Catching up with the Segunda Division playoffs, one of either Cordoba or Las Palmas will be in La Liga next year. Cordoba dispatched Real Murcia, and Las Palmas condemned the likeable Asturians of Sporting Gijón to another year in purgatory. Las Palmas are currently coached by ex-Villarreal man Josico, who had great playing days with the islanders as well, and among their current roster is Ángel López, who has been a regular starter for them during the playoffs.
Julio Velazquez is apparently going to take over as the new mister at Real Betis; let's hope he does better than the last ex-Villarreal coach who went there (Sr. Garrido, who to be fair arrived--and departed-- in the midst of institutional chaos).
Eibar look set to get to their share target (about €300k still to go, 50 days to do it), so the question is, will anyone be relegated from the Segunda for financial reasons? Possibly Real Zaragoza or Real Murcia, now that they are out of the playoffs. Zaragoza's finances have been a mess for a long time, of course. Remember if one of those goes down, Mirandes stay up; if both, Real Madrid Castilla survives too.
As far as promotion to the Segunda is concerned, Gimnastic Tarragona have a 2-1 lead over Llagostera after their first leg, while L'Hospitalet lost to Leganes 1-0 in Catalonia. At least one team from the Segunda B group our B team was in is going up, which is good news.
Villarreal transfers: One has gotten away, Aleix Vidal moving from Almeria to Sevilla. Damn. No new word on anyone or anything of late, save that apparently Diego Marino's repurchase option expired June 15 and we did not exercise it. Seems a strange decision from thousands of miles away; I would have thought repurchasing him at a knockdown price made sense, but there may have been things we were unaware of.
And in other transfer news, we can't call Ivan Rakitic the best player in Liga Justa any more. He's been sold by Sevilla to Barcelona.