GENIUSES
ALSO MAKE MISTAKES
 |
| Salva Ballesta and Gonzalo de los Santos |
In the summer of 2001, Valencia was in the middle
of a rebuilding process. The team had just lost its president, its coach and
its captain and star and, to make things worse, Valencia would have to play the
UEFA Cup being the Champions League runners-up at the same time.
To revitalize the project, the club trusted its
bench to a low profile coach, who created doubts in the fans and the club
itself when his hiring was announced. That man was Rafa Benítez, who had landed
in Mestalla thanks to the insistence of the sports director at the time, Javier
Subirats.
The club signed low-profile but young and hungry
players who, at the end, would be essential for the success the club would
experience in the years to come. Men like Mista, Rufete, Marchena or Curro Torres
joined the project. Even so, Valencia needed two more signings: a midfielder
and a forward.
The style that Benítez wanted to use required a
combination of a defensive midfielder with an attacking one and, unfortunately,
Rubén Baraja suffered an injury that would rule him out for, at least, six
months. That’s the reason why Benítez asked for a defensive midfielder who
could also have a scoring ability and form a perfect combination with David
Albelda. The player the club chose was Uruguayan Gonzalo de los Santos, from
Málaga.
He was a mid-profile player but nevertheless,
Valencia paid 15 million Euros to sign him. The coach’s persistence was key to
make the transaction. The Uruguayan had just played two great season at Málaga
and had caught the interest of many clubs, among them Héctor Cúper’s
Internazionale, but the player chose to play in Mestalla. Benítez dismissed the
chance to sign Sergio González from Espanyol, who would end up signing for
Deportivo A Coruña, where he would be key for the Galicians’ success that
season.
De los Santos didn’t play an important role for
Valencia, though; he played 13 games in la Liga, most of them in the first half
of the season, scoring just one goal. With Baraja’s return in January and due
to the Valladolid-born’s great shape, De los Santos seldom played in the second
half of the season, playing his last game in March, in a season that saw Valencia
crowned as la Liga champions.
The Uruguayan, anyway, had a second chance for the
2002/03 season and stayed in the squad because the team hadn’t signed any
player and Rafa Benítez needed as many players as possible to face four
competitions, among them the return to the Champions League. He played more
games than the previous season thanks to the coach’s rotation system, scoring
one goal, but his performance was even poorer than the previous year. That’s
why Valencia ended up loaning him to Atlético de Madrid for the following
season.
After an inconsistent season, in the summer of
2004, Claudio Ranieri gave him the opportunity to be part of the squad for the
2004/05 season, despite the harsh competition he would have to face. But he
only played one game and, in the winter transfer window, the player was sent
out on loan to Mallorca. The following summer, Valencia decided to terminate
his contract and the Uruguayan played two more seasons in Spain for Hércules
and he finally went back to his country to play for Peñarol Montevideo, hanging
up his boots in 2010.
Going back to the summer of 2001, Valencia also
needed a top forward that could increase the level in that position. Jardel, as
usual in previous summers, was the main target but Porto’s president, Pinto da
Costa, was still angry at Valencia’s behavior when trying to sign Zlatko
Zahovic a few years before. The second option was Chilean Marcelo Salas, from
Lazio. Valencia had fresh money thanks to Gaizka Mendieta’s sale, precisely to
Lazio, even though Valencia would never get all the money agreed with the
Rome-based team. There was a total agreement with the player, as well as with
Lazio (6 million plus Kily González’s transfer), but a debt that the Italians
had with the player broke the deal since the club denied to pay it.
Finally, Valencia
signed Atlético de Madrid’s forward Salva Ballesta. The
Andalusian had just been the top scorer in la Liga with Racing Santander in
2000 and, a year later, he had been the top scorer in the second level with Atlético,
scoring 29 and 27 goals, respectively. It wasn’t an acclaimed signing by the
fans since he didn’t have the high profile that they expected, since he had
played in the Second Division the previous season. Valencia had just played two
Champions League finals and fans ambitioned to have better players. Rafa
Benítez, as in De los Santos’ case, had a clear idea of who he wanted: Salva
had always been his first option and he wanted the player no matter what.
Valencia eventually paid 12 million for his acquisition.
He struggled in his first season, playing 22 games
in la Liga and scoring just five goals, a poor record for what people expected
from him. In the second half of the competition, his playing time decreased
dramatically, being Benítez’s fourth choice behind Juan Sánchez, Mista and
Carew. Despite everything, he can say he was part of the team what won la Liga
that year.
It’s worth to mention that Salva always had a
conflictive attitude and also had a bad temper. That led to him having problems
with Rafa Benítez from the beginning. The Madrid-born coach was very demanding
and Salva didn’t like hard work as well as he didn’t like the coach’s rotation
system, since that diminished his playing time. His attitude and his lack of
goals meant that he lost prominence at the end of the season and Benítez
regretted his decision to sign him.
Even so, Benítez gave him another chance for the
following season, due to the lack of new signings. But after one game in la
Liga, one more in Copa del Rey and another one in the Champions League (no
goals), the player was loaned to English Bolton Wanderers. For the following
season, Valencia loaned him once again, this time to Málaga, where he recovered
his goalscoring abilities, although that didn’t mean that he would return to
Valencia. In 2004, he went back to Atlético de Madrid, this time in the top
flight, but the player didn’t meet the expectations. After his contract with
Valencia finally expired, he played two years for Málaga, six months for
Levante, two more years for Málaga again, this time in the Second Division,
retiring in 2010 after playing one season for Albacete.
It can be demonstrated that Rafa Benítez has never
been a good player-purchaser. In fact, from the moment Valencia wasted 27
million Euros in Salva and De los Santos, Valencia never allowed the coach to
have the last call to sign new players, which led to problems with the board
later. The same happened to him when he worked for Liverpool and Napoli, where
his signings were also questionable, despite his capacity to take the best out
of his players to achieve the goals of the club he worked for, which makes him
a great coach. Rafa Benítez demonstrated, especially in this two signings, that
geniuses also make mistakes.
