Soccer Saturday
The end of the soccer season brings up matches against clubs with differing objectives. This is always true, but is magnified by the whatever scenarios the table reflects. For example, Swansea who won a cup and a European place a month or so ago have failed to win since, enjoying an extended holiday. In Spain, they take this to a whole other level, with the allegations of maletas (suitcases, presumably filled with cash) being passed around from clubs needing points to their weekly opponents who do not. Levante, who also haven’t won in a month, are the latest to be accused
Following the heavy loss to Deportivo, Levante forward Jose Barkero apparently accused four of his teammates— captain Sergio Ballesteros, goalkeeper Gustavo Munua, forward Juan Luis “Juanlu” Gomez, and defender Juan Francisco “Juanfran” Garcia— of a suspicious lack of effort in the match.
Barkero later publicly retracted his accusations. It is not clear if the league had already begun investigating prior to leaks of Barkero’s accusations.
“I only want to make public what I have told my teammates,” Barkero said at a news conference on Wednesday. “I asked them for forgiveness, above all my four teammates, those who I accused of something erroneous. I ask Ballesteros, Munua, Juanlu, and Juanfran for forgiveness for what I have done to their image, their persons and their family, because they didn’t deserve it.
“I am the one who was wrong. I accused them of something that didn’t really happen.”
Match-fixing is a crime in Spain and can lead to prison time for individuals or expulsion of a club from official competition.
Nothing sketchy to see here at all. It should also be noted that the Spanish FA is between 10 and 100 times more incompetent than Congress depending on who you ask, so any investigation will likely go the way of the US Attorney “investigating” a TBTF bank. See if this makes any sense:
Kick-off times are not confirmed until a fortnight or so before the matches take place, when the details are published on this page. However, these are liable to change at short notice and we strongly recommend you check with the club if you are hoping to attend a game.
This season first division kick-off times have been spaced out so that as a general rule no two matches coincide. This means that, as from week 13, there will normally be one match on Friday night and one on Monday, with four games spaced out between 4.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. on Saturday, and four more on Sunday between mid-day and 9.00 p.m. Only one match will be shown on an open TV programme, with the specialised sports channel Marca usually broadcasting a fixture between two of the lesser ranked teams on Friday or Monday night. All the rest will be shown on Pay Per View channels. Second division matches are mainly shown on Saturday afternoon, but can take place any time between Friday and Monday, especially if they are being televised.
Let’s just say that something like Extra Innings for Spanish soccer has not been considered. Also Madrid and Barcelona get over 50% of the league’s TV revenue while the rest of the teams flirt with bankruptcy. Which leads one to wonder where they are finding the cash for the maletas.
ANYWAY, the point of all of this is that there is sketchiness going on all over the pace with these end of season lines. Bottom of the table Mallorca, who are bankrupt, are -133 at home to Levante this weekend. Levante might be worth a play if only because they need to pretend a little more like they are trying. Zaragoza who are 19th are evens at home to 8th place Rayo. But my favorite this week, is in Italy, where Cagliari and Chievo face off. O/U 2 with evens on the draw, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen. Let’s just assume that there are plenty of good seats available.
I’m passing on all of this as I don’t have any insight on which team is or is not going to tank or not on a given day. I need a translator for all of these foreign player twitter feeds as we would probably have a better idea from paying closer attention. Nothing else in MLS so far either. MLB later
