Victor has spent half his life cheering for Rayo Vallecano. This Wednesday, after attending the triumph over Barcelona, he sang in chorus The Pirate Life from the back that occupies the massive Bukaneros peña, while the footballers attended astonished in the middle of the deserted field, after the game. With a hoarse voice from singing so much, the day after 1-0 he summed up his contradictory impression: “It is the best sporting moment in the club’s history and it is the worst institutional moment in the club’s history.”
Fifth place in the Ligatras 11 matches played, the club from the south-east neighborhood of Madrid is installed in the dichotomy. Its nearly 9,000 members, optimistic and prone to being satisfied with little, have been in conflict with Raúl Martín Presa, the president, who owns 97% of the shares, whom they point to as responsible for an unprecedented internal fracture in football. Spanish, aggravated if possible by the conflictive work that seizes the Vallecas stadium, the oldest in the League, deprived until March of 4,000 of the scarce 14,200 seats that complete the capacity.
Dissent in the stands coexists with the pleasures that the team inspires. Rayo is the revelation of the League after achieving the second promotion in three years guided by the financial control of Presa and the design of the squad by David Cobeño.
Asked about the key to a good game, the sports director indicates that he has tried to draw lines of continuity over the years. Same players, same ideas and similar coaches, they end up producing good results.
“We maintain a large block”
“We try to maintain a large block of players who remain season after season,” says Cobeño, who was Rayo’s goalkeeper and who is just 39 years old in his fifth season at the helm of the body that outlines the sports strategy. “Because if you make a new squad every year you need an adaptation period that the competition makes you pay for in the first league games.”
Reunited after achieving promotion, Cobeño, Iraola and Presa agreed to sign seven reinforcements. Randy Nteka and Pathé Ciss (two million to Fuenlabrada), Radamel Falcao (free), Iván Balliu (free), Martín Merquelanz and Kevin Rodríguez (loan from Real) and Unai López (loan from Athletic). “But”, Cobeño warns, “except for Falcao and Balliu, nine players from the line-up that beat Barcelona were part of the team that played in Segunda last season.”
The idea of continuity is projected onto the coach. Methodologically, Andoni Iraola has little resemblance to Miguel Ángel Sánchez Muñoz, Michel, and much less Paco Jémez. But the effect of their works is comparable in that they are encouraged by a similar spirit. “We are looking for coaches who more or less conform to the philosophy of the club,” says Cobeño. “Each coach has his own methodology, but Andoni is similar to the footballing idea that we have had with Paco and with Míchel, of being a brave team that makes high pressure, that plays from behind. Knowing that if you keep a block of players with a certain profile they will adapt to a certain game system more easily ”.
Few Rayo fans expected the team to rise after qualifying for the playoff in sixth position – last available place – behind Almería, Girona and Leganés. But it was in the trance of maximum pressure that the players got involved, Iraola’s speech strengthened, and the spark lit the fuse. Cobeño warns that this was a premonitory sign. “We were very clear,” he insists, “that keeping those players would imply keeping automated mechanisms, because the team went up without being favorites and with an extra motivation that we still carry since that day. We knew that in Primera the players would compensate for the lack of experience with enthusiasm ”.
Óscar Trejo, Álvaro García and Isi Palazón, the line of trescuartistas, are the insurgent soul of the team. In Second as in First. “Trejo has more experience,” says Cobeño, about the Argentine midfielder, “because he was a reference in Ligue 1 with Toulouse. He knows how to compete against very important rivals and gives us that extra experience. It is always there when it has to be. When people are a little burdened, he is not burdened with responsibility. Álvaro and Isi are cheeky in their own way. Álvaro likes to unbalance due to speed and Isi likes to go inside, face and fight. They have grown every day they play in the First Division and have shown that there is quality in the Second Division ”.
If soccer clubs were just soccer teams, Rayo would be a monolith. But it is in its community condition where the Ray emerges its great paradox. Oscar Herrero, leader of the peñas federation and secretary of the minority shareholders platform, does not come out of his disbelief when he thinks about the indolent attitude that he believes Presa has exhibited towards the fans. “I have told you,” he recalls, “’you are one of the presidents who has had it easier; has lived on the crest of the wave of sporting results, with great players and successes to win over the public. He would not have had to give us more than a wink and the partners would have responded. ‘ But he has never tried. “
“We only ask for a hygienic stadium”
Dam insists on her innocence. He assures that he respects fans like the most. But the partners feel provoked by a leader whom they accuse of an endless list of grievances. Calling shareholders’ meetings on December 31, not facilitating access to the field for the disabled, not stocking the official store or t-shirts, are some of the miseries that are attributed to him, crowned this summer by the decrepitude of the stadium, whose bathrooms , entrances and lockers remained unchanged for almost half a century. “We only ask for a safe and hygienic stadium,” says Herrero. “With lights and railings on the stairs, so that the elderly do not trip.”
The Vallecas stadium, built in 1976 to complete a forced project in the insufficient space of street crossings and adjacent blocks, is not only a relic of late-Franco developmentalism. It is diminished by reforms that had to be undertaken before the summer and that will last until March 2022, as the Community of Madrid, which is the owner of the site, has informed shareholders.
The Community, which cedes the usufruct of the infrastructure to Rayo, has committed to investing five million euros in the next four years to maintain the facilities. The first reform, corresponding to the Albufera tribune, would have been completed before the start of the season had it not been for a series of continuous and inexplicable disputes that will extend it until March. The partners again pointed to Presa, wondering in what he invests the more than 50 million that the League gives him. Dam pointed to the Community. The Community accused Presa.
There is not in all Spain a hobby with more class consciousness —worker— than that of Rayo and in no box would the presence of Santiago Abascal and Rocío Monasterio, the leaders of the far-right party, have been more untimely, invited by the Rayista president to attend end of April. Only three weeks had passed since Vallecas was the scene of a tumultuous demonstration against the extreme right. The perplexity of the followers of the Ray continues to increase.
Not even the numerous indications that its president may have something to do with the team’s phenomenal sporting streak has dissuaded the small community of subscribers from appeasing their discomfort to focus on The Pirate Life.
They express it en masse, in the course of each of the games they attend in the punished Vallecas ring. Win or lose the team, the refrain has been repeated for years, only now, when the game is dazzling and the results are favorable, the contrast is redoubled: “Damn, go now! Dam go now! Damn, go now! ”.
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