white teeth.

The former Madrid player is set to be in charge at the Coliseum next season, with club president Angel Torres saying a deal will take “about five minutes.”

Sporting, Osasuna

Two sets of brilliant fans helped push their sides to safety in games that they both had to come from behind to win.

Joseba Llorente

With Giuseppe Rossi and Nihat having spent recent months perfecting their impersonation of strikers – as in work-dodging picket-line refuseniks – it has been Joseba Llorente who has helped drag Villarreal into the Europa League places.

The double strike against Mallorca on Saturday night was the former Valladolid man’s seventh and eighth goals in the final seven matches.

Gonzalo Higuaín

About the only Real Madrid man who actually gave a flying hoot during their pathetic five match run of defeats.

Unfortunately for the Argentine striker, his 22 league goals won’t be enough to keep him up the Bernabeu pecking order next year, with the infinitely more marketable Kaka & Co. set to take his place.

To be blunt, if Higuaín isn’t a starter, then the new regime at Real Madrid are idiots.


David Villa

His two strikes against Athletic were surely a parting gift for a club where he scored 86 league goals in just four seasons.

Espanyol

After La Liga Loca witnessed a cat eating its own vomit in the stands at the Montjuic, Paul from Barcelona took a solemn oath to watch over the blog’s feline friends.

Unfortunately for Scratchy, our intrepid correspondent has now seen his last match in what is now Espanyol’s former stadium.

“They say some teams were already thinking of their holidays. Well. Málaga were on the beach with a bucket and spade and a large 99.

"They made as much effort as I do when 'er indoors mentions washing up. Saying that, Espanyol played really well and could have won by a load more in what was a meaningless match.

"Well that's another season done and dusted and your correspondent is a happy man for the following reasons:

1) That's Montjuic finished with. Happy memories but a new stadium awaits and it's cracking.
2) Espanyol finished 10th - yes, 10th. Top half. Two months ago Espanyol were five points adrift at the bottom. What a turnaround.
3) Hopefully we can shift some deadwood in the summer - Valdo, Lacruz etc.
4) Three weeks ago I put money on Betis going down (nothing against them, just good odds).

"Stray cats: 0.

"A good summer to all and I’m off to celebrate by attacking the police and smashing shop windows. That's what real supporters do, isn't it?”

Paul, Barcelona


BAD DAY

Betis

Wow. Not even in La Liga Loca’s wildest dreams – and they're pretty odd – did the blog think that it would be Betis going down on Sunday.

A stunning achievement for the Seville-based side, and worthy of pats on the back all round.

As to be expected after such an unfortunate event, the already frustrated fans went Bético ballistic with rocks and barriers being hurled at police and attempts made to burst into the dressing room area of the club’s stadium.

The players of both sides were unable to leave the ground until an hour-and-a-half after the game when the lynch-mob had been dispersed.

AS editor Alfredo Relaño claims that this was the inevitable conclusion to the Darth de Lopera era, a rule that “had pretensions of greatness but ended in failure.”

It's a similar message in Marca’s editorial - well, the bit that doesn’t discuss the brilliance of Florentino Pérez - with the paper noting that the club was treated as a simple family business or a third-division outfit by its ‘management’.

However, both papers have chosen to pull their punches over the whispers of corruption and incompetence that have dogged the second division’s newest members and something that may have played a part in Betis’ downfall.

Guti

The part-time Real Madrid midfielder spent the week complaining that no-one ever believes him when he claims to be injured, then pulled out of the squad for Sunday’s clash with Osasuna with a hurty ankle.

And this makes one particular letter to Monday's AS all the more entertaining with one enraptured reader declaring her love for Guti, someone who “will always be one of the best in the world. I admire you as a person and as a player.”

Florentino Pérez’s first act as Real Madrid president-again should be to strap raw meat to Guti’s body and kick him into the South Pacific from a helicopter.


Antonio Tapia

The sight of Málaga’s end-of-season shrug of indifference was enough to make the manager leave the club after three seasons. “I’ve finished my cycle here,” said Tapia after the 3-0 defeat to Espanyol.

**********

End of Season Business

Throughout the year, La Liga Loca has been entertaining the masses with its weekend predictions which possessed all the accuracy and comedy factor of a shot from Fernando Gago.

So, with the end of the current campaign upon us, it’s time to see how la Primera would have looked if every one of the blog’s wayward guesses had been right.

All-in-all, barring a few glaring anomalies, La Liga Loca fared fairly well by getting the top six right - not necessarily in the right order, mind - and by predicting two of the bottom three. And who could have guessed Betis?

The final Weekend Predictions league table:

1. Barcelona
2. Valencia
3. Real Madrid
4. Sevilla
5. Villarreal
6. Atlético
7. Valladolid (!!!)
8. Sporting
9. Athletic
10. Getafe
11. Espanyol
12. Betis
13. Racing
14. Mallorca
15. Deportivo (wishful thinking)
16. Osasuna
17. Málaga
18. Almería
19. Recreativo
20. Numancia