First up? The Sevillistas of Andalucia: Sevilla FC.
This promises to be a good game. Sevilla are tied with us in points at 23 and are a well-oiled machine, with deadly strikers Luis Fabiano and Frederic Kanoute up front and Adriano and Jesus Navas running up the wings.

http://ohyoubeauty.blogspot.

He's played many roles with Valencia CF since signing for the club in 1997.

He's been loaned out to various teams, played for the B team, kept the locker room in order, bar backed at Manolo El Del Bombo's and served non-alcoholic beer at the Mestalla.

But seriously .

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Ownership changes.

Name Changes.

Cursed playoff history.

Stadium Issues.

Disrespect.

You name it, this franchise has gone through it.

And it took a goal post to change our fortunes. Four times.

For one magical night, the stench of disappointment was swept away by the sweet smell of victory.

Ok, maybe I'm going too far.

Last night's 3-2 loss to Villa's Sporting Gijon was a game we had to have. We can ill afford to lose points, what with this brutal schedule ahead of us in the league ...
11/23 - Sevilla
11/30 - Betis
12/6 - Barcelona
12/14 - Espanyol
12/21 - Real Madrid
1/4 - Atletico
1/11 - Villarreal
1/18 - Athletic Bilbao

Factor in Copa Del Rey, UEFA Cup and international matches for our top players and we're talking a glut of games in a short period of time.

Honestly, I did not concentrate much on this game, because I was quite turned off from the beginning after discovering Torres is not on the starting XI. Of course, having Rob Styles refereeing the match was another bummer.

The match was a reminiscence of the previous week's encounter with the Baggies.

Gijon aren't a particularly sexy club. They finished 3rd in Spain's Second Division last season and were promoted for the first time in 10 years.

They're currently languishing in 14th place, eleven points behind Los Che.

At least that's what team president/owner Vicente Soriano thinks after the club sold out of their new club memberships.

Valencia wanted 2,600 new members to raise badly needed funds.
"Our supporters have proven again that they are the best in the world," Soriano said.

I thought the contest was a hard-fought affair. The match had nine yellow cards and one red to Roberto Soldado for a headbutt on Carlos Marchena (more on that later). This speaks volumes about how hard-core this game turned out.

Getafe had no answers for our fiery defense and quick counter-attacks.

It was business as usual for our men in Red, as they wrapped up this late-kickoff match with a 3-nil victory over newly-promoted, West Brom Albion.

I turn to my 'friends' at goal.com for some information today ...

First, a preview of tomorrow's Getafe-Valencia match, a re-match of last season's Copa Del Rey final.

According to the sages at the website:

If Valencia do choose to continue playing reckless attacking football, they could be caught again against a Getafe side who, like Racing, thrive by playing on the counter.

Let's not go crazy and say the club is in crisis. But something's off with the team the last few games.

Could it be the lack of team depth?

Anyways, as for where President-Elect Obama will play, how about center back, where we're about to lose Real Madrid retread Ivan Helguera?

If we hadn't scored, I would probably started off by saying Liverpool was shite. Nando's former club outplayed us, and though we had most of the possessions in the 2nd half, we were not able to find the net.

It didn't take long before Liverpool found the net at the 3rd minute through Dirk Kuyt, courtesy of an unselfish assist from former Spurs hitman, Robbie Keane. And although Spurs tried to surge forward, they failed to get any decent shots on goal. Luka Modric, however, came close at the 41st minute, but Pepe Reina was on hand to thwart his effort.

- Seth Stammler is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.

- The Red Bulls are relying on past experience to assume that the Dynamo hate playing on the Giant Stadium turf/cement (as evidenced by the 3-0 destruction that took place earlier in the year).

Nicola Zigic's former club is struggling, scoring a scant 5 goals during the season.

Although Portugalete are enjoying a bit of an economic and sporting renaissance (they recently secured 1.5 million Euros from the local council to upgrade their training facilities and have won 12 consecutive home games), Valencia are expected to cakewalk against the Basque side.

Now, on to the game.

We're still leaders in Spain.

London bridge did fall down

Rafa's Red Army finally ended Chelski's unbeaten run at the Bridge, with a strike from our Spanish midfield maestro 10 minutes into the first half, making him the 2nd Liverpool player to score against Chelski in the League, after Bruno Cheyrou in February 2004.

First off, a nice little ditty about our wonder coach Unai Emery and his resemblances to former coach and current Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez.

Valencia have been transformed from a strife-ridden side that flirted with relegation last season to the early Primera Liga leaders thanks to new coach Unai Emery's ability to unite the dressing room.

First up, Atletico v. Liverpool today, part of the Champions League group stage. There was lots of controversy leading up to this one with the suspensions of Atletico head coach, Javier Aguirre and use of home grounds put on hold.