A night of ‘mutual consents’ in Spain

Stability is no longer a word you use in reference to football. The English Champions, the German Champions, the French Champions, Champions of the Europa League, potential Champions of the Champions League; the list of clubs who have parted ways with their ‘trophy-acquiring managers’ grows abominably high with each season.

Though England looks to be the place where many of the above sackings are supposed to affect most, Spain has currently become the centre of confusion for the footballing world. Though it still remains the only country to not have their league-winning manager being stripped off his badge, there is quite a bit of noise surrounding the other top clubs here.

As Madrid chose tonight to save Mourinho from his misery of completing a season without a single trophy, Perez was not too harsh on the Special one while saying:

“Nobody has been sacked. It’s a mutual agreement. We’ve come to this decision today, although it’s been something that has been in the back our minds for a while now.”

With Jose firmly on his way back to the much loving Blue-lands, there is yet another imminent announcement coming up in Spain. Manuel Pellegrini’s tenure at Malaga seems to be coming to an immature end and this one would definitely not be by “mutual consent” like the above. The South American earlier said that there has been no contact from England, but City’s act of completing Mancini’s sack by removing his entire back room staff clearly indicates the arrival of an entirely new and foreign team.

While both Pellegrini and Mourinho have never been known to be sticking to one club particularly, another force in Spain has given up hope on yet another one of their star strikers.

Of Strikers..

Though not much is heard of a Spanish version of St. Totterringham’s Day in the last 20 years, Atletico Madrid fans would not believed their team’s feat of winning the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid that too at the Bernabeu. And, amidst all the tempers and red cards on the night, it took a moment of brilliance by Radamel Falcao in the middle of the park, when he feinted and dribbled past two Madrid defenders to set up Diego Costa for Atletico’s first goal.

In yet another unfamiliarly calm statement in the capital, Atletico’s CEO Miguel Angel Gil Marin, said: “Before the start of the season we talked with Falcao and promised him that if he kept the same performance and helped us into the Champions League, we would help him. Whatever decision he takes, we will be with him. We know what makes a good striker – we have sold and replaced Fernando Torres, Diego Forlan and Sergio Aguero.”

Falcao, despite not having played with the biggest of clubs, has an amazing record with Atletico and Porto. Over the last 5 years ‘El Tigre’ has 70 goals in 90 appearances for Atletico and had 72 in 87 for Porto. His feat this season of scoring 28 goals turns out to be almost half of what the entire team scored (60) in the league this season. Similar such stats can be found for each one of the names that Angel Gill Marin mentioned above; 101 goals for Aguero in 240 appearances, 90 for Torres in 241 and 96 for Forlan in 196.

Malaga are one such unfortunate club who stand in a poor state even though a Middle Eastern royal house invested in them. Negligence of player wages has seen the likes of Cazorla and Monreal stolen away from their grasps, and even more talents like Isco are preparing to leave. And to think that clubs like Stoke City and Hull City would be getting 120 million pounds for just playing in the EPL next season.

All’s not well at Barca

As most of the top 4 lie in confusion, even Barca could not resist delivering their share of statements on this day. Head coach Tito Vilanova’s recurrent cancer problem is again under the scanner this summer, as an official statement said that: “The pioneering treatment has been developed at a specialized centre and is proving particularly effective. It was originally planned for this summer but as Barca has now clinched the league title, it has been advanced to next week. Tito Vilanova will be away from Barcelona from Monday to Friday.”

Sources within the club have further revealed that the management would be on the lookout for a fresh coach in case of bad news coming from the US. Tito’s assistant manager was not good enough in his absence last time around, so Barca would also look for a bigger name to fill Vilanova’s shoes as an interim coach; *cough Rafa *cough

Manager and player changes look to occur a plenty this summer, and major candidates in the form of Carlo Ancelloti and Rafa Benitez are already on the edge of taking up jobs in Spain. In what has been an eventful night in the history of La Liga, the city of Madrid and also most of the top 4 clubs have lost some vital equipment in their race to catch the Catalans.