Ay, Claudio! Things aren't going well for the man Spaniards call the Roman General. Or, rather, the man they used to call the Roman General, for now Valencia coach Claudio Ranieri has a new nickname: Racanieri, a neat pun that thankfully sounds substantially better in Spanish than in English, where it would be something really rubbish like Scaredieri or Boringieri.
Which isn't normally something you'd accuse Claudio of, what with his taste for elaborate metaphors and that fleeting, face-screwing tick of his - the one that makes it look like he's just swallowed a particularly fizzy Astrobelt. Now, though, Racanieri is justified, for on Saturday night Valencia - league champions Valencia - went to the Santiago Bernabéu and, unlike Rio Ferdinand, bottled it. Completely.
Valencia lost 1-0, their fifth game without a victory and one that leaves them just a single point ahead of Madrid and eight behind leaders Barça, who were 3-0 winners over Osasuna. But it was the way Valencia lost that stood out. The supremely competitive, get-at-them Valencia side that fights for everything was nowhere to be seen; Madrid-Valencia, Spain's biggest grudge match in recent years, went horribly flat.
"It's a crime to go to the Bernabéu, face such a vulgar, off-form team as Real Madrid and not win," raved the Valencia-supporting SuperDeporte, whose cover pointed Ranieri to the door. "And if losing is hard, the sense of emptiness is worse. Valencia had personality but now they're nothing but sad. This can't be Valencia. Someone has swapped them round."
True enough: Saturday was too easy for Madrid and Ranieri is in the firing line - for being too boring, too defensive, and too scared.
After all, the Italian had warned the day before that, "we're playing against tanks when all we've got is knives or swords," only to realise that his words wouldn't go down well with players who've already started questioning him privately. So, he pulled out his whip and prepared to flog a recently deceased stallion, hurriedly adding: "Actually we've got tanks, too. But we need to start them up, get them in gear, roll them out and crush Madrid."
But Valencia didn't crush Madrid. They didn't even bring out the tanks. Or the swords. Or the knives. Instead, they went armed only with a banana. Rather than go for it, Tinkerman tinkered too much, leaving Pablo Aimar on the bench and starting with three defensive midfielders, including Mohamed Sissoko - nominally a support striker, behind (way behind) Marco Di Vaio. "The Bernabéu did a Mexican wave to thank Ranieri", gloated AS; Ranieri committed suicide with Sissoko," giggled Marca.
Now, Sissoko isn't the brightest guy around. Only 19, he unexpectedly missed two Valencia training sessions earlier this season because, he explained, he was appearing in an international for Mali against Kenya - a match Mali won 1-0 and in which he played for 48 minutes. There was just one tiny flaw in the excuse: it was complete rubbish. The match didn't exist; Sissoko had made it up. Which was a bit odd because, let's face it, if you're going to invent internationals, you might as well invent yourself a goal or two.
Maybe Sissoko wanted to make it believable or perhaps his mind couldn't stretch that far: as the Bernabéu proved, he combines the flair, imagination and creativity of a mathematician with the finishing ability of Schubert penning his eighth symphony. In an unfamiliar role, he offered nothing at all in attack, leaving poor Di Vaio utterly bereft of service - rather like anyone who's ever tried ringing Telefónica.
For a guy who's actually a promising defensive midfielder, Sissoko looked like he'd never played football in his life. Which he hadn't, not off the front man at least. Perhaps the worst thing was that his presence didn't even bolster the midfield (presumably Ranieri's intention), instead turning it into daytime on BBC. Too many cooks.
With Sissoko sometimes dropping, sometimes not, David Albelda and Rubén Baraja - normally so tight a partnership - were all over the place and Madrid just waltzed through during the first half an hour. They were one-up after just seven minutes, thanks to Michael Owen's superb finish, and should have been four or five ahead by half time.
It wasn't just Sissoko, however. Although Valencia improved and Madrid beat a retreat with the second-half introduction of Aimar, the visitors still couldn't score, Mista comically living up to his name and Casillas making a sharp stop from Albelda. That, though, was Casillas's only save and it was already too late: Valencia had been too awful for too long. Weak at the back, irrelevant up front, they gave the ball away time after time, Baraja apparently confused by Valencia's orange shirts - every single cross-field pass he hit, and there were quite a few, sailed straight off the pitch and into the arms of the bright-bibbed stewards in the crowd.
It was a big win for Madrid and the capital's press are getting excited about a resurgence and the audacity of manager Mariano García Remón. Unlike Ranieri, García Remón is fielding all his attackers together - Guti, Zidane, Figo, Raúl, Ronaldo and Owen. Marca called him Mariano the Brave, although whether it's actually brave to follow your president's orders, get one-up and, fearing the worst, take Owen off after 60 minutes is debatable. And, for all the cheering, Madrid still only scored once, earning their fifth 1-0 win of the season (four of them secured by Beckham and Owen), and were shockingly imprecise in the second half.
Besides, Madrid's superb opening half-hour doesn't disguise the fact that Valencia have problems, big problems. Captain Albelda rubbished crisis talk but four defeats and a draw in five is no coincidence. Without Vicente Valencia have no spark, Ayala's absence robs them of leadership, confidence is low and so, it seems, is desire after last season's success. Di Vaio looks excellent but is the only signing to have genuinely succeeded so far, Ranieri's methods are yet to be taken on and there are rumours of dressing room discontent. Ay, Claudio, you've got your work cut out.
