New chapter.
Valencia announced the name of the new coach – 47-year-old Ruben Baraja was entrusted to pull the team out of the abyss.
This is a special appointment.
Ruben is not just another coach, but a local legend. The Spaniard played for the team for 10 years, hooked two championships under Raf Benitez, won the Spanish Cup, UEFA Cup, European Super Cup and reached the Champions League final.
“I have lived in Valencia since early childhood. I swear that every local boy knows who Ruben Baraja is. I sincerely admire him. I am sure that with the advent of Baraja, we will unite and straighten out a difficult season, ”captain Jose Gaia is set.
Ruben is really loved very much, although in terms of coaching skills he has nothing to boast of yet. In 2015, the Spaniard headed Elche, but worked only a season, after which he constantly changed clubs and did not achieve much success anywhere: from Rayo Vallecano to Zaragoza.
Valencia is the first serious choice.
Baraja is a shield for the president. Fans hate Peter Lim
Mundo Deportivo writes that initially Valencia did not plan to invite the legend. President Peter Lim spoke to Nuno Espirito Santo, employed at Al Ittihad, the Portuguese coached the club in the mid-10s and has long been looking for an interesting option in Europe. Agent Jorge Mendes, a good friend of Lim himself, also helps.
But the latest mass protests have changed everything. Peter understood that he needed to appease the fans, and Nuno left far from being on the warmest note. So there was a variant with a favorite Baraja.
Lim became the owner of Valencia in 2014. Since then, the team has turned from a stable participant in European competitions into an outsider in La Liga (now the club is in 18th place).
There is no more hated man in Valencia than Peter Lim. Fans have long been surviving the owner of the club. In June 2021, they burned a photo of Lim on a skyscraper, and in December 2021, about 15 thousand people came out against the hated president .
On the last day of last season, 10,000 marched to protest against Lim. Although all this does not bother him at all – the connection with the fans has been lost so much that the daughter of the owner Kim Lim asks the fans to shut up and not interfere with the management of the club: “Some Valencia fans scold and curse me and my family. But what do they not understand? This is our club and we can do whatever we want. Nobody can say anything about it.”
At the end of January, Valencia flew out to the 1/4 finals of the Cup. After the loss to Athletic, several hundred people chanted: “Peter, you scoundrel, get the hell out of the Mestalla, we have already suffered.”
Valencia continues to fall. Already in the departure zone
The situation is indeed very sad.
• Valencia are seven games without a win – and four consecutive defeats in La Liga. The team scores critically low, and 36-year-old top scorer Edinson Cavani was injured for 3-4 weeks and will not help in a critical stretch.
• There are simply no reserves. In the summer, Valencia sold a group of leaders. In the winter, Niko Gonzalez broke down – the most important for the rotation. Rino Gattuso was waiting for someone to sign him, but no one was brought – he exploded and wrote a dismissal.
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