Chen Yansheng and Lim, absent protagonists of a crucial duel

Year after year a pattern is repeated in the League, whereby teams with foreign owners, with some exceptions, are among the last classified. Right now Valencia, Valladolid and Espanyol occupy the relegation spots. While Ronaldo assures that he is in negotiations to get rid of the Pucelano team, the other two face each other in a crucial match for both, in which neither Peter Lim nor Chen Yansheng will be present.

Lim, owner of Valencia, and Chen, owner of Espanyol, have parallel lives when it comes to their football properties. Both have almost completely decapitalized their teams after poor management in which balancing balances has taken precedence over seeking sporting excellence. This constant and premeditated absence of sports investment has pushed their respective teams to the limit.

Lim has taken refuge in Singapore. Chen in China. This is also two drops of water. Both exercise leadership from a distance that has proven very harmful. Chen has not set foot in Barcelona for more than a year and a half. Lim surpasses him.

In the case of Valencia, its disintegration process has accelerated in recent months. The club has been falling apart little by little over the years until hitting rock bottom this last year. With Baraja as coach, in recent months he has added only 12 points out of the last 66 possible. Only two wins in 22 games. Reinforcements of guarantees have barely arrived and the postponement of matches due to DANA that affected the Valencian Community has also had a negative impact.

Lack of investment

This will be the third consecutive market in which Espanyol will not be able to reinforce itself with guarantees

Chen Yansheng, for his part, has made decisions prioritizing financial management over sports management and letting the sports structure work with hardly any resources. This will be the third consecutive market in which Espanyol will not be able to reinforce itself with guarantees. Therefore, after achieving a difficult promotion, the permanence will go through an exercise of terrible suffering in which all the resources of the squad must be squeezed to the maximum.

They will be the two great players in a transcendental match for both entities. But none will be there. For Espanyol, winning means getting out of relegation and taking a huge breath of oxygen, along with a boost for Manolo González. For Valencia, with two games less, it is a first step to get out of the hole in which it finds itself, with only 10 points after fifteen games played.