Turbulent times for Rafa Benitez. A man with less experience of the ups and downs of coaching than the Real Madrid head coach might have moved almost to tears by the reception he was given by supporters of Valencia, a club he guided to a pair of Liga titles and a UEFA Cup in a three-year period up until 2004, when he returned there as a rival coach for the first time on Sunday.
"Rafa, you gave us the best years of our lives," read one huge banner, displayed at Valencia's Mestalla stadium as his Madrid took the field against 10th-placed Valencia. The dignified thanksgivings completed, Valencia's players then stimulated further memories of his time there, because they were rugged, like he once made them, resourceful, as they used to be in the early 2000s, and they made his return trip to the Spanish capital much more uncomfortable by snatching a point in a 2-2 draw. Benitez's Madrid had led twice.
Madrid, even though they played the last 20 minutes with 10 men after the sending off Mateo Kovacic, will see two points lost, the chance to draw level with Barcelona in second place in the table allowed to slip away. On a weekend where Barca were, most unusually, kept scoreless, held to 0-0 in the Catalan derby at Espanyol, and Atletico Madrid took up the leadership of the Primera Division, Madrid finished frustrated, when Karim Benzema's excellent first-half goal was matched by the Valencia captain Dani Parejo's penalty and then Gareth Bale's header for 2-1 was immediately canceled out by Paco Alcacer's equalizer.
Benitez's position, already vulnerable in the eyes of some in the Madrid executive hierarchy, has certainly not been strengthened. In the tactical and motivational battle of the coaches at the Mestalla, the former Valencia, Liverpool, Internazionale, and Napoli man was more than matched by Valencia's rookie, 40-year-old coach, Englishman Gary Neville. Neville has now been in charge of Valencia, indeed been a senior coach anywhere, for just four league fixtures. He has yet to win one but in three of them, he has coaxed the team back from a goal down five times.
Madrid may be La Liga's highest scorers so far this season, but Benitez endures growing criticism they are not as enterprising or ambitious as they should be. He must envy his Barcelona counterpart Luis Enrique, for whom setbacks, of which there have been a few in the last month, do not immediately fuel speculation about his short-term survival in the job.
Having entered 2016 top of the table, Barcelona dropped down a position after the new year's first round of matches. They hit the post twice against Espanyol, through Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, and if the failure to register a goal in a league game for the first time this season could therefore be put down to a matter of a few centimeters of bad luck, it converted into a two point deficit in the table, once Atletico, who are not a team designed to shatter records for free-scoring, like Barcelona are, had eked out three points with a 1-0 win against a stubborn Levante.
Atletico's match-winner was a substitute, the 22-year-old Ghanaian, Thomas Partey. Party time for the new Liga leaders? Steady, advised coach Diego Simeone: "We are not looking at the table, just at ways to keep improving."
He is conscious that Barcelona's match in hand, which they will fullfil at Sporting Gijon in the middle of next month, gives them an opportunity to leapfrog Atletico, and that, more importantly, Atletico must go to Camp Nou at the end of January. In the corresponding fixture two years ago, on the last day of the season, Atletico drew with Barcelona to clinch the Liga title.
Barcelona, amid the self-congratulations and back-slapping that saw them out of 2015 and its many trophies, have a recent frustrating tendency. Take out the matches in Tokyo at the Club World Cup, and Luis Enrique's team have drawn four of their five games in the last month, three of those in La Liga. A wobble? Perhaps. Fatigue? There may be some, which is why the directors at the club are contemplating hiring in the January transfer window, now that their year-long ban on registering new players -- imposed because FIFA found they had broken the rules on recruiting players under the age of 18 -- has expired.
Aleix Vidal and Arda Turan, who joined Barcelona last July but, because of the FIFA sanction, can only take the field for their new club as of this week, will be welcome additions. As luck would have it, both could make their debuts on Wednesday in the Copa del Rey - against the same Espanyol whose aggression irritated the Barcelona players and management in the 0-0 draw. City derbies in the capital of Catalonia are always edgy, and Saturday's featured some permissive refereeing from Gonzalez Gonzalez, who had drawn attention to himself with some poor decisions during Real Madrid's win against Real Sociedad three days earlier.
Barcelona are also considering lodging an official complaint about alleged racist abuse directed at Neymar from the grandstands of Espanyol's Cornella arena. The first leg of the Cup tie is at their home, Camp Nou. A charged atmosphere is guaranteed.
