When Life Imitates Dream Team, continued…
Posted by steigs on January 14, 2008
The ever-readable Sid Lowe of the Guardian brings us an update on Levante, Valencia’s second team:
If Valencia’s tubby tache-wearing owner Juan Bautista Soler is dumb, Levante owner Pedro Villarroel is dumber. Sackings, signings and shifty shenanigans, anything Soler can do, Villarroel can do better: from the nine coaches in seven years, to almost 30 signings in two seasons; from the huge debt to the disillusioned fans at a ground with the third-worst attendance record in primera; from allegations of secret pay-offs securing survival to the “charitable foundation” siphoning off cash; from the players sprinting for the door to the medical staff joining them; from the jumped-up threats to the desperate results, Villarroel has been the perfect president. For someone else’s team.
And:
It got worse when star signing Shota Arveladze got injured using the club’s makeshift gym, comprising of a couple of weights slung across a pair of chairs, and never played again, spiralling headlong into depression. It got even worse when the club ignored the coach and signed seven players over 30; when Savio is so past it his manager describes him as a “dead man walking”…
Now we just need a good sex scandal and we’re in Harchester United territory….
