Sid Lowe on the aftermath of Ramos' resignation
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/10/29/sevilla_put_faith_in_testicula.html
Sevilla put faith in testicular fortitude
Manuel Jiménez's unfeasibly large gonads can't obscure the fact that replacing Juande Ramos is a massive task.
Sid LoweOctober 29, 2007 4:46 PM
Who needs a hardnosed mercenary when you've got a heart of gold and gonads the size of the bulls that proudly stand astride Spain's motorways? Not Sevilla, that's for sure. While Juande Ramos was peering out into the gloom of White Hart Lane to the sound of teeth grinding, his successor at Sevilla was hopping up and down on the Sanchez Pizjuán touchline to the sound of ¡Olés!. If Spurs fans trudged to the Bell and Hare muttering, "this Juande geezer had better be bloody good", Sevilla fans glided to Bar Remember, gloating: "Juande who?"
Juande Ramos, that's who: the most successful coach in Sevilla's history, the first man to win anything in half a century, delivering five trophies, a league title challenge and a first ever Champions League place, playing awesome attacking football.
But you could forgive the fans for bidding him good riddance. After all, Ramos is also the man who'd insisted he wouldn't leave the club ... before walking out nine games into the season for a fist full of fivers, without even saying goodbye. And no sooner had he departed, with Sevilla in twelfth having lost four of their opening seven games, than they produced their best performance of the season, thrashing Valencia 3-0 with goals from Freddie Kanouté, Christian Poulsen and Luís Fabiano. Valencia had won every away game until last night and had gone into the match a single point off the top - and responded to defeat by sacking their coach - at 4:24am.
It was the perfect Sevilla performance, full of pace and power. Tough and organised, they attacked in relentless waves, with Jesús Navas and Adriano constantly running at Valencia's retreating defence, camp comic-bashing Ivica Dragutinovic frightening in his new role at centre-back, Dani Alves all over the pitch, Poulsen back to his best and Seydou Keita single-handedly destroying David Albelda, Rubén Baraja and anyone else stupid enough to venture anywhere near him. It was also the perfect way to draw a line under the Ramos era. Better still, it was the perfect start for new coach, Manolo Jiménez, and a game made in his image.
As a player, Jiménez made more Sevilla appearances than anyone else, gaining a reputation for real commitment, fans singing "¡Jiménez, Jiménez, que cojones tienes!". Which rhymes, if you've got an Andalucían accent, and means: "Jiménez, Jiménez, what bollocks you have!" But, as one columnist put it, "Jiménez's qualities are not just testicular", and he's also got an excellent record as coach of Sevilla Atlético, the club's youth team, which he's managed for five seasons, taking them to four successive Second Division B play-offs before winning promotion this summer and carrying them to fourth place, a single point off (an administratively impossible) promotion to the First Division.
More importantly still, the man with the colossal cojones is a Sevillista through and through who, as one AS columnist excitedly put it, marvellously avoiding all cliché: "breathes Sevillismo, and [whose] heart beats to the rhythm of his red-and-white passion".
Which is handy because it neatly contrasts with Ramos, proving the perfect stick with which to beat him - and, like Lord Nelson, Margaret Thatcher and Lord Beaverbrook, Ramos has taken one hell of a beating, the city's sports paper Estadio Deportivo running a photo of Jiménez with the headline "Sevillismo" above one of Ramos driving out of the city alongside his wife (who looks worryingly like Javi Navarro) with the headline "Oportuni$m", and the following day, leading on a simple: "liar".
Photos were doctored to have dollar signs rolling round his eyeballs; vox pops were splattered with words like "money-grabber", "Judas" and "gold-digger"; and on Sevilla blogs fans took it in turns with the breezeblock encrusted cricket bat (not that you can trust blogs, which, of course, are populated by idiots). Even Ramos's own website was at it, a hacker getting in to add a paragraph saying: "Did I say 'I am a professional'? Sorry, I meant to say I am a money-grabber. Good God! €7m. Ha ha ha! Yes, I'm a money grabber, but, hey, what ya gonna do? What do feelings matter?" Meanwhile, a banner at the Pizjuán last night turned all nuclear powered and declared, "Ramo$? No thank$", and victory was presented as evidence that Sevilla are better off without him, the cover of AS's Andalucían edition screaming: "Viva Jiménez!" All of which is not entirely fair. Just as it's too simplistic to credit Ramos with a success that had been building for years and owes much to Del Nido, Joaquín Caparrós, and the incredible achievements of sporting director Monchi, amongst others, so it's not right to suggest that victory over Valencia was thanks to Ramos's departure or to simply dismiss him as a liar who stitched up Sevilla.
When, back in August, José María del Nido claimed that "I looked Ramos in the eyes and he promised me he wasn't going to leave", the Sevilla president hadn't even met his coach to discuss Spurs' interest yet, let alone been told any such thing, and their relationship had long become impossible - fat wad or no fat wad. Although Sevilla have been comparatively poor this season, three of their four defeats owed more to bad luck as bad management - they were unfortunate against Espanyol, should have beaten Depor and should never, ever have lost to Zaragoza. Jiménez may have given José Ángel Crespo a debut but the Sevilla team that battered Valencia last night was still Ramos's Sevilla team, playing Ramos's way. And to suggest that Sevilla are better off without him is impossible to say so early, especially with Atlético and Real Madrid up next.
But Ramos's departure has been good for Sevilla on one level at least. Although he didn't leave in August, most at the club knew he'd wanted to; that was followed by the tragic death of Antonio Puerta, in the midst of Dani Alves's battle to go and Kanouté's fight over a new contract. Now, Ramos's departure has provided a kind of catharsis, a new start, and some clarity at last. Thanks to a red and white heart and a pair of bollocks. Something which, at the moment of truth, Ramos sadly lacked.
Results: Mallorca 2-2 Espanyol Athletic 0-0 Betis Madrid 3-1 Deportivo Levante 0-1 Atlético Zaragoza 4-1 Villarreal Osasuna 2-2 Valladolid Racing 2-0 Getafe Murcia 1-0 Recreativo Barcelona 2-0 Almería Sevilla 3-0 Valencia.