Valerón Returns.....

You'd never believe the amount of meaningless tosh that is delivered up daily on spanish television. Its gossip pure and simple and consists of following selected well-known people around in the street with cameras and asking stupid questions and then debating the answers in the studio for about 4 hours.....

And now on Sunday afternoons, more meaningless stuff has appeared. Yes, its Scottish football.

Not content with boring the pants off us with Udinese v Milan ( 0-1, 87th minute), TVE2 have decided that after that they'll spice up our lives with the delights of Inverness CT v Rangers. And with Mrs Nelson enjoying her usual siesta and the newpaper nowhere to hand, it was made even more meaningless by the fact that I couldn't even figure out who was who and even though you'd expect table-topping Rangers to be playing better stuff that Inverness, the football was so bad it was impossible. The beeb called the first half 'subdued' which was very kind of them I thought and the game finished 1-0 with an 88th minute goal to top of the League, Rangers. I was fast sleep by this time, of course.

So I should have known better than to sit down last night and watch more action (sic) in the form of Everton v Chelski. Anybody else make the same mistake? And was it the tiring efforts of the days pruning or the dire football that lead my mind to drift somewhat with no goal in sight? If you stayed awake then you would have seen the only, 69th minute, goal scored apparently by Cole but once again I was in the land of nod.

Whats happened to good football? That's the point. I can remember the whole nation booing like crazy when Ray Wilkins ( the crab) dared to imitate the Germans and pass the ball sideways, for Gods sake, in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. What's he doing, is he crazy? He was sent-off, of course, and quiet rightly too. Now everybody does it and we're supposed to enjoy one teams longer possesion and denying the opposition a chance to score.

So, I suppose, I should have enjoyed the Spuds 5-1 demolition of the Arse on Tuesday, but I didn't. Maybe I know too many Arsenal fans or is it their style of football that I admire and seeing Rosicky and Hieb conjure up moves but on the other hand I can't really make myself like Spurs. How can anyone enjoy watching a team play in all white, for pities sake, just reminds me of Real Madrid.

So being as subjective as football always makes us, you'll all be pleased to know that the point of todays tosh is to bring to your attention the fact that one of my favorites, Juan Carlos Valerón, has just returned to training after nearly 2 years out through a knee injury in February 2006.

Yes, he's now 32 and we have all given him up for dead and just when he should be thinking of hanging up his boots, he's back and is determined to come to the rescue of Deportivo, currently 2nd to bottom of La Liga. Video of his past glory, here.