Soccer Slant

In the center of the ongoing war between Real Madrid and Manchester United over the potential transfer of Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo lies a seemingly unusual participant: the controversial Spanish sports tabloid MARCA. The daily, which is the most widely read non-gratuitous newspaper in Spain with a circulation of 481,505, has been printing daily stories about Ronaldo, whether it’s an Audi sports car in a Madrid dealership reserved with Ronaldo’s name or an interview with the player’s godfather asking him where he wants his godson to play. Sir Alex Ferguson himself went as far as to say that Real Madrid were using MARCA to destabilize Ronaldo. The daily welcomed Ferguson’s paranoia gleefully and indeed reveled in the free marketing. While Ferguson’s comments were unfortunate, and in fact bordered on the ridiculous, it does bring about an interesting topic regarding the general role of the press in Spanish football, especially when in regards to the actions and goings-on of the big two, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

While there are a few respectable sports journalists working in Spain, you will be hard pressed to find them. Four tabloids, all of them containing a biased, sensationalist slant, dominate printed sports news. The aforementioned MARCA and Diario AS represent the Madrid based angle, while Diario Sport and El Mundo Deportivo represent Barcelona’s. Outrageous headlines, rumors, and ridiculous op-ed pieces drown out any decent journalism that actually does come out of these newspapers (to be fair, they all have some very capable people). Worst of all is that the rash, volatile headlines printed on their pages have a real and tangible effect on the decisions made by the big clubs.

Go back to the summer of 2006. Real Madrid had just finished one of the most shambolic electoral processes ever, with Ramón Calderón triumphing after a dubious decision by the local judge to cancel all of the absentee ballots. Given his tenuous position, Calderón was eager to please the social mass as best he could, especially after his Florentinian promise to bring Kaka’, Cesc Fabregas, and Arjen Robben if he was elected turned out to be a bold-faced lie. This is where the press stepped in, namely Oscar Ribot of AS. Olympique Lyon’s Mahmadou Diarra, a key component of the club’s overwhelming success in Ligue 1, was rumored to be on his way. Ribot then embarked on a vigorous and systematic campaign to bring the Malian midfield enforcer to the Bernabeu. Throughout the summer he ran daily articles praising the player’s footballing qualities, conducting favorable interviews, and, of course, the infamous camera pose with the player holding up the front cover of the newspaper. After a few weeks, it seemed like Diarra was the second coming of Uli Stielike, the player that would kill once and for all the omnipresent ghost of Claude Makelele. The fans were convinced, and online polls showed overwhelming support for his signing. It got to the point that Calderón stated in an interview that the club would pay “whatever it takes” to get the Malian to the Bernabeu. You could almost hear Lyon’s President Jean-Michel Aulas, a man notorious for his tough negotiating tactics, laughing in the distance. In the end Ribot got his wish, Real Madrid paid Lyon a whopping 27 million euros for Diarra’s services, more than Barcelona paid for superstars Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o, and Thierry Henry. Not surprisingly, Diarra proved to be nothing more than a decent, serviceable player, certainly not a player worth his exorbitant transfer fee.

The press’ influence is never felt stronger than when it comes to dealing with the managers of the top two teams. Criticizing a manager is one of their favorite pastimes. The grounds for criticism rarely have to do with a thorough tactical analysis but rather with how much the journalists ‘like’ the manager as a person. As a result, tough, no-nonsense managers like Fabio Capello and Louis Van Gaal have a very difficult time in Spain.

In the 2006/2007 campaign, Fabio Capello led Real Madrid to a remarkable league title, finally taking the club out of a 4-year spell in the doldrums. He managed to transition the club from the hedonism of the Galacticos to a more disciplined, professional atmosphere and he did so while winning a league. The mental toughness and fighting spirit of that team has become the stuff of legends, going on an incredible streak of results to finish the league, coming from behind in most of those matches. Capello was brought in to perform emergency surgery on a moribund club, and he succeeded. It was a fantastic job by one of the most lauded and successful managers in history. Not according to the Madrid based media. The journalists could not stand his authoritarian style, or his defense first philosophy. According to them, a manager that always plays defensive should never manage a club of Madrid’s greatness. Not surprisingly, they seemed to have forgotten the fact that Capello’s famous Milan side was utterly dominant in the early 90’s, including a 4-0 thrashing of Johan Cruyff’s famous ‘Dream Team’ Barcelona side in the 1994 Champions League final. In the early part of this decade, his Roma side played a very attractive brand of football, with the likes of Francesco Totti, Gabriel Batistuta, Antonio Cassano, and Cafu in the ranks.

The first half of the season was a very difficult one. The club was in turmoil after the elections, mired in a messy legal battle. Capello’s strict discipline clashed with Ronaldo’s indolence, and the Brazilian superstar became a major distraction. Capello eventually forced him out of the club, in a decision that was heavily lambasted at the time. The elimination in the Champions League round of 16 at the hands of Bayern Munich brought out the biggest criticisms, especially since Capello had left the press’ darling Guti on the bench for the decisive match in Germany. Much to the press’ dismay, however, the team miraculously reacted instantly in the next match against Barcelona at the Camp Nou. The spectacular 3-3 tie was a true point of inflexion in the season for both teams. The press, seeking an explanation for such an unlikely phenomenon, refused to give Capello any credit. They conveniently ignored the fact that Capello has been a master motivator throughout his career, and the best explanation they could come up with is that the players must have just gotten together and decided not to listen to his inane babble and do things their way. Despite constant messages from the squad that they could not be happier with Capello’s work, and that they clearly wanted him to stay, the press continued with their ridiculous discourse. After the euphoria of the league title, Capello was ignominiously sacked by Ramón Calderón in favor of Bernd Schuster, a man that was much more to the press’ liking, at least at the time. Hindsight has proven that Capello was right in almost all of his decisions, especially with regards to Ronaldo, who is currently trying to come back from a potentially career-ending knee injury and embroiled in an ugly scandal involving transsexual prostitutes, yet the man that managed to turn around a club going nowhere continues to get very little respect from the almighty Spanish press.

The incomparable Louis Van Gaal suffered similar difficulties in his time at Barcelona. Always an eccentric personality, there is no doubt that Van Gaal is one of the most capable managers in Europe. His Ajax side was revolutionary, winning the Champions League with a brand of football that was unseen in Europe until then. With Barca he achieved good success during one of Real Madrid’s strong periods. Most recently he managed to take AZ to runners up in the Eredivisie as well as the KNVB Cup. After the Catalan press forced Bobby Robson out for his supposed inaction at the helm, despite him winning the Copa del Rey and the Cup Winner’s Cup, Barcelona decided to hire Louis Van Gaal, the most sought-after manager in Europe. The sheen wore off fairly quickly when it was clear that Van Gaal was not going to count on the base of Canteranos that had emerged from the club’s junior divisions after the decline of the Dream Team. The likes of Roger, Oscar, and Jordi Cruyff were being phased out by what were seen as foreign “mercenaries” like Michael Reiziger, Cristoph Dugarry, Sonny Anderson, and of course the brilliant and controversial Rivaldo. This was only one season removed from the Bosman ruling that opened up the transfer market, and the press saw this invasion of foreign players as stripping Barca of its soul. Even Jordi Pujol, the emblematic, nationalist president of Catalunya at the time bemoaned the decatalanization of Barca.

Barca had a tremendous season, winning a rare league and cup double. Despite this success, the press never forgave Van Gaal who they saw as a sort of soulless machine, impervious to the sensibilities and passions of Barcelona. When the next season began with a string of bad results, the knives were out in full force. Van Gaal barely made it to Christmas amidst a barrage of hostility despite being just three points behind the leaders Celta de Vigo. In the winter transfer window, Van Gaal signed Frank and Ronald De Boer, two of his former players with Ajax. He was further criticized for trying to make Barcelona a Dutch colony. Much to the press’ dismay, the twins fit in right away, and Barcelona went on a tremendous run of results and eventually won the league with three weeks left.

Behavior like this is typical of the Spanish press. When they get it in their heads that a manager, or a player, or a president is unworthy, any success is in spite of him rather than because of him. In two years Van Gaal had won two leagues and a cup, certainly an impressive achievement. Yet the next season the call for his firing was constant and unanimous. Things blew up when Rivaldo, the team’s superstar and recent winner of the Ballon D’Or, came out and publicly criticized Van Gaal for playing him on the left of his infamous 3-3-3-1 formation. The season before, Rivaldo had thrived in this position, yet the press saw it as a clear sign that Van Gaal just didn’t understand his own players. With the atmosphere at a fever pitch, the elimination in the Semi finals of the Champions League that season signaled the end of Van Gaal’s first stint with Barca.

The press rejoiced fervently and welcomed the newly elected Joan Gaspart’s choice to replace the Dutchman, Lorenzo Serra Ferrer. Real Madrid was coming off an impressive Champions League trophy after replacing a similar “monster” in John Benjamin Toshack with the lovable and quiet Vicente Del Bosque. It seemed like the only way to European glory was by hiring an “hombre de la casa” (man of the club) who understood the soul of the institution and could relate to his players on a human level. Serra Ferrer fit the profile perfectly, even proclaiming that a manager’s job was to be a friend who helped his players. Despite his kindness and good manners, Serra Ferrer proved to be a terrible manager, and was fired when the team was a whopping 17 points behind leaders Real Madrid. The press, of course, bemoaned the injustice of not allowing such a nice guy to finish his first season, despite the horrendous form the team was in. The next year was hardly any different with Carles Rexach, another nice, gentle ¨hombre de la casa.¨ Another trophy-less season and Gaspart desperately turned back to the ¨monster¨, Louis Van Gaal.

Gaspart, in his infinite desire to please, decided to organize a meeting with the heads of the major Catalan newspapers to try to get them on board with the idea of re-hiring Van Gaal. Rexach had even proclaimed that it wasn’t important if he supported the decision, what really mattered was that Josep Maria Casanovas, the editor in chief of Sport, supported it.

While this may seem ridiculous, the need to have the press on their side is a high priority for the top clubs. Witness the sudden firing of Miguel Rico from Sport, a powerful, controversial, and most of all vocal critic of Joan Laporta’s current administration at Barcelona. Opinion polls stated that Rico was the most influential sports writer in Catalunya, and his vigorous and brave criticism of Laporta’s administration was seen as a tremendous thorn in the club’s side. Laporta, eager to rid himself of Rico’s powerful influence, reportedly threatened Casanovas with canceling important commercial agreements that the club had with the newspaper. Casanovas eventually capitulated and fired Rico, after 25 years at the newspaper.

The influence of the press will only continue to grow. The pseudo democratic structure of the two big clubs makes the people at the top more sensible to public opinion than the rest of the big clubs around Europe. They must keep the fans happy if they don’t want to get voted out. The Sports press in Spain, despite its lack of quality, can have a tremendous impact on public opinion. The latest has been the Catalan press’ praise of Laporta’s decision to hire Pep Guardiola to replace Rijkaard, over the much more accomplished Jose Mourinho, whom many consider the best manager in the world. We wouldn’t want to have another Van Gaal on our hands.

Whether Ronaldo winds up at Madrid will ultimately come down to the player’s wishes. One thing that is certain is that MARCA will be right in the thick of things, following the player’s every move, creating a wave of propaganda to bring him to the Bernabeu. For the moment, Real Madrid will be happy to ride this wave of positive press. All that, however, can change in an instant, should the club somehow slight a prominent journalist, or editor. Sadly, this is the state of Spanish football.