Spanish Thing

The first of September is normally the bleakest day in the Spanish calendar. Doubly so if it happens to fall on a Monday.

It's a day when the three-month summer siesta is cruelly curtailed and the crushing bleakness of day-to-day office-based tedium returns. At least, until the Christmas wind-down gets going from the beginning of October.

Some eyebrow-raising results in the opening round of La Liga means that an awful lot of fuming fans in Barcelona and Madrid are set to be even more grumpy and grouchy than usual this week.

Not only are they discovering that their houses are currently as worthless as a promise from Ramón Calderón and that their daily ham bocadillo now costs more than a hatchback, but they now have to spend the next fortnight with their teams stuck in nul-points land after dramatic double defeats on Sunday night.

Whilst the Brits often tend to make and break life-changing resolutions in January, the post-summer period is the favoured time for the Spanish to make crazy commitments.

In September, the contents of street corner news kiosks often spill into the road - overloaded with 15-part magazines that promise to teach you English and your give villa in Valencia first strike nuclear capability.

Bernd Schuster's pledge is to somehow find a way to beat Deportivo in their Riazor home. Real Madrid haven't managed it in 17 years and were no nearer to doing so on Sunday in a 2-1 defeat.

Deportivo's players spent the 90 minutes harassing and harrying the visitors in a manner that they never bother with against every other team in La Liga.

The team's two goals came from looping crosses into the opposition box which the Real Madrid defence dealt with as effectively as a hedgehog facing the aerial threat of a pterodactyl.

"We'll spend the next few months studying if we need to bribe the referee or play with an extra player," promised the German coach after the game.

Like a wincing Victoria Pendleton, Schuster may also be vowing to never have a Brazilian, ever again, having listened to Robinho going all Spartacus and accusing the German coach of having kept him in Madrid against his will.

"What Robinho does doesn't interest me. He doesn't deserve the attention," was Bernado's reply to the player who is very much on borrowed time if he doesn't go through with his move to Chelsea.

To give Real Madrid fans the slightest of smiles on Monday, AS have placed Ruud Van Nistelrooy - their goalscorer from the previous evening - in second place in the top strikers' chart, ahead of 19 alphabetically-superior players.

Squatting above the Dutch forward - in a purely league table sense - with two goals, is deadly Diego Forlán. His Atlético Madrid side also lead the first Primera poll after a thumping 4-0 win over Malaga.

Although it's very much early doors on the new season, the trouncing of both Schalke and Sunday's opponents in such a dismissive manner suggests that the new and improved rojiblancos have been very much Cillit Banged up over the summer with the new defensive pairing of Johnny Heitinga and Tomas Ujfalusi continuing to impress.

"With Atlético, as always, the future is unknown, but the present is a party," whoops the long-suffering Iñaki Díaz-Guerra in AS.

Down the hill in Cataluyna, the supposed little guys of the city are very much with the fiesta this week too.

On Saturday, the preening Pericos of Espanyol scraped a 1-0 win over Valladolid before watching the big boys of Barcelona crash to a somewhat surprising defeat against newly-promoted Numancia.

If Espanyol have a resolution for the new season, it's to ensure that their best players are made to wear boxing gloves in the final days of the transfer window to counter any contract-signing business.

Over the weekend, the rather handy Pablo Zabaleta signed for Manchester City. "If they call I will run to them," promised the Argentine defender a few days before. Unfortunately for Sparky, he was talking about Juventus.

And joining the pasta-potty Pablo in England will be the less than handy Albert 'the new Mark González' Riera, who is set to sign for Liverpool.

Espanyol will also do well to hang onto Luis García, the occasional Spanish international who scored their only goal in Saturday night's slimmest of victories.

Pep Guardiola may want to consider returning to manage the Barcelona 'B' team, having watched his side have hundreds of chances on goal against Numancia with bugger all to show for it but a 1-0 defeat.

Having spent the past month very much bigging up born-again Barça, one loss has already sent the local press into a tailspin of despair.

'This Barcelona looks too much like the last season's,' grumbles Josep Maria Casanovas in Sport. 'Too much unthreatening tiki-taka.'

The referee certainly made a name for himself by sending off up to eight people. Sadly, these were the not players, but Numancia's ball boys.

Having felt that they were taking too long to return the ball after Thierry Henry's various terrace-threatening efforts, Fernández Borbalán decided to pack the youngsters off to bed with no tea as punishment for their time-wasting tactics.

Due to the immensely annoying scheduling of both the start of the Spanish league season and the cursed international week, Spain's big boys now have two weeks to stew in their own footballing juices and deal with the inevitable flem and flack that will be hurled in their direction over the next two weeks.

Another reason for their fans to be very much down in the dumps as Spain finally goes back to business.

Round 1 Results

Espanyol 1-0 Valladolid
Valencia 3-0 Mallorca
Numancia 1-0 Barcelona
Athletic 1-3 Almería
Atlético Madrid 4-0 Malaga
Betis 0-1 Recreativo
Sporting 1-2 Getafe
Racing 1-1 Sevilla
Osasuna 1-1 Villarreal
Deportivo 2-1 Real Madrid


Tim Stannard