Hola! It’s Friday, and time for your weekly update from Bilbao with Nick. The Basque Boys are twelve points behind Barcelona in the league, but still very much in the Copa Del Rey and Cup Winners Cup…
I might have to remove Copa Del Rey from that opening statement, after the donkeys hammer us. Sure, we could have just played badly, but I suspect we’ve fallen victim to the infamous cup bug. Forget donkeys – I smell a rat.
Moving swiftly on, it’s a typical derby against Sociedad, with neither side wanting to give an inch, but Laslandes gets the all-important goal. Real Madrid fail to help us in the El Clasico, losing 2-0.
After a good start against Atletico, Alkorta’s red card comes back to bite us in the second half. They’ve not beat us in a while, so this was probably coming, and of course Barca choose this week to lose to Sevilla – For f*ck sake!
We’re not at our best in the Cup Winners Cup semi second leg against Leeds, but there’s no points for prettiness, and we get the job done. We’ll face Mönchengladbach in the final, after they beat Auxerre.
This puzzles me – we get a record low crowd for a final, but a record high for a semi final. Obviously Leeds must be a bigger draw than Man Utd…
The cup second leg against the donkeys seems largely pointless, and this time we batter them, but we’re f*cked over by a super keeper performance, just look at those stats…
It’s a similar story against the little green bin men, with their keeper having the game of his life, but Alkorta atones for his red card against Atletico by scoring what turns out to be the winner, just before their late consolation.
Oviedo are back to being c*nts. We win, but it’s like walking through treacle, and they Puche us right up to the final whistle. Our defence hasn’t been great lately – that’s twelve goals conceded in seven games…
Speaking of c*nts, Valladolid may have humiliated us on Boxing Day, but we deliver the killer punches this time, and order is restored, but it’s not enough to prevent Barca from being crowned champions.
With our league and cup hopes well and truly down the drain, we turn to the Cup Winners Cup. This final has everything, and although we’re on top for most of the match, De Pedro’s penalty miss proves to be the turning point, and ironically we go on to lose on penalties. I’d have been more gutted if we hadn’t already won this competition, but it’s still annoying.
We seem to be saving our worst performances for the end of the season, but this particular Saturday night, we takeaway three points from Antandec…
I’d have been happy for the title race to come down to this game against Barca, but in reality it’s totally meaningless. We hold them to a 1-1 draw, which is better than the usual trouncing.
Betis hand us our fourth defeat of the season in our penultimate match. I really do want to kick Kennet Andersson in the Nadjers…
We finish the season at home to relegated Mallorca. We need a point to secure second, and after an anxious half an hour, Laslandes and his countryman Histilloles seal a magnifique 3-0 win.
So here’s how the table ended up. We finish fifteen behind Barca, which is the smallest margin so far, so we’re getting closer, but they just don’t slip up, ever. The annoying thing is that our points total would have easily won the league in England and Italy!
I’m slightly pleased to see Valladolid go down, and they along with Mallorca, Cordoba and the little green bin men will be replaced next season by Salamanca, Merida, Levante, and Logrones.
In the other leagues, Man Utd win the league and FA Cup, and Arsenal the League Cup. It’s also a league and cup double for Juventus. Real Madrid win the Champions League, and Parma the UEFA Cup. But the best news is that the donkeys beat Real Madrid in the Copa Del Rey final – ha ha f*cking ha!
It’s a new high average home attendance, which probably means the board will blow most of my transfer budget on new seats…
I can’t find enough superlatives for this man…
And here are the squad stats. Arenaza, De Pedro, and Karanka were excellent additions, Idiakez struggled, but his time will come. Laslandes and Arenaza scored 57 goals between them, and there was a decent supply of goals from midfield as well.
Surely this should get us out of the red…
This caps off a great year for this man after his 28 goals, and return to the national side.
And this was what I was hoping for, thank you CM Gods!
The first thing I do is pick up four tasty regens, the first is Andoni Zubizaretta.
Jon Andoni Goikoetxea follows…
Next is Aitor “Txiki” Beguiristain…
And last but by no means least, Julio Salinas…
I already own Jose Maria Bakero’s regen, so I now have almost half of Barca’s Champions League-winning side of 1992 reincarnated, so that could mean a promising future for the Basque Boys.
And that takes us up to 15th July, So before I click the update button, I’d like to say thanks for joining me this season, and although we only ended up with one trophy, it’s progress, and bar a disastrous qualifying draw, we should be playing Champions League football next season. See you next week for season five, adios amigos!