Valencia News Archives

Real Madrid celebrated their 31st Liga in style by thumping rivals Barcelona 4-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu. This will have to go down as the most one-sided clasico since Ronaldinho destroyed Madrid’s defence in November 2005. How times have changed since then. Ronaldinho is only in the news now for his off the field antics, while Madrid have formed a solid compact unit that has won La Liga at a canter.

The Barcelona players suffered the shame of having to applaud their rivals onto the pitch, but by the end of the night this humiliation was nothing compared to what they experienced over 90 minutes. from the beginning Diarra, Sneijder and Gago ruled the midfield and even Leo Messi was kept completely out of the game as Barça’s midfield players struggled to connect with the forwards.

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Today’s transfer roundup starts up as the last one did, so Arsenal fans, feel free to jump a couple of paragraphs.

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Congratulations to Real Madrid for winning their 31st Spanish league title. It’s been a funny old season in Spain so perhaps it was appropriate that Madrid should come from behind and score twice in the last five minutes when they were down to ten men to win 1-2 at Osasuna. Villarreal are looking good for second place after a 2-0 victory over Getafe, while Barcelona who seem to be in a serious crisis surprised everyone by walloping Valencia 6-0. Some might be more surprised by the fact that Thierry Henry played well and scored twice!

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According to Forbes.com Manchester United have been valued at $1.8 billion, ahead of the club traditionally known as the richest club in football (Real Madrid, $1.285 billion) and their chief domestic rivals Arsenal ($1.2 billion), Liverpool ($1.05 billion) and Chelsea ($764 million).

Have fun sorting the lists according to different criteria. Here are some highlights:

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Real Madrid need just two points from their remaining four matches to seal their 31st La Liga title after comfortably beating Athletic Bilbao 3-0 at the Bernabeu on Sunday evening. Barcelona are in big danger of losing out on second place to Villarreal. The Catalans obviously had their minds on Tuesday’s return match with Manchester United and were easily beaten by Deportivo, while Villarreal won at Betis to move four points above Barça. At the bottom of the table Levante became the first team to be mathematically relegated after losing to Recreativo.

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If there was any doubt that Real Madrid are going to win their 31st La Liga title, it was dispelled after their 0-2 victory over Racing Santander. With a ten point advantage over closest rivals Villarreal, Madrid now need just five points from their remaining five games and they will now be hoping to clinch the title before the home game against arch enemies Barcelona on May 7 which will mean the Catalans will face the embarrassment of having to applaud their rivals onto the pitch.

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Real Madrid moved another step closer to their 31st La Liga title with an uninspiring 1-0 victory over relegation bound Murcia. Barcelona have more or less said adios to their title hopes after only drawing at Recreativo, but the big news this week is the almost certain sale of Ronaldinho to AC Milan. The Brazilian will reportedly be on a meagre €150,000 a week for his new club. Villarreal slipped back down to third place after losing 1-0 at Almeria.

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The top three all failed to win this week but Real Madrid who played badly will be the happiest with their 1-1 draw at Mallorca which leaves them seven points clear with seven games to go. Barcelona played better than in recent weeks but will be most disappointed with their 0-0 draw at home to Getafe, especially after hitting the post three times. Villarreal stay in second place on head-to-head goal difference despite losing 2-0 at Sevilla.

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After weeks of inconsistency Real Madrid found their form again to defeat Sevilla this weekend and take a big step towards their 31st La Liga title. Barcelona, however, threw away a two-goal lead at Betis which sees them slip back to seven points behind Madrid and allowed Villarreal to move above them into second place after a fine 3-0 victory over Atletico Madrid.

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Anyone who thought La Liga was over has been proved wrong again. Every week it gets more and more crazy as Real Madrid and Barcelona try to outdo each other to see who can waste most chances. This week Barça did not play well but 17-year-old Bojan Krkic scored twice as they beat Valladolid 4-1, while Madrid played well going forward but paid the price for defensive mistakes, losing 2-3 at home to Ronald Koeman’s Valencia.

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When last season the Spanish title race was pulled down to the wire with three teams in contention for the trophy going into the ultimate round of matches, there was a whisper of hope rippling across the nation and especially among the Spanish football commentators that the duopoly could be broken at last.

Real Madrid might have won their 30th La Liga trophy in history and FC Barcelona might have finished second level on points but Sevilla FC had finished third 5 points off the pace and Valencia CF had been in the title chase until the last weeks of the season in what had been one of the most exciting Spanish championship campaign in years.

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It seems as if neither of Spain’s big two really want to win La Liga this season. Real Madrid’s defeat at Deportivo was their eighth defeat in 2008 and thet have now lost four of their last seven league games. Barcelona have consistantly blown their chances of capitalizing on their rivals mistakes: this weekend they twice surrendered the lead and had to settle for a 2-2 draw at Almeria which leaves them seven points behind Madrid with ten games remaining.

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It really is a crazy time in La Liga. At the end of January Real Madrid had a nine point advantage over rivals Barcelona, two weeks ago that difference was reduced to two points, but Barça’s successive defeats against Atletico Madrid and Villarreal have given Real Madrid the chance to move eight points clear with only eleven games to go. Surely Madrid won’t let it slip again now.

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Real Madrid’s 2-3 victory at Recreativo put their advantage over second place Barcelona back to five points this weekend after Barça went down 4-2 at Atletico Madrid. Brazilian star Robinho came on as a substitute to win the game for Madrid with two goals in the last twenty minutes, but the performance of the week came from Atletico’s 19-year-old Argentinian Kun Agüero who tore apart Barça’s defence and made the likes of Puyol and Milito look like amateurs.

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If Real Madrid fail to win their 31st league title this season, they may well look back at this week as being where they lost it. Madrid conceded a ridiculous goal which gave Getafe a 0-1 win at the Bernabeu and allowed Barcelona to reduce the points difference to just two. Only four weeks ago when Barça dropped points at Athletic Bilbao, Madrid had a lead of nine. So far in 2008 Madrid have lost three games in La Liga, two in the Copa del Rey and one in the Champions League, while Barça remain unbeaten.

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Football Club Barcelona’s win at Zaragoza has pulled them back to within five points of Real Madrid who lost for the third time this season in Andalucia. This time it was Real Betis who beat the champions 2-1 after an early goal from Royston Drenthe had given Madrid the lead. Madrid have now lost on all three visits to Andalucia at Sevilla, Almeria and Betis, and in two weeks’ time they visit Recreativo de Huelva, the province’s other Primera División team.

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Barcelona have been missing Samuel Eto’o. While the Cameroon striker has been scoring aplenty in Ghana, his teammates have only managed to find the net five times in seven games. This weekend Real Madrid also found themselves without their main striker as Ruud Van Nistlerooy was injured; in response Guti, Raul and company turned in an electrifying display to demolish Valladolid 7-0 and extend their lead at the top of the table to eight points.

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Real Madrid were set back by their first league defeat since the start of November, losing 2-0 at Almeria on Saturday evening. After a run of eight straight victories this loss proves the Madrid players are human and breathes new life into the race for the title. Barcelona almost missed their chance to reduce differences but a goal from Xavi Hernandez three minutes from time gave them a 1-0 win over Osasuna to narrow the gap to six points.

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Real Madrid took a giant step towards winning their 31st league title this weekend when they beat Villarreal 3-2 in the Bernabeu after all their closest rivals had failed to win. There may still be 17 games to go but Madrid now have a nine point advantage and it will be very difficult for Barcelona, or anybody else, to close the gap on the leaders. Barça could do no better than a 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao in San Mames.

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Fulham’s glaring need for attacking improvements was quite evident in their FA Cup shootout defeat to Bristol Rovers on Tuesday night, but Roy Hodgson may finally be getting his prayers answered. The Cottagers have signed American international striker Eddie Johnson from the Kansas City Wizards, with the 23-year old penning a three and a half year deal to be the latest American to ply his trade at Craven Cottage.

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Now that Kevin Keegan has taken over at Newcastle, it‘s time to kick their transfer speculation into fifth gear.

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Real Madrid stay seven points clear at the top of La Liga after overcoming Atletico Madrid 0-2 at the Vicente Calderon stadium. An early goal from Raul and then one from Ruud Van Nistlerooy were enough to take the three points as Iker Casillas continues to stop anything that goes near his goal.

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It’s the weekend, but I’m not taking any time off from keeping you updated with the latest transfer news.

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I’m back, and ready to disappoint a lot of people again.

If you dislike Tottenham and Portsmouth, you can selectively scroll around for the non-Tottenham and Portsmouth bits, because I may as well warn you - there are quite a few today.

I will be starting with something related to neither, but, as I said above, it’s disappointment time, so step right up Birmingham!

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In case you’ve missed anything over the last two days, here we go with the important stuff.

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For yet another week Real Madrid have Iker Casillas and the decisiveness of their forwards to thank for their victory. Second half goals from Ruud Van Nistlerooy and Robinho gave them a 2-0 victory over Zaragoza who try as they might could not beat the Madrid keeper. Casillas made at least five decent saves when the score was still 0-0, he has now been 378 minutes without conceding a goal.

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After the World’s Top Goalscorer of 2007, the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History & Statistics) has done the impossible: make yet another controversial ranking, and make some more thousand-something fans pissed off about it.

This time, it’s the All-Time Club Rankings.

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Whilst the English papers continue to link all and sundry with transfers, grappling with the particularly persistent rumours of Berbatov and Anelka’s moves to Manchester United or Chelsea, here in Spain the transfer talk is somewhat calmer.

This is for various reasons. Firstly, a rule of which most foreign commentators are ignorant states that no player may move between Primera Liga clubs if he has played in more than five competitive domestic matches (league and cup).

This leaves the vast majority of La Liga players untransferable domestically, ruling out the situations we have alluded to above, in which big clubs swarm around big-name players at smaller clubs (e.g. Anelka), thereby hitting hard the survival hopes of relegation candidates.

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Finally, we have some signings, because it can get a little boring talking about speculation sometimes.

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They say the dictionary never lies but it does. Check out the string of words lined up against the term disaster and you will come across this: an event or fact leading to ruin or failure. Pooh! That isn’t half as much as disaster.

Then what is disaster?

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