Public displays of bitterness

By Emerald Gao
Written on August 12, 2006

This Ayala situation really stinks. Carboni called him a mercenary, just a week after he condemned the ultras for doing the same thing. I don't know what his problem is. Ayala stated awhile ago that he would love to end his career at Valencia, that he's happy with his life there, but the club fucked up -- no, Carboni fucked up. And it pisses me off, because Soler is in Carboni's back pocket, because it seems like everybody at the club is in Carboni's back pocket.

And you know, the club's official site may have more multimedia offerings than any other club I support, but the flipside is that they also have to be the propaganda machine. Ayala's comments about Carboni and Soler can't be found anywhere on the site. Instead, we have a curt statement from Carboni condemning the player. I guess you can't really expect the official site to post negative statements about the club, but somehow it feels like a witch hunt.

Ayala claims that he had already reached a verbal agreement with Soler in March about renewing his contract for two more years, but now Carboni wants him to sign yearly extensions. His point is that such a contract would be neither practical nor secure for a player of his age, and I can't help but think that he's right. He also cited Jose Enrique and Aimar as instances where the club has either gone back on its word (Enrique) or discarded valuable players for seemingly no reason at all (Aimar).

Carboni, on the other hand, is accusing Ayala of caring more about his paycheck than he does about the shirt, which Ayala has denied. Meanwhile, the only thing Quique has said is that Ayala needs to pay a fine for returning a day later than he said he would (official word from vcf.es is that he has already been penalized, although it's for his statements and not the vacation thing). He's got it easy, though, with Albiol and Navarro having already proved themselves on the pitch last season.

And now that Ayala looks likely to go, they're thinking about bringing in Helguera. Read it again, and weep: HELGUERA. I could kill someone.

Oh, yeah, and to compound my misery, the Canal Comunidad Valencia has failed me for the first time in our short but fruitful relationship by failing to show the video of the Trofeo Naranja match against Roma. But listening to the Spanish commentary is interesting, if a bit futile, since I can only understand the names of the players and the shouts of excitement dying down as a promising play breaks up.

Sigh.

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