Many Spanish La Liga fans may recall the recent exploits of Levante Unión Deportiva, S.A.D. (Spanish) or Llevant Unió Esportiva (Catalan). They are a Spanish football club based in Valencia currently playing in La Segunda División, after being relegated from La Liga at the end of the 2007/08 season. Click to continue reading...

El nueve es algo más que un dorsal. Implica demasiadas cosas. Así como el portador del diez es, generalmente, el señalado como el que aporta la magia, y dorsales como el siete o el once generalmente son clásicos de jugadores con fama de puñales, el nueve implica gol. Muchas veces sin brillo, sin glamour, con más garra que clase, pero gol. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is not prepared to send Fran Merida out on loan this season.

The 19-year-old Spaniard enjoyed a short spell back in his homeland in the 2007/08 campaign after being allowed to join Racing Santander.

There had been talk of a similar deal being struck this summer, with the teenage midfielder keen to experience regular first-team football.

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Escrito por LamaSer aficionado del Levante es un ejercicio de fe. Sabes que el poco valor histórico que tiene ya ser el club decano de la ciudad, de que son muchos años a la sombra del Valencia y que jamás tendremos el apoyo institucional y mediático que merecemos. Por contra, además de las emociones que te conlleva visitar cada dos semanas el Ciutat de Valencia, ser aficionado del Levante es Click to continue reading...

Without a single fact to back this up at the moment, it seems the financial crisis has hit Spanish football the hardest - mainly because so many clubs were on rocky financial footing to begin with. Levante couldn't even scrape up enough cash in the couch for a pizza last year (and are still struggling [. Click to continue reading...

Parece como si las estrellas del fútbol hubieran aprovechado la inauguración de nuestro "Gilicórner" para empezar a hacer el tonto. Y es que esta semana tenemos dónde elegir. Valdés, Cirillo, Lopera o Borriello son algunos de los protagonistas de las anécdotas más curiosas y variopintas de los últimos días en el mundo del deporte rey. Click to continue reading...

Match fixing in football is, unfortunately, nothing new. Some may even say it's par for the course, particularly if we're talking about Eastern European football (Romania & Poland, I'm lookin' at you). Oh, and Italy - Serie A has rivaled the WWE for legitimacy this decade. Even England has failed to go unscathed, with a [. Click to continue reading...

A esta Federación no hay por dónde cogerla. Lo más grande es que somos campeones de Europa con ella como abanderada. Al menos nos quedan otros 4 años de suplicio con Villar al frente del cotarro, ya que fue reelegido para desgracia de cualquier español aficionado al deporte rey. Pero al margen de lo descoordinados, [. Click to continue reading...

Una grabación sacada a la luz entre Iñaki Descarga y Julio Romero así lo atestigua. Sport CV, programa deportivo de Popular TV, ha difundido dicha cinta que demuestra que el último encuentro de aquella temporada entre los dos clubes podría haber estado amañado. Aquel choque se saldó con un 2-0 a favor del Athletic frente [. Click to continue reading...

Have you ever known that the percentage of outlandish news and rumors seems to spike during international breaks? You know, stuff like finding Cesc & Sergio Ramos dotting Milan's lineup next year. Or seeing Juventus switch their interest from one Merseyside-based Spaniard (Xaba) to another (Rafa). Click to continue reading...

It was more than the kickabout that was feared when the Levante players went on strike earlier in the week, though there was not a great deal of tension on the pitch with nothing competitive to play for from either side. The game was on, the party atmosphere was palpable from before kick-off and continued until the final whistle. Click to continue reading...

The Levante players, confirmed at a press conference today that they had called off their strike and would play the last game of the season at the Bernabéu tonight. The players, who have not trained all week, have been asking for all their unpaid salary contributions over the past couple of seasons to be guaranteed and were using the game against Real Madrid as a very visible platform for their Click to continue reading...

Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón gave his support to the Levante striking players in a radio interview, describing the situation as "sad, because the players have shown professionalism, honesty and dignity playing a great many games when they had not been paid. They have beaten sides who did not have those worries and that have all my respect, affection and support and that of Real Madrid. Click to continue reading...

Ahh, sweet glorious relief ... how wonderful it is!

The weight of the world has been lifted off our shoulders.
The birds are chirping. The sun is shining. The flowers smell wonderful and the effervescent coffee in the next room beckons us to enjoy the day ...

Ok, it's really cold, windy and rainy here in New York City this morning.

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Real Madrid's clash against Zaragoza on Sunday ended up as a mere anecdote, at least for the team from the capital, as it emerged that the last game of the season may not be played. The relegation-bound Levante players are threatening to go on strike, and thus potentially spoiling Real's planned end-of-season party, as they have not been paid for several months. Click to continue reading...

I'm keeping this one short as I battle a torrid head cold that just won't go away ... the players better not catch anything either, as evidenced by the picture above which shows Marchena and Villa enjoying the wet conditions at Paterna.

They're needed. Me? Not so much, as the great comments on the site more than make up for the blog.

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A fresh batch of rumours to warm the cockles of your heart.... Barcelona have finally come to terms with the fact that Cesc Fabregas won't we swooping back into Catalan lives like a glorious midfield boomerang, as director Txiki Begiristain grumbled: "he cannot return". (Various) ...Barcelona have now turned to the even less available Cristiano Ronaldo, and [. Click to continue reading...

Photo, Shoot is a new feature at Just-Football, looking at football photography from around the world. We hope it will become a regular feature on the site and of course welcome any contributions which, for all you budding sports photographers out there, can be emailed to just-football@live.com. The first in the series features FC Barcelona hitman Samuel Eto'o celebrating his hat-trick in the 5-1 Click to continue reading...

The One-liner Guide to La Liga is back like a Rolling Stones reunion tour. Let's go. Your Spanish Cosita Each town in Spain has their own feria. Feria is basically, a carnival. But they are the most intense week long carnivals you will ever be a part of in your life. Spain's most [...] Click to continue reading...

This year when Real Madrid face quality opponents they always play well, when they play teams like Levante who they should rack up at least 4 goals on, they turn into Casillas, Robinho, Ruud, Pepe, Ramos & the 'hijos de puta que no pueden hacer ni mierda'. Against Levante, it was worse, they turned into Pepe, Ruud and the 'sin verguenzas'. Click to continue reading...

There are two very attractive matchups this weekend but both fixtures look to be impacted heavily by injuries (or travel exhaustion) suffered by key players.
First let's look at the Real Madrid v Espanyol match. Real Madrid will be without Arjen Robben, Robinho and Gabriel Heinze for their trip to Barcelona. A potential boost to the Madrid squad could come from Guti and Fabio Cannavaro. Click to continue reading...

I picked a bad time to be away, didn't I? Events in the past week have been strangely reminiscent of the 04-05 season: great play, great sense of team spirit, tons of injuries. Perhaps it's a good omen, as Barca won the title that time, but I hope the squad remember that they did it by sticking together and working hard through the bad patches.
Here's an amazing statistic: it's been 10 months since we last won 4 in a row. Click to continue reading...

In my constant quest to indocrinate the Western World in the joy that is the Spanish culture, I present to you sangria. Now, you can make sangria in lots of different ways, but I give you my recipe, which I find to be the best. It's adapted from a few Spanish recipes, but [...] Click to continue reading...

Here is the wrap up for Jornada 3 of La Liga. I don't have much time to write wrap-ups for the games, so I will attempt to link to a report of each game for you to enjoy. Once I have more time on my hands and an opportunity to watch the games [...] Click to continue reading...

 Happy Monday to everyone. After a crazy weekend of moving and such, I'm back up and blogging. Here are the results for this weekend's La Liga action. The Sevilla-Osasuna game was postponed due to Sevilla's Champions League tie with AEK Athens on Tuesday. The game will be made up mid week sometime this season. Villareal 0 - [...] Click to continue reading...

For the past few weeks I have combed the paella and sangria filled landscape that is Spain to come up with a definitive La Liga preview. For the most part, La Liga coverage in English is a bit difficult to find, so I have had to do lots of digging to figure out what is [...] Click to continue reading...