The drama of Valencia or how a historic club revives the panic over the relegation it already suffered in the 80s | Soccer | Sports
On Friday night, after the game in Leganés, Pepelu, Sergi Canós and Rubén Baraja had to get off the bus to calm the spirits of the fans who had traveled to Butarque to cheer on Valencia in critical hours. A team, one of the historic ones in the League, that occupies one of the relegation places after having only one victory and three draws in nine games. A streak that connects with an end to last season that was as terrible as it was inconsequential: eight points in the last nine games. The accounts say that Rubén Baraja’s team has achieved 14 of the last 54 points.
The fans are hot and their anger, until now focused solely on Peter Lim, the club’s owner for ten years, is beginning to expand. The first critical voices have already emerged towards Rubén Baraja, until recently an untouchable legend. Not even a totem of that brilliant and self-conscious Valencia that won two leagues and made a name in Europe in the early 2000s is saved from defeats. El Pipo feels that his future is up in the air if victories do not come quickly and even more so now that Valencia faces two crucial days that can mark an entire season: a home match next Monday the 21st against bottom club Las Palmas, and then a visit to Getafe (currently sixteenth), six days later.
The painful sporting situation of a team with six League titles, eight Copas del Rey, two Champions League finals, a Cup Winners’ Cup and a UEFA Cup, is a consequence of the delicate financial situation of the entity. The club has a structural debt that amounts to 335 million euros; Of that total, it has to face 135 million in the next 12 months, which has led the leaders to hire Goldman Sachs to find 120 million and try to refinance the debt. On the other hand, Lim, who has invested up to 300 million in the purchase of the club, leaves the sports management without resources, which leaves a poor image on the pitch with an increasingly rickety and disarmed team. A team that sells its stars and buys mediocre players. A club that has earned 200 million euros since 2020 and has only invested 30 million in signings. Last summer they spent 1.35 million euros, less than several Second Division clubs.
This is how Valencia has reached matchday nine of the League, almost a quarter of the championship, in relegation positions (17th), something that has not occurred since the 97-98 season, when Claudio Ranieri’s team, which had Replaced in charge by Jorge Valdano on the third day, he reached the ninth week of the League in seventeenth place, in relegation positions. But the team straightened its path, came back and even reached the now defunct Intertoto.
The 80s were much worse. “During those years the club was going through a very bad economic time due to a series of promises for the 82 World Cup that was played in Spain – Mestalla was one of the venues – and which were not fulfilled. Ramos Costa was forced to leave the presidency in ’83, recalls journalist Alfonso Gil, who covered Valencia for decades. In the midst of that financial crisis, the first warning came. It was in the 1982-1983 season. Valencia was second to last, seventeenth, on matchday nine. Salvation was not closed until the last day, May 1, 1983, when a four-way carom left Valencia in the First Division and Las Palmas, Celta and Santander in the Second Division.
The most veteran fans will never forget that day or, above all, that goal by Miguel Tendillo. The center back scored against Real Madrid, which would become his team two seasons later. That header that Agustín could not stop ended up giving the victory to Valencia, which came bottom of the League and was also favored by three other results: the defeat of Las Palmas against Javier Clemente’s Athletic (1-5), that took the title over a Real Madrid that would have won a draw at Mestalla, Celta in Valladolid (3-1) and Racing against Atlético de Madrid (3-1).
“Valencia had a good team that year, with Kempes, Felman, Pablo, Castellanos, Carrete, Arias, Saura, Solsona… And the curious thing is that the League started with a victory against Barcelona in Maradona’s debut in Spain. That season, Valencia did not achieve any away wins, only two draws, and still escaped. But it is curious that in the memory of many Valencia fans it has remained that the team did not go down that year, but the following year, when it did not, three seasons passed before the relegation was consummated,” says Gil, author of several books about Valencia. and professor of a subject on the history of the club at the University of Valencia.
Disaster came in the 1985-1986 season. The club was in a ruinous situation with a debt of almost 2,000 million pesetas. The team started the season with Óscar Rubén Valdez on the bench, but when the League began to go wrong, the president, Vicente Tormo, decided to bring in Alfredo Di Stéfano, the coach with whom they had won their last League, in ’71. The team reached matchday 9 in tenth position with three wins, three draws and three losses. “If you take into account that the victory then was only worth two points, we can say that they came to that day with twice as many points as now. It is also striking that they finished the League with the same points (25) as the season they were saved, a figure that this time was insufficient.” Valencia were relegated, for the first and last time in their history, on April 13, 1986, with one matchday remaining.
The star signing of that season was Manuel Sánchez Torres, a son of immigrants who had stood out as a scorer for Twente. The bet was a failure and the forward finished the League with a goal. Di Stéfano, with his usual sarcasm, portrayed it in one sentence: “The problem that Sánchez Torres has is that Sánchez is always fighting with Torres…”.
