“Next Year Lightning-Liverpool”

Is it Manchester City? Is it Real Madrid? Is it PSG? No, it’s Rayo Vallecano. A neighborhood team, the pride of its people, which has less resources than almost everyone else and which, based on football, dedication and an extraordinary coach, shows that the heart is equal to any budget. Watching Rayo play is a blessing. Intensity, aggressiveness, placement, speed and huge ambition from minute 1 to the referee’s whistle. Vallecas has always been proud of her team, but now she has more reasons than ever to be. If this isn’t the best Lightning ever, it’s very close. That Rayo has always attracted sympathy from people for social and economic reasons is not new. But apart from all-time icons and legends such as Felines, Potele, Wilfred, Cota, Onesimo, Polster, Cembranos, Míchel or Diego Costa, this ray conveys more than sympathy and occasional achievements. This team is regular, has guts, has packaging and acts as a small team as the ambition of the biggest. They are a neighborhood made team. To the fullest extent of that word. In the dressing room they are a pineapple. In green they are a family. In the stands they are passion. In the standings, lightning is thunder. And the soundtrack is a classic: “The pirate life, the better life”.

The great architect of the comic is Andoni Iraola. A coachman who has long ceased to be fashionable, who is not a flash in the pan and not the result of chance. He is a high level technician, someone who is able to extract oil from the resources at his disposal and someone who knows how to structure a team that exudes energy and enthusiasm. It is clear that Rayo is not the favorite fishing ground for the big clubs, it is notorious that the powerful usually do not pay attention to humble technicians to put them in control of their future projects and it is true that Iraola does not have the extraordinary pressure that other colleagues enjoy professionally. And yet, although in football the coaches are always children of the results, Iraola’s work in Vallecas speaks for itself. If football is a state of mind, being a Rayo fan and watching the ‘Iraola Boys’ run borders on Nirvana. They attack, defend, press, scratch, dribble, cross, combine… and they always want more. That is the best feature of this equipment. He never settles down, he never backs down, he never backs down, he never backs down, he never gives up and he never has enough. And while this Ray is terrestrial and has limits, its players play as gods they didn’t know. Balliu, Fran García, Álvaro, Catena, Isi Palazón, Camello, Trejo, Óscar Valentín… It’s great to see them play.

That Rayo, with one of the smallest budgets in the First Division and after 20 games, is fifth in the European arena and is only 3 points away from the Champions League, is a true sports miracle. One that demands and deserves as much respect as praise, attention and publicity. Much more considering that the merit of the coach and all the players in the team is inversely proportional to the management of the club. Dissatisfaction with Presa’s management is an open secret. The fuss over season tickets, the chaos in the women’s section, a stadium on the brink of collapse, a sports city that is neither a city nor a sports city, and a poor online ticketing service must make those responsible reflect the club. And precisely for this reason, for this unsustainable management, the merit of Rayo, of the coach and the players, is even greater. While Presa often insists on making Rayo smaller, the neighborhood, coach and players manage to make it bigger and bigger. People are clear about it: “Next year Rayo-Liverpool”. It seems like a chimera and a utopia, but everything is possible in Vallecas. The state of happiness has been proclaimed. Pure team, pure football, pure neighborhood, pure Rayo.

Reuben Uria