As Real Valladolid slipped to their the 8th defeat of the season, a single-goal loss to Osasuna in Pamplona, you could only imagine that they would be throwing their defenders into the box, fighting with grit, with a knife between their teeth for survival, and launching the kitchen sink, shortly after the ball. La Pucela lack the fire for that though. Their one scrambled chance in stoppage time a product of a poor clearance, was another reminder that when Valladolid lose, they slip as if into sleep, rather than falling on a dramatic climb to safety.
That has become a pattern in Castile and Leon. Valladolid have done this dance before, a stiff waltz through La Liga, where chemistry, choreography and rhythm are ephemeral. Paulo Pezzolano’s side sit second-from bottom in La Liga, conceding 24 goals in 12 games, scoring just 9 times, the only team alongside Valencia and Getafe yet to move into double figures. Defensively porous, Valladolid are not set up to attack, nor do they go out of their way to present huge obstacles to the opposition on the way to their goal. When opposition managers come up against Valladolid, what exactly do they plan against?
With the exception of a strong performance on the opening day of the season against fellow promoted side Espanyol, there’s little in the way of a blueprint to follow either. Their other win came courtesy of two penalties and a breakaway goal as Alaves chased their equaliser. Even if Valladolid were not to be characterised by a strong sense of style, perhaps the even bigger problem is a computer-generated lack of personality. Over the course of the season, Valladolid have gone behind and equalised just twice; you guessed it, from 12 yards out.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with not being very good, and any promoted side can be expected to struggle. Football fans rarely abandon their clubs, and usually will digest failure, if it is earned. Yet at the Nuevo Jose Zorrilla, Valladolid fans are given no narrative to draw them in, no image with which to identify themselves. Scour their season, and there is not much to suggest a change. As happened under Sergio Gonzalez, Pacheta and Pezzolano before, Valladolid will try to cling to Primera status, but have already started their trudge back to Segunda, whether it be this season or next.
In theory, being promoted twice and relegated twice in the last six years of Ronaldo Nazario’s ownership describes at least four years of excitement, of twists and turns. Nobody is denying them the glory of their promotion campaigns, but ignominy of their Liga years make them harder to savour. The great Brazilian may have helped manage their financial debts, but he owes La Pucela something more.
As a player, Ronaldo encompassed everything modern football promised, doused in magic. Beyond being a brilliant, he was toothy, but beautiful. Spending time with him, in-person or via televisual means, was engaging, fun and at times, mesmerising. Literally named the phenomenon, Ronaldo was physically capable of flying past opponents. His abundance of technical ability meant he was constantly innovating. Ronaldo had it all – and a smile to cure a bad day.
Something about that contrast with his glum Valladolid grates a little more than if he were a more obscure businessman. Ronaldo knows first-hand how it should be. Three sides had a higher net spend on transfers this summer in La Liga: Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Their most expensive signing, 21-year-old Stipe Biuk from Los Angeles FC, went on loan to Hajduk Split less than two months after his arrival. Pezzolano decided he wasn’t to his liking, a symptom that whatever Ronaldo, Sporting Director Domingo Catoira and Pezzolano are doing, they are not working on a project.
If football is entertainment, only Raul Moro, their sole well of excitement, can claim to be holding up his end of the bargain. If football is community, the frequent protests against Ronaldo and the ragged relationship between Pezzolano and the fans speak for support that has been alienated. Best exemplified by the brief period when Valladolid changed their badge, giving it less of an identity. If football is, as we all fear, a business, the struggle to sell the club in recent years implies that it, like the product on the pitch, just isn’t that attractive.
There is no punishment or penalty for lacking quality, nor for more traditionally disdained styles of football – all shapes and sentiments are appreciated here. Yet when there is a lack of care, an absence of ambition or a void where the passion that drives football should be, it is the fans that take the hits, and in expensive fashion, pay the price. It is on that unhappy island of limbo that Valladolid fans find themselves looking out from, as ships and years pass by.