Valencia drama or how a historic club revives the panic over the relegation it already suffered in the 80s | Football | Sport

On Friday evening, after the game in Leganés, Pepel, Sergi Canos and Ruben Baraja had to get off the bus to calm the spirits of the fans who had come to Butarque to support Valencia in critical hours. The team is one of the historical ones in the League, occupying one of the relegation places, with only one win and three draws in nine matches. The streak to end last season was as dire as it was inconsequential: eight points in the last nine games. Reports say Ruben Baraja’s side have won 14 of the last 54 points.

The fans are passionate and their anger, until now focused solely on Peter Lim, the club’s owner for ten years, is beginning to intensify. The first critical voices have already been heard against Ruben Baraja, who until recently was an untouchable legend. Not even the totem of that brilliant and shy Valencia, which won two leagues and made a name for itself in Europe in the early 2000s, can save them from defeat. El Pipo feels his future is in doubt if victories do not come quickly and evenly. especially now that Valencia faces two decisive days that could mark the entire season: a home match next Monday, the 21st, against bottom club Las Palmas, and then a visit to Getafe (now the sixteenth), six days later.

The difficult sporting situation of the team, which has six league titles, eight Spanish Cups, two Champions League finals, a Cup Winners’ Cup and a UEFA Cup, is a consequence of the difficult financial situation of the enterprise. The club has a structural debt of €335 million; Of that amount, it faces $135 million over the next 12 months, leading 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 to buy the club, leaves the sports management without resources, which leaves a bad image on the field with an increasingly reeling 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 invested only 30 million in transfers. They spent €1.35 million last summer, less than several second division clubs.

This is how Valencia reached the ninth round of the league, almost a quarter of the championship, in a relegation position (17th place), something that has not happened since the 97–98 season, when Claudio Ranieri’s team, replaced by Jorge Valdano on the third day, reached the ninth week of the league on seventeenth place, in the relegation position. But the team straightened out its path, returned and even reached the now defunct Intertoto.

It was much worse in the 80s: “During those years the club was going through very difficult economic times due to a number of promises regarding the 82 World Cup, which was held in Spain (one of the stadiums was Mestalla), but which were not fulfilled. Ramos Costa was forced to resign as president in 1983, recalls journalist Alfonso Gil, who covered Valencia for decades. At the height of the financial crisis, the first warning sounded. This was during the 1982-1983 season. In the ninth round, Valencia was penultimate, seventeenth. Salvation was not closed until the final day, May 1, 1983, when the four-way carom left Valencia in the First Division and Las Palmas, Celta and Santander in the Second Division.

The most experienced fans will never forget that day and, above all, Miguel Tendillo’s goal. The central defender scored a goal against Real Madrid, which would become his team two seasons later. This header, which Agustin could not stop, ultimately brought victory to Valencia, who finished last in the league, and was also helped by three other results: the defeat of Las Palmas by Athletic Javier Clemente (1-5), who won the title. Real Madrid would win draws at Mestalla, Celta Valladolid (3-1) and Racing at Atlético Madrid (3-1).

“Valencia had a good team that year: Kempes, Felman, Pablo, Castellanos, Carrete, Arias, Saura, Solsona… And the most curious thing is that the league began with a victory over Barcelona in Maradona’s debut match in Spain. Valencia didn’t have a single away win that season, just two draws, and still slipped away. But the interesting thing that remains in the memory of many Valencia fans is that the team was not relegated that year, and the next year, when that did not happen, three seasons passed before the relegation was over,” says Gil, author of Valencia ” several books about Valencia and professor of club history at the University of Valencia.

The disaster occurred during the 1985–1986 season. The club found itself in a ruinous situation with a debt of almost 2 billion pesetas. The team started the season with Oscar Ruben Valdez on the bench, but when problems began in the League, president Vicente Tormo decided to bring in Alfredo Di Stefano, the coach with whom they won their last League in 1971. By the 9th round the team was in tenth position with three wins, three draws and three losses. “If you consider that a victory then was worth only two points, then we can say that they came to this day with twice as many points as they have now. What’s also amazing is that they finished the league with the same number of points (25) as the season in which they were saved, and this time that figure was not enough.” Valencia were eliminated for the first and last time in their history on April 13, 1986, with one match day remaining.

The star player that season was Manuel Sánchez Torres, the son of immigrants and Twente’s outstanding goalscorer. The bet was unsuccessful, and the forward finished the championship with a goal. Di Stefano, with his usual sarcasm, summed it up in one sentence: “The problem with Sanchez Torres is that Sanchez is always fighting with Torres…”.