I used to be from Baraja and now more than ever. Because he’s been brave, he’s flattened, and mostly because he doesn’t cry.
Rubén Baraja and his squire, Carlos Marchena, have a lot more credit than they’re getting for taking the team out of the relegation positions with five games to go, which Espanyol does tonight at Seville’s Sánchez Pizjuán, after the draw added against Villarreal after a game where With a lot of perseverance, the team managed to get up from Jackson’s goal and not go empty.
Baraja has coached Valencia CF for 12 games, scoring 14 points out of 36 and not even reaching the 50% of points the team has managed to score. However, I honestly think it has merit. AND the merit that Baraja has is that the team did not fallcontinues to show signs of life and despite getting into relegation positions several times, he has managed to get out again.
And it has a lot of merit, because apart from the fact that as a coach he has to correct and improve at least a thousand things, it is a high point for me to keep this badly configured squad alive and with so many shortcomings. It is important to keep this Valencia CF alive with the social crisis plaguing the entity. Because standing up for this team and therefore taking a lot of blows that have to be absorbed by those who brought Valencia here is also a feat.
I thank Baraja for wanting to come when hardly anyone wanted to and for continuing the good work without making many excuses. Because honestly I think he could come up with a lot of excuses and he doesn’t. Last Sunday in Cádiz he was forced to rotate, not because of a technical decision and Valencianism blamed him for the defeat.
Slide away from going out and saying that Gayà was on the limit, that Paulista and Cavani literally couldn’t play, that Almeida is physically stiff and he couldn’t risk it, or that Nico isn’t there to last more than 60 minutes , or that after they have to gamble with a nano that does more than well, he has absolutely no one else, he took the criticism and carried the weight of decisions in his backpack like it’s sports. That’s something he’s done a few times since he arrived and he’s done it because he knows the team is in the act and he and Marchena will fall if they don’t back it up.
The current Valencia CF coach has held the position for months, on a minimal economic contract and in conditions that none of the latest technicians have had, who have been duped but paid $1 million in damages. Baraja came from feeling and logically because it was his only chance, but he also knew very well that with Lim at the helm there were many more chances for this to go wrong than right. I know Pipo doesn’t look past the 4th of June when the League ends because he knows by heart what the situation is and the absolute chaos the club is today.
He remains convinced that they will make it and that he will leave the team in the first division of Spanish football. It is his devotion to his family and to Valencianism, to which he wants to return all the love and keep it in the highest category. It pains me that some sporting decisions are handed to him with a machete, but no one notices that he has to throw the helping hand to make them important because the squad is the worst in the entity’s recent history.
I used to be from Baraja and now more than ever. Because he’s been brave, he’s flattened, and mostly because he doesn’t cry for issues that others would have said for weeks to protect themselves. He competes with what he has and knows that he will suffer until the last game, but I am convinced that he will save Valencia CF from relegation. Then I’d leave if I were him.
Source: Goal