How does Valencia smell?

“We were robbed in slow motion. Football stinks. It will be difficult for the referees to sleep”. Words from Javier Solís, the company director of Valencia, after the defeat against Sevilla. More reason than a saint. There are things that stink in football. Too many. The problem is that even assuming Solís words are right there are things that smell worse at Valencia CF For example it stinks that the Valencian feel their club has been robbed in slow motion It stinks that these fans feel judged by a erratic management, negligent and unhappy of those who now charge that football stinks. And it stinks worse than those who slept in ‘Pikolín’ while Valencia bled to death, are the same who now smell alien stench miles away. Some wonder what the clouds stink, but when it comes to smelling Valencia it’s a good idea to put a nose clip on your nose because the smell is unbearable, the Valencia from ‘Meriton’ reek of mediocrity. A historic club turned into hysterical SAD. It stinks of satrapy feet. To the smelly gases of pathetic management, to the halitosis of a legion of media mariachis complicit in Meriton. It smells like it stinks. Second.

Peter Lim, scared or dead, received in the style of ‘Welcome Mr. Marshall’ and rejected today by every good Valencian fan, does not smell of roses. He stole all of Mestalla’s illusions in slow motion. And between coach and dismissed coach, between nonsense and nonsense, between sale and sale, he is fast asleep. If a dormouse stinks of Spanish football. Meriton’s management stinks worse. Tar. The club, bled dry by internal wars and Taifa kingdoms, reek of tragedy. The executives, masterminds of an unbalanced workforce that was not strengthened even though the field clamored for it, smell of incompetence. The coach, whatever his name, rookie or veteran, whether it’s Mendes rope or a parapet, smells of impotence and frustration. And the team, which gets worse every year, who tries almost everything on the field without coming up with almost nothing, and who repeats empty messages off the field, stinks worse than a twenty-day-old corpse.

For everything else, there’s the fan. The one who gets the pass. The one who sees how his Valencia does not die, but is killed. The fan smells of fear. He senses that the patient is in a coma, intubated and in a terminal phase. The Valencian player, who demands because he pays and asks because he always gives, feels his club is on the verge of extreme anointing. Spanish football stinks. Valencia smells like Second. It takes tons of air fresheners to keep the stench from spreading. Open windows. ‘Ambipur’ packaged. And if possible, to recover the illusions stolen from them, in slow motion, by some owners disintegrating them, with the media complicity of some mariachis singing “Meriton” in the morning, while Anil yawned and Peter snored. Valencia smells like Second. I hope not. God wants him to be saved. And that, come what may, the smell of mediocrity will once and for all emanate from a club whose only heritage is not for sale. That’s just the only thing that smells good in there. Their people. That hobby suffers, but it smells like dignity.

Reuben Uria