cricketman

No the Montjuic Olympic stadium was only a temporary stadium for Espanyol while they built themselves a new one. They moved into the new one at the beginning of last season.

Espanyol is a small club and the games at the Olympic stadium lacked any kind of atmosphere, and the fans didnt like going there. Now they have a smaller stadium they are getting bigger crowds.

Re, Mourinho. Everyone in Spain hates him and his attitude. He is arrogant, egotistic, rude and disrespectful. For this reason Madrid dont have the best of away records, because the other clubs defend for their lives against them and the other "Puto Portugueses". The Madrid board also dislike Mourinho. The fans in the main like him, but only when he is winning.

Unless they win one of the three trophies this year (league, cup or CL) then he may be on his way in the summer. If not, it will be the summer afterwards. Mourinho Madrid isnt a long term thing, they are not "Made for each other" like Guardiola and Barca.

Dick Dasterdly

Not a very helpful or encouraging situation for a manager when he is obviously despised by his employers so quite possible he will be gone at the end of the season regardless of what happens.
Another factor which was mentioned before he even got the job, was that his preferred style of football did not fit in with usual Real style.

Just watched a good game between Athletico and Villareal.
Both decent sides and well matched,first half anyway, which makes a change from watching Barca and Real games which tend to be too one sided.
Strange incident in the Presidents box when the Villareal Pres actually showed some emotion by throwing his hands in the air when Villareal scored, much to the obvious disgust of his opposite number.
Strange custom anyway, whereby opposing Presidents are expected to sit side by side all game and show absolutely no feelings or emotion.

cricketman

Yes - and the custom has been completely disrepected by the new Indian owner of Racing Santander who goes berserk everytime his team scores a goal while sat next to the opposite teams chairman.

The guy also speaks not a word of Spanish. You can imagine what the opposing chairman think of him, there has been plenty of head shaking.

However, the Santander fans love him!

Re, Mourinho. Given that the Spanish news cover every interview during the season I can conclude that the guy is the very opposite of a gentleman, and it would be great to see him go back to the Premiership where he can be idolised by the sycophantic British media. What he said about Pellegrini the other day was unforgivable "The difference between me and Pellegrini is I would never manage a club like Malaga, I only manage big clubs". Idiot

Dick Dasterdly

No doubt many ppl share your opinion, and he obviously has upset a few folk in Spain recently, however for me apart from his harmless little wisecracks, the guy normally just speaks his mind.
Take that incident you mention. I imagine it would simply be looked upon as a bit of harmless fun in the UK and no hard feelings, but the Spanish do take themselves a bit too seriously at times where football is concerned.
He quite rightly does not have a high opinion of the way football is run in both Italy and Spain, which he made fairly clear before taking on either job.
He had a bit of a love/hate relationship with fans and the media in the UK.
However at the end of the day he won the respect of most ppl for both his ability as a coach and his wicked dry sense of humour and at the end of the day most fans accepted him for what he was and he has since been a big miss from the English game.
His repeated wind-ups of players,managers and refs were much better understood in the Premier league, and at the end of the day there was little or no animosity and he could sit down and enjoy a chat,a laugh and a glass of wine with such as Ferguson and any others he had wound up or crossed swords with.
Maybe such a sense of humour and understanding is sadly lacking amongst the powers that be, and many others as well, in Spanish and Italian football,the ridiculous behaviour of the Presidents being just one example.
They seem to lack that ability to switch off, put their differences to one side and have a laugh and a joke together once the game is over.
I think he would be welcomed back with open arms in the Prem by friends and opponents alike, for that little extra dimension he gives to the game, apart of course from those who take him to seriously and are unable to get their heads around his wicked sense of humour.
I still laugh at that little run-in he had with the UK authorities about his Yorkie terrier, which mysteriously turned up back in Portugal a short while later.

cricketman

I've not seen any evidence of a sense of humour since he has been in Spain. I agree, I liked Mourinho in England, but back then he was much more relaxed.

Now he is someone who hates the entire world. He makes excuses for everything and blames opposing managers, referees, jounalists and players every time Madrid dont win.

He takes himself far too seriously and it seems he can't see how Madrid can beat Barcelona so he has set out to offend as many people as possible so that Madrid will sack him.

Mourinho is a great manager, but a horrible human being.

Dick Dasterdly

Well he's probably given up on his little jokes and tongue in cheek remarks as every single word he speaks in Spain is carefully analysed and taken so seriously.
Added to that he doesn't like the way the clubs are run, he doesn't like his employers, he faces the prospect of failure, i.e coming second to Barca, so he is likely more than a little depressed and probably as sick as a parrot regarding the Spanish scene.
The thing is that much of this was forecast before he took the job, in addition to which his style of football would not be quite what was expected at Real Madrid, so all in all no great surprise really.
Had Barca not have been reigning supreme, with possibly their best side of all time, I suppose it could well have been a different story.

steviedeluxe

Could be a classic tonight! Hope it's not a walkover, anyway!

HBG

I don’t like all this rough talk about belligerent managers, dirty players and feuding fans. We should follow the beautiful game the way it is played, supported and managed in Scotland, when Rangers meet Celtic.

steviedeluxe

Ended in tears...

http://www.theolivepress.es/news/201...ish-adventure/

I'd really like to see Hoddle back in charge of a big club again. But I suspect he's seen as a "difficult type". Superb footballer, imo.

Dick Dasterdly

Interesting quarter final champions league line up.

Chelsea v Man U Will be a tough clash,...again.

Real v Spurs should be a really attractive tie,
Spurs will need a full squad available to stand any chance, however they have ground advantage in the second leg which should be helpful.

As far as the other ties are concerned it should be a walkover for both Inter and Barca, leaving the possibility of a cracking Real/Barca semi.
Man U or Chelsea then likely take on Inter in the other semi.

Also a possible Inter v Barca final which could be interesting.

steviedeluxe

I'm not so sure about Barca (or Inter) having walkovers - no weak teams at this stage.
But yes, looking like some superb games coming up. Spurs will need to prevent conceding too many goals in the first leg. They've got away with conceding goals before, as they're always capable of scoring themselves, but they may just come unstuck if they don't tighten up. As for the all-English club game (well very few English players, but you know what I mean) I'm going to plump for Chelsea, on the basis their top players will click at some point. Which means the clever money is now probably on Man U

steviedeluxe

For once Real get the better of this talented Barcelona team, and win the King's Cup. Barcelona are still favourites to win in the Champions League, but at least this result shows it probably won't be a pushover. Highly amusing incident after the game last night, when Sergio Ramos dropped the cup and it was squashed under the celebration bus. Funny old game, football!

Dick Dasterdly

A disappointing game as far as the neutral spectators were concerned, but it is so often the case in cup finals.
I watched quite a lot of the Spurs/Arsenal match which was much more entertaining with not quite so much childish nonsense.

jdr

You are joking as usual of course, it was an excellent fast moving game.
If fatboy from Manure had been playing he would of passed out under the pressure.

agoreira

Agree, there's more than enough amateur dramatics in the Premiership, but I find Spanish football hard to watch because of players looking as if they have been shot, killed etc, only to make a Lazarus type recovery minutes later. And as soon as anyone comes within yards of them, they are diving all over the place, spoils the game for me.