THE
SCORELESS FORWARD
 |
| Javier Arizmendi as a Valencia player |
In the middle of the conflict between Quique and
Carboni, Valencia started working on the roster for the 2007-2008 season
without a clear idea of who was the decision-maker when it came to signings,
sales and contract extensions and, to cap it all, president Juan Soler had
neither the personality nor the ability to manage the sports area, apart from
the economic area, as it was shown a few years later.
Even so, Valencia started signing new players. One
of the first to come was central defender Alexis Ruano, coming from Getafe, who
was expected to be a great addition. But the most surprising signing that
summer was that of a forward who had just played his best season in the top
flight playing for Deportivo A Coruña, also receiving a call to play for the
Spanish national team thanks to Luis Aragonés in a game at Old Trafford against
England, despite having scored only five goals in the whole season. It’s also
worth to mention that he used to play as a right wing at Riazor, which meant
that he didn’t have much importance in the forward area. That striker was Javier
Arizmendi.
He was a tall forward (6 f. 3 inch.), who had good
movements despite his height, but whose ability to score goals was limited,
taking into the account his position in the pitch. That’s the reason why many
coaches preferred to place him in the right wing where he could exploit his
speed and his fantastic work ethics.
The truth is that his beginnings were exciting. He
was a product of the Atlético de Madrid youth system, but he needed playing
time and he found it in Racing de Santander, loaned by Atlético. In 2005 he won
the Mediterranean Games with the U-21 national team in Almería. It’s curious to
mention that he celebrated that feat with a Francoist flag although he later
said that it was a flag that someone from the crowd had thrown. He signed for
Deportivo that year, playing two good seasons before catching the attention of
Valencia’s coach at that time, Quique Sánchez Flores, who had the same agent as
Arizmendi. Atlético de Madrid recovered the player in order to sell him to
Valencia in exchange for 7 million Euros.
He was one of the most used players by Quique
first and Koeman later, but his season was disappointing. It’s true that he had
two important moments during the year. The first of them was at the Santiago
Bernabeu, in a game tied 2-2, in which Arizmendi ran the right wing with great
speed, getting rid of Cannavaro and lying Casillas intentionally, scoring the
goal finding a gap in the goalkeeper’s post. That goal gave the win to
Valencia, who had been wandering in the standings and whose position in La Liga
was starting to be in question. The other moment was when Ronald Koeman, in a
last-minute decision, chose Arizmendi in his starting XI in the Copa del Rey
final over Joaquín, who would see the game from the bench. Arizmendi played a
good game and was close to scoring the first goal, but Mata was quicker and
headed the ball into the net to give the lead to the team.
He played a fantastic season for Zaragoza in the
second category of Spanish football (9 goals) and achieving promotion but, in
his return to the top flight, Arizmendi had a poor year and in 2010 he signed
for Getafe that, after a bad season, decided to loan him to Swiss Neuchatel and
Mallorca, respectively. In 2013 he went back to Deportivo, this time in Segunda
División, but his second experience at Riazor was frustrating. After leaving A
Coruña, Arizmendi has been training on his own trying to find a club but he
hasn’t received any interesting offer and, aged only 31, it seems that his
retirement is not very far.
