La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 15 



Good Day

â¨â¨Atlético Madridâ¨â¨

La Liga Loca is in an uncharacteristically frisky mood, having woken up to a big bunch of snow in Madrid.

But the responsible BBC-listening blog is well aware that this is bad news for old folk, travellers and pedestrians looking to cross the road without being mashed - a group it will soon be joining.â¨â¨

But it has decided to make Atleti the fairy at the top of the Good Day tree on the account of the Rojiblancos not losing their Sunday evening encounter with Tenerife.â¨â¨

ThatâÂÂs not to say that the Calderón club didn't try their very best to make it 45 weeks in succession in the Bad Day section, but an iffy penalty for Tenerife was saved by Sergio Asenjo whilst the youngster blocked a Nino effort with just 10 seconds left on the clock.

â¨â¨AtléticoâÂÂs fine start to the new season sees them in 15th place and just two points from the relegation zone.

La Liga Loca salutes you.â¨â¨

Rafael van der Vaart

Unlike Lady Gago, the Dutch fella opted against sulking, whining and getting his agent to moan to the press during his ongoing absence from the starting line-up.â¨â¨

Instead, Van der Vaart kept on working hard, made an impression when he did feature - including the near-impossible feat of a goal against Alcorcón - and has been rewarded with a series of sparkling starts.

â¨â¨Rather than being stuck out on the wings or in midfield, the Dutch international is now in his favourite Kaká-shaped second striker position and demonstrated what a classy piece of footballing booty he really is with two goals against Zaragoza on Saturday night.

One Rafa pointing upwards

â¨â¨Fernando Llorenteâ¨â¨

A first-minute strike from Fran Yeste, set up by Fernando Llorente, led to the expected feisty, filthy footballing contest against Osasuna being more than a little dull - mainly thanks to the abject surrender of the visitors.â¨â¨

But it was still a good night for the possible World Cup player Llorente, who added a goal soon after his early assist.â¨â¨

Roberto Soldadoâ¨â¨

Two more goals, making it 10 in la Liga for Soldado has got MichelâÂÂs spider sense tingling with the Getafe manager predicting that âÂÂif he stays at this level, then unfortunately he wonâÂÂt be with us for much longer.âÂÂâ¨â¨

All the blog will add to this is that some club, somewhere, is in for a huge disappointment.

â¨â¨Valladolid

Playing Sporting in about -50 degrees on what appeared to be an ice-rink brought a desperately needed win for Valladolid, thanks to a lovely but very late effort from Haris Medunjanin.â¨â¨

Gustavo Munúaâ¨â¨

Some decent recent performances have finally been rewarded with MálagaâÂÂs 2-1 victory over Mallorca being the southern sideâÂÂs second win of the league campaign.â¨â¨

But the biggest winner of the day was Málaga keeper Gustavo Munúa, who not only beat his Mallorca counterpart Dudu Aouate in a very real sense whilst they were both at Deportivo, but did it again on Sunday with a string of fine saves while Dudu¨âÂÂs dunderings handed the home side all three points.

â¨â¨Barcelonaâ¨

Six titles, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda.â¨â¨â¨

Bad Day

Jermaine Pennantâ¨â¨

La Liga Loca had a natter with the Zaragoza man soon after the 6-0 walloping by Madrid - perhaps the perfect end to the perfect day for poor old Pennant - and found the winger in a bit of a dark place.â¨â¨

However, less-than-jolly Jermaine did say that he would be back with Zaragoza in the new year after a week in Blighty but that the squad still had no clue as to who the new manager would be.â¨â¨

Pennant considers the ostrich approach

To be fair to the Englishman, Pennant had absolutely no chance to shine in a game where Zaragoza only managed a single shot on target and where they were cat food from the moment the game kicked off.â¨â¨

Marca director Eduardo Indaâ¨â¨

The blog's not sure if it has handed out a âÂÂMoron of the Yearâ award before, but it's going to start now.

This yearâÂÂs hands-down, no-contest winner is Marca director Eduardo Inda.â¨â¨

Aside from selling his journalistic soul to Florentino Pérez some time ago, Inda triumphed in 2009 with his âÂÂ20 reasons why Manuel Pellegrini should be sackedâ article followed soon after by âÂÂseven more reasons why Pellegrini should goâ special.â¨â¨

Well, it had gone embarrassingly quiet on that front with Real Madrid doing reasonably well of late.

But the lunacy was back on Monday - perhaps after a little nudge from the Madrid president - with the paperâÂÂs editorial responding to a handy 6-0 win at the weekend by bitching about the Madrid boss failing to start with Karim Benzema.

â¨â¨âÂÂGood managers are capable of playing all their big stars at the same time,â moans Marca. âÂÂThe Bernabeu is demanding its stars and Benzema is one of them.âÂÂ

â¨â¨For a start, the Bernabeu was deathly silent on Saturday and wasnâÂÂt demanding anything aside from the overhead heating being cranked up to 11.â¨â¨

And isnâÂÂt the real reason for the paperâÂÂs peculiar stance down to the fact that SaturdayâÂÂs win was built by Gonzalo Higuaín, Marcelo and Rafael van der Vaart, who all happen to be Ramón Calderón signings?

â¨â¨Hugo Sánchez

â¨â¨ItâÂÂs Christmas, so itâÂÂs high time that Almería fired their coach in a move that La Liga Loca may have a good rant about in the days to come.

â¨â¨Last year Gonzalo Arconada was royally Scrooged by his bosses; this time around it's Hugo Sánchez who has been festively fracked after SundayâÂÂs 2-0 defeat to Espanyol.â¨â¨

Sevilla

â¨â¨Seven points lost at home against the titanic trio of Málaga, Valladolid and now Getafe.

Useless from Sevilla. Absolutely useless.â¨â¨â¨

*Have a 45 minute window in your life? Well you can waste it by watching La Liga Loca wittering away on RMTVâÂÂs season-so-far review show Extra Time, repeated throughout the festive period.

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