A Sporting chance?

Or are we playing the blame game? If you have a passing idea of what´s going on in Spanish football, besides Real Madrid and Barcelona who sit prostrate equally on the throne gobbling up trophies like King Henry the VIII gobbles up turkey legs stopping only to kick each off once in awhile while the other isn´t looking, then you might have heard about Sporting de Gijón; heehone if you want to be accurate. It´s the club whose former manager looked like an aged Mario the Plumber looking for his red suit and sounded like the chain-smoking had begun to affect the vocal chords. A funny character, and one known primarily in and out of La Liga for the spat that he got into with José Mourinho.

The specious one complained about him resting players before an important match with FC Barcelona and Preciado returned with a blunt reply calling the Portugeyser a ¨bad colleague¨ and a ¨scumbag¨. The row was settled and people took notice of the little club from Asturias, the English papers did some human interest stories about the Cantabrian´s sad and eventful life to date. He lost his wife to cancer, and both a son and his father were killed in automotive related deaths. ¨I could have shot myself, or I could have carried on¨, he said inspirationally. What people forget though is that he was a very good coach.

He coached Sporting for almost six years. He got them promoted in 2007 and kept them in the top flight despite having one of the lowest payrolls in Spain, and he had them playing a brand of football that was attractive and expansive, far-beyond their station. His reputation, earned through years coaching at Levante, Murcia, and at his home-town club Racing was that of a coach who maximized his talent and had the magic-hand in promotion and relegation. This year however, the wheels have fallen off the bus. Results have been poor, they have sold players poorly and bought even worse. Their sporting director Emilio de Dios was fired after 18 years and lo-and-behold they hired legendary coach Javier Clemente.

The former Athletic Bilbao and Spain coach is a prickly sort in the best of times, but has feuded with the local press over the last few weeks, and has not been able to instill his famous work-ethic or his more direct and results oriented style, labelled Neaderthalic by some, to a squad that was formed by others with a different philosophy. He´s not blaming the lack of resources. ¨The club was constructed poorly¨, he said. He asks of them what he wants, but they can only give what they can. He said also, and I paraphrase from an earlier interview, that he has too many interchangeable players and not enough that can give him what he needs. I assume it´s a target man and enough athletic bodies to lump it forward.

Now I don´t blame the guy, he led Espanyol to a third place finish all those years ago, but the club should have known what was going to work. You don´t change your, and I know I´m choosing my words poorly, your sporting philosophy mid-year. If Preciado´s leadership isn´t working, and coaches´ methods have a shelf-life like Pat Riley once said of his Los Angeles Lakers term, then hire someone who´s a better fit. Someone who won´t be playing the blame game, who won´t bury them.