Honestly. The water bottle incident the last time, and now this (watch the video):
Fermín pisa a Cani y el jugador ve la amarilla - JORNADA 37 VILLAREAL-REAL MADRID - AS.com
The linesman chest-bumps him, steps on his foot, and Mallenco struts over and gives Cani a yellow card. Ridiculous. He later went out with an injury, having twisted his ankle it looked like, but until then had played a great game, of course scoring our goal. On an assist from Mario Gaspar! I did not see that coming.
Coach Garrido's analysis was pretty much on--we could have gotten a tie with some luck, we didn't play well in the first half, and he refused to be drawn to say anything about the referees in the press conference, saying that should be discussed with the relevant authorities in a private setting.
Good luck with that.
Okay, let's move on. Transfer gossip. Tribal Football is always good for a few stories. What's this? Barca may actually have to pay good money for Rossi? News to me that the Barca transfer budget is so small, and what is this obsession with Cesc Fabregas?
And Tribal Football has now discovered Borja Valero. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Napoli supposedly interested. Hard to reconcile that one with Borja's comments to EPM, though, in which he says he's happy at Villarreal, is looking forward to the CL and delighted to have a four-year contract with the Submarine.
Finally, for all you accountant types out there, there's this tidbit. As best I can figure between my almost nonexistent Spanish and my lack of knowledge of Spanish accounting rules, Villarreal SAD was set up with a small capital base, only about $1 million, when Sr. Roig bought it in 1993. Since then, he's lent various moneys (either directly or through his own companies, or both) to the club with no plans for repayment. Now the plan is to increase the allotted capital to 100-120 million Euros, with most of the increase coming from Sr. Roig's debt being converted to equity.
I don't believe this has much impact on the cash flow of the club, unless Sr. Roig was receiving interest on this debt.
It does however codify that Sr. Roig is not planning to take the money out of the club, it puts the club's equity on a par with other large clubs it'll be compared to under the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations which come into effect soon, and the capital increase will allow any minority investors who might want to put money into the club as well. All good things.
The article also notes that the club has balanced its books the last few years. Sr. Roig has already indicated the purse strings should be loosened a bit to improve the squad over the summer. We'll see what happens.
Finally, and importantly, don't forget the B team has a very important game today against Elche (3PM EDT, there will be a game thread here and a stream somewhere). Let's get a win for new coach José Molina and keep the filial in the Segunda!