Spanish Thing

On Monday, tortilla was joyously being tossed into the air by the people of Valencia.

It wasn't because the omnipresent pong of fish had finally subsided a little in the city centre, instead it was in response to the announcement from Juan Bautista Soler, the majority shareholder of the city's main football club, that he was selling up.

And this time, he meant it.

It wasn't so much a 'Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead' moment for the long-suffering fans of Valencia, but rather 'Ding, Dong, the most useless, incompetent, feckless, pompous, and utterly, utterly crap owner ever, has finally buggered off.'

In November 2004 the Bautista clan bought a majority shareholding in the east coast club at a time when the side were reigning Primera and UEFA cup champions.

Nearly four years later, the moustachioed meddler Soler, has racked up a single Copa del Rey win and is leaving behind a reported 439 million Euro debt and a 350 million Euro payment for the construction of a new Mestalla, having yet to flog the land on the site of the old one.

Juan Bautista Soler has undoubtedly been the worst president of any club in Spain's top flight in recent years.

And that's some achievement when considering his Primera peers mainly consist of crooks, cretins and crackpots.

Having overseen the most ridiculous twelve months in the side's history, turning the club into the laughing stock of Spain - an honour Atlético Madrid want back, apparently - Soler decided to go out with a Big Bang in July, by preparing for the new season with a boardroom battle, the appointment of two different presidents and two sporting directors in a jaw-droppingly bizarre three week period.

Whilst fresh-faced new coach Unai Emery, was attempting to prepare for the upcoming season after a dreadful previous campaign, Soler announced on 9th July that ex-Telefonica chief, Juan Villalonga was set to buy him out and was taking over from puppet president Agustín Morera - the chump who took over in March after Soler took a well supported back seat citing ill health as an excuse.

It appears that Villalonga found a gaping black hole in the club's accounts and was stunned at how much financial trouble Valencia had landed themselves in.

And this wasn't completely shocking news considering the millions that had been blown over the past year on sacking two entire management teams.

And the millions that had been spunked on bench-warmers such as Nikola Zigic (lanky), Ever Banega (pleasures himself on web cams) and Angel Arizmendi (the worst striker and possibly footballer in Spain).

Soler had taken umbrage to Villalonga's public outing of the club's financial position and told him on the 27th July to sling his hook from the Mestalla, branding him a demagogue and someone who had no interest in purchasing his holding, as originally thought.

Along with Villalonga, the side's sporting director Xabier Azkargorta, was sacked after less than three weeks in the post. It was Valencia's side's fifth sporting director a year.

Azkargorta's only achievement in his rather short tenure was denying rumours that he was set to sack Emery and replace him with Luis Aragonés. It was a story that would have been dismissed as fanciful tosh had the word 'Valencia' not been in the midst of it.

However, life isn't all bad for Juan Villalonga who is set to pick up a cool 10 million Euros for his work, according to 'Sport', citing another example of Soler's peculiar leadership stylings.

The club's third president of July is second majority shareholder Vicente Soriano, a man who hates Soler's guts and has branded him "the worst (president) in the club's history", but now has an option to buy out his enemy's stake. If he can find the 76 odd million euros required, that is.

This fan-frustrating behaviour is just the cherry on top of what has been an astonishing period for the club which began with the sacking of the perfectly good Quique Sánchez Flores in October, with the side four points off the top.

It continued with the appointment of the disastrous Ronald Koeman - a coach who proceeded to lead the team through one of their worst runs in history before finally being booted out after their Copa del Rey victory - a win which only came about when the players decided to ignore the tactical instructions of their manager.

But that was not before two of Valencia's most important players, David Albeda and Santiago Cañizares were sidelined by Koeman due their supposed disruptive attitudes.

It was an action which lead to Albeda taking the club to court, splitting the supporters and dressing room nicely in two.

Despite not so much flirting with relegation so much as bouncing up and down in its lap, Valencia survived the drop once Koeman had been packed off to Holland and eventually limped towards a mid table finish.

In his farewell statement, Soler was keen to thank "the Valencia family for all the affection received". And the comments in 'Marca' from supporters sum up their feelings on his departure.

"Don't come back, fatso", wrote one grieving fan, whilst another waved good-bye noting that "your management was awful and you are a liar".

The problem now is that the future does not look necessarily better for Valencia, even with Soler's absence.

The club possesses one of the brightest young managerial talents in Spain in Unai Emery - a man who went on television with a flip chart last season, to explain how his Almería side were going to beat Real Madrid. And then proceeded to do so.

Every financial indicator suggests that the club's two big stars David Silva and David Villa, will surely be sold off in attempt to make a dent in the club's spiralling debt. And this is leading to a vast amount of uncertainty in Valencia's summer training camp in Holland.

"I don't know if I'm up for sale or not" shrugs Joaquín, a man who must be desperate for a new start at a different team.

Emery claims that his rather bloated squad are ignoring the goings on back in Spain by claiming that "we cannot control things and they aren't in our hands."

Instead, the new manager cites adaptability as the core strength that will see him and his squad survive the constant mayhem in Mestalla.

It's a competency Emery will have to demonstrate in spades at a club that simply can't have a worse year than the one just gone. Or can they?


Tim Stannard

Follow all the Spanish action with Tim on his excellent blog