Off & Running in Espana

Man of the Hour: Joaquin shows off his skills in Valencia. His former team, Albacete, had no comment.




An eventful start to la Liga, complete with a champion in crisis, a heated local derby, and a debut down in the Bernabeu. Most newsworthy, though, was the league opener - a dandy of a match-up between Valencia and Betis in Mestalla - that was completely overshadowed by the impending transfer of Betis's favorite son, Joaquin. Only in Spain, some might say. The beloved winger had declared a week earlier that his days in Sevilla had come to an end. Despite the fact that top clubs such as Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Milan had all expressed an interest in the right-winger, no one's interest was as serious as Valencia's. Still, Betis would not let them close the deal, either as a sly time-wasting tactic to keep their poster boy from debuting against them in the season opener or in an effort to hold out for more Euros. Either way, the saga soon turned farcical; the day before the match, Betis management took the shocking decision to agree to loan Joaquin to Albacete, one of la Liga's lesser-known teams. Joaquin, in fact, went so far as to turn up in Albacete for his presentation. Of course, Betis then took Joaquin back from Albacete, the loan deal apparently having only been good for an hour or two. Then, the night of the Valencia game, the Betis president summoned Joaquin to a midnight meeting with representatives of Olympique Lyon. Just when all hell seemed to be breaking lose, Valencia finally announced that they had agreed to purchase Joaquin for 25 million Euros, the second most expensive transfer of the Spanish summer. And oh yeah, Valencia beat Betis 2-1.

The next game to kick off was the Basque derby, an always frenetic affair pitting Athletic Bilbao against Real Sociedad. Whatever you think of Athletic, you must respect the amazing fact that they have managed to survive in the top flight decade after decade while strictly adhering to a policy of fielding only Basque-born players. Imagine how long Green Bay would last in the NFL with an only Wisconsin-born squad. Their opponents from San Sebastian have their own policy, albeit a rather less risky one that permits them to play only players from the Basque country or the rest of the world, but no Spaniards. The match in Bilbao's ancient and glorious stadium San Mames, known as "El Catedral", was hardly a feast of quality football, but it came to life in minute 36 when the linesman shockingly called a penalty for Athletic. The Sociedad players were appalled, justifiably so when replays clearly showed that the ball had in fact hit the outstreched arm of a Bilbao player. Next time, before calling a penalty, the linesman might want to take note of the fact that Sociedad players were the only ones who cried foul after the play, while all the Bilbao players turned to run back downfield. Of course, the linesman can also chalk his error down to the fact that both teams wore striped uniforms, the hosts in red & white and the visitors in blue & white. Maybe the poor chap is colorblind, but it didn't matter to Bilbao, who scored the penalty but, after hanging on for most of the second half, were stunned by a late Sociedad equalizer. Justice was served: 1-1 it finished and the only loser on the day was the error-prone linesman.

Another refereeing error reared its ugly head in Barca's match against Celta. The defending champs, devoid of their star Ronaldinho, entered the game as a team in crisis, despite their fully-stocked trophy case. Last week, striker Samuel Etoo, unhappy at being substituted at halftime, stormed out of the stadium in Barca's Supercopa win over Espanyol and just a few days later, the Blaugrana were at the wrong end of a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of UEFA Cup champ Sevilla in the European Supercup. It was clear that there were problems both on and off the field for Barca. At the intermission, the problems looked set to continue: a goal from Celta striker Baiano had given the sky-blues an undeserved 1-0 lead in the Balaidos stadium. Well, whatever Frank Rijkaard said at halftime clearly worked. Of course, his team - as they did last year, too - got some help from the refs; this time the man in the middle failed to call Barca's Ludovic Giuly for offside, despite his clearly interfering with play and obstructing a Celta defender from stopping Samuel Etoo from scoring the equalizer. The shootout was on: another Barca goal, this time by Messi, was matched by Celta tying it again thanks to , setting the scene for new boy Eidur "Albino" Gudjohnsen scoring the winner just three minutes from time. So much for the crisis at the Camp Nou - Barca put any of that talk to rest with a scintillating second-half, full of the inventive midfield play and inspired attacking that made them so hard to beat and so fun to watch last season. And to think that Ronaldinho never even had to bother to lace up his boots...

Barca's main competition this year will surely come from their arch-rivals Real Madrid, despite evidence to the contrary this weekend in the Bernabue. On Fabio Capello's debut, his new team put forth exactly the type of performance that everyone expected...and everyone feared. A staunch defense, minimal attacking, and ultimately a drab 0-0 draw with Villareal. Blah blah blah - as Villareal's Italian Alessio Tacchinardi pointed out, that type of play might work in the catenaccio-crazed Serie A, but not in la Liga, where winning is nice, but "jogo bonito" is imperative. To be fair, though, Capello is caught in a catch-22: everyone agrees that Real's problem in recent years has been a lack of defensive skill to match its offensive firepower - you're just not going to win much of anything with the likes of Thomas Gravesen, Pablo Garcia, Francisco Pavon, Ivan Helguera, and Alvaro Mejia at the back, but no one really gets too excited about the signings of Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson, and and Mahamadou Diarra. Hopefully for fans of los Merengues (not the dessert, dummy), Capello will find a happy medium and all of his defensive acquisitions will give his attackers the chance to push forward with confidence. It's hard to imagine that even a coach with the defensive demands of Capello could put the brakes on an attack that boasts of Ronaldo, Raul, Robinho, Julio Baptista, Antonio Cassano and Guti, but tell that to the Madrileno fans that witnessed the scoreless snoozefest on Sunday. Ronaldo's out injured, Baptista never made it off the bench, and Robinho and Guti were only sent into the fray with half an hour to play. Cassano put in another good performance that testifies to his resurgence under his countryman Capello, Raul looked lively on the left wing, and Beckham put in another combative but not-so-effective on the right, but for the most part Van Nistelrooy was on his own up front and, despite the defense never looking too troubled, it was not an afternoon to remember at the Bernabeu. One game in the books and already the fans are restless in Madrid - when they're already two points behind Barca, not to mention cross-town rivals Atletico (1-0 winners at Racing Santander), it's easy to understand why.

Unfortunately, thanks to the brilliant schedule-makers at FIFA, no sooner have things gotten started when la Liga will take a two-week break for international play (and three days of last-minute transfer manuveurings). But don't despair yet - a World Cup final rematch, sans Zidane & Materazzi of course, is set for next week, with an Argentina-Brazil friendly in London a pretty intriguing appetizer. Buen provecho!