Mathematically shambolic

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0:22Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. Hi, Stan, Phil Kitchmelidi. Sydney joins me fresh back from Seville. Hello, Sydney.

0:31Phil Kitromilides:Hello, Phil. I'm not sure that fresh is quite the word, but yes, I am just back from Seville. Fresh is not the word, is it? No, it very much isn't. No, but still, you're back and you're raring to go, aren't you? Yes, very much. That's not the word either. You're here begrudgingly recording. I'm willing to go, just about willing. You're draggled and begrudging and you're just about standing and you're willing to do a podcast with me. That's great. It's lovely news, isn't it? Everyone's very happy. This is what happened on the penultimate round of fixtures. Nine games took place at the same time on Sunday.

1:07It was really quite exciting. Certainly the first half of games. Second half, not so much. But the first half of matches were very, very exciting. These are the final results. It finished. Atletic Club 1, Celta Vigo 1. Atletico Madrid beating Girona by a goal to nil. Elche beating Getafe by a goal to nil. Levante beating Mallorca 2-0, which means that Mallorca are now 95 % to be relegated. 95 % chance of being relegated. Rayo beat Villarreal 2-0. Magnificent Rayo. What a team. What a bunch of lads. Real Sociedad 3, Valencia 4. Incredible results at the Real Arena, which means Valencia could mathematically get into Europe on the final day of the season.

1:48Alaves beat Oviedo 1-0 at the Tartiere. Obviously, Alaves are safe. Espanyol beat Osasuna 2-1. in Pamplona. Espanyol can also make it into Europe. Osasuna are not mathematically safe from relegation. Real Madrid beat Sevilla 1-0 and Barcelona beat Betis 3-1. Now, the La Liga season is very nearly over, obviously, but the content never stops. Obvs. If you want the full TSFP coverage of the World Cup, join us at patreon.com forward slash TSFP. Sid and Al will both be there and over the summer. As always, the Monday pod takes a bit of a break. We'll be putting it exclusively on Patreon. Sign up from€4.75 a month.

2:22It's even cheaper if you get annual membership. It's going to be well worth your while. A summer of football. Come live it with TSFP. So, Sydney, the relegation battle. After those results, who's safe? Espanyol, Sevilla, Valencia, Alaves, they're all safe, Sid.

2:39Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, they're all safe. We went into this final round of games knowing that nine teams could still go down to join Oviedo, obviously, so 10 teams could go down because one was already down. We've now got five. we've now got five left and the teams that could still occupy those final two places you're very quiet by the way, I can barely hear you am I? okay why is that? really really quiet no real reason why I should be quiet as far as I can see okay, maybe it's just me, you keep going maybe it's your headphones, yeah I will carry on it's my headphones, there we go it is it, okay it was me, there we go, we'll leave this in obviously, we'll leave this in yeah no, absolutely, people need to know how amateurish we are Yes.

3:21Phil Kitromilides:So we're now in a situation where there are two relegation places to be avoided. Mallorca, Girona, Elche, Osasuna and Levante. And we have, and can I get a woof from you, Philip? Go on. We have Girona against Elche on the final day, which is really quite something. And actually, we've got, I think in the case of Girona and Mallorca, we've got two teams, and actually Osasuna as well. In fact, very definitely Osasuna as well. We've got three teams who probably thought they were safe. And this has been the nature of this relegation battle, hasn't it? That teams have started picking up huge amounts of points.

3:54Phil Kitromilides:Teams have started winning games and it's still not enough to be safe. At the moment, the statistics you're talking about, now obviously the statistics are slightly skewed because what the statistics do is tell you the percentage chance of surviving running through all of the potential outcomes. But of course, that treats every outcome as if it's equally possible. So for example, it treats a Mallorca win against Oviedo as equally possible to a Mallorca draw against Oviedo and a Mallorca loss to Oviedo. So it's the number of outcomes. But to look at it from a number of outcomes point of view, Mallorca now 95 percent to go down.

4:25Phil Kitromilides:Girona, 55 percent. Elche, 35 percent. Osasuna, 9 percent. And Levante, 6 percent. So Levante can only go down in one scenario, which is if they lose, if Girona beat Elche and if Osasuna get points from Getafe. And that would create a three way tie on 42 points, which would send them down because it's worth reminding our listeners of this. at the end of the season in Spain, head-to-head goal difference is what decides it. If more than one team is on the same number of points, then it doesn't go to normal goal difference. It goes to like a mini league between those teams. So imagine four teams are on the same number of points.

5:03Phil Kitromilides:It would effectively be, right, here's what it would be if it was a group made up of the results between those four teams. So that's why you get these weird combinations where you can sometimes be worse off if it's a four-way tie than a three-way tie or a two-way tie, for example. Is that better than just doing it on goal difference? Well, it's more confusing, that's for sure. I mean, what's wrong with just doing goal difference? I don't know. And if you level on goal difference, goals scored. Yeah. Well, what it meant in part, of course, was that this meant that the Mallorca game at Levante was even bigger because they'd drawn earlier in the season.

5:34Phil Kitromilides:So it wasn't just that Levante took three points off Mallorca. It's that Levante took three points and a now unassailable head-to-head goal difference advantage over them. and obviously that then gets taken into a mini league if there's a two or three or four-way tie. It is more exciting. It is more exciting and it's more confusing and it's more complex. But in a way, it's fairly simple now. Mallorca, to survive, they need Girona to beat Elche. They need Osasuna to lose and they need... Who's the team I've been talking about? I've been talking about all the time. And they need Levante to lose.

6:12Phil Kitromilides:Sorry, yes, of course. That's your definition of fairly simple, Sid. Yes, exactly. And so it's going to be really complex. But the bottom line is that that final game, Drona-Elche, is absolutely enormous. Drona at home. They've won six games at home all season. Elche have by far and away the worst away record in the division. But a draw would be enough for Elche and it's not enough for Drona. Drona needs to win it. Seven points away from home all season, Elche. But yeah, one more. One more. they are safe one more and they're safe and then the combinations obviously you know because then then obviously elche could still survive if the other results go the right way for them um you've been writing about levante yeah i have been writing about levante because i think what they've done is absolutely extraordinary um they are in a position now where they are they are out of the relegation for the first time since november now they were out of relegation you you know the the the the eagle-eyed amongst our listeners will be saying well they were out of relegation midweek yes they were but they didn't finish the match day out of relegation so they came out of relegation on Wednesday night and went back into it on Thursday night um they are now out of relegation at the end of a match day for the first time since November um they have been bottom they've been seven points adrift um when the current manager took over they were six points adrift and they actually won two of their first four games but then a run of four defeats in a in February, put them that seven points adrift and you thought, that's it, it's done.

7:38Phil Kitromilides:That initial reaction has gone. But if you take a step back and you look at what Luis Castro has done, it's absolutely extraordinary. If you did a league table of just the games that he's been in charge, they are third now after VRL beating last night. Third in the whole of the league. This is a team with the, I think it's the second smallest budget in the whole of the first division if we take budget to mean the salary limit because it's probably the, at least it's the most public figures that we have available that gives us an idea of the size of a club. When he took over, they'd only won four times, I think it was, all season.

8:15Phil Kitromilides:They've won now, what is it, eight times now, I think? Sorry, eight since he took over, rather. No, they'd only won twice all season, and it's nine victories since then. He's done an absolutely phenomenal job, 10 points before him, 32 points after him, making changes that you wouldn't necessarily anticipate. One of the things that he said, which I liked, he talked about the idea of how I don't talk to players. They know what they have to do. They know that it doesn't matter if the worst player in the team is the guy with the biggest salary. He's not playing. And I think that's, you know, Eti O 'Yong, basically.

8:50Phil Kitromilides:Eti O 'Yong, who was this striker that everyone got very excited about and scored, I think it was six goals in the first eight weeks or something, and hasn't scored one two weeks ago, and it was his first goal in eight months. He's had his place taken by Carlos Espíritu, a 20-year-old youth teamer, who scored nine times in the last 12 games this season. Him and Tony Martinez at Alaves are the outstanding revelations of this final three, four months of the season. Just phenomenal. And it's just an incredible achievement. And what I loved about this, and I wrote about this today because I really love this, is I don't know if you heard the president of Levante talking last night.

9:26No.

9:27Phil Kitromilides:he was asked about Luis Castro. He said, well, when they suggested Luis Castro to me, I hadn't heard of him. I'd heard of a Luis Castro, but it wasn't this one. Yes. So I'll be honest with you. I went looking up the other Luis Castro today to find out what his backstory was to see who you could have won. The other Luis Castro is coach of Gremio at the moment and has a phenomenal backstory, by the way. He had a terrible illness when he was a kid, was told he was going to die. Well, probably he wasn't told. His parents were told he was going to die. was then told he would never ever do any physical activity again for the rest of his life, built a football career in the lower levels of the Portuguese league, became a coach, you know, and he's the one that the president of Levante thought they'd got.

10:08Phil Kitromilides:And he wasn't the one that the president of Levante thought they'd got, but he got the right one because Luiz Castro has been phenomenal. Certainly has. And they are on the verge of one of the most unlikely survival in recent years. It really is. It really is. And they are, I mean, they're not yet there yet. And we've seen enough weird shit this season to not, you know, so not. Well, let's take a bit of advice from Mr. Wolf, shall we, out of Pulp Fiction, not to go getting too excited just yet. Don't get too excited just yet, but you've got excited enough to write about them today. Well, because I thought it was the most interesting of all of the outcomes of that penultimate week of the season.

10:49Phil Kitromilides:As you said, the final day, we had three changes in the relegation zone, but they were all in the first half. So we had three different bottom threes, but they were all in the first half. And actually, the games, the day wasn't as dramatic as I thought it was going to be. Lots of 1-0s, lots of results that weren't then turned around again. Bear in mind that Levante come into this with two 3-2s in a row. And you think, oh, here we go. This is drama as well. but actually it was a relatively, relatively touch wood and all that, comfortable win for them against Mallorca, who have completely blown this.

11:23They really have, haven't they? They're going to go down with one of the top scorers in the division, Vedat, Mauricis. How many goals has he got? 22. 22? And they're going down.

11:34Phil Kitromilides:And, you know, if you go back a month, this is a team that had won three out of four, that then won four out of six, and basically thought they were safe. They beat Real Madrid, and at that point you think, here we go, it's all right. They beat Real Madrid, then they beat Rayo pretty heavily. They got a draw of Mallorca and then they beat Girona. And you think that's it, they've done it. And these last two games, and I think part of the problem is precisely the fact that they thought they'd done it. A defeat against Catafé and this defeat against Levante. And they now need a miracle. It's a pretty big miracle, yeah.

12:06I don't think Martin Demichelis is going to be able to do it.

12:10Phil Kitromilides:I mean, for what it's worth, it's not completely implausible. because if you think about it, they need Jorana to beat Elche. You would say that probably will happen. They need to beat Oviedo. You think that probably will happen. You need Osasuna... Which way around was it? Osasuna to lose their game. That could happen. They're away at... Getafe. Getafe. And they need Levante not to win. I mean, those are four different scenarios. Yeah, I mean, that is... Yeah, but all of them are plausible. So if you're a betting man, you might go for all of them. If you're a betting man, you want to do the least number of games in your accumulator.

12:57Of course, because the nature of the accumulator is a lot.

13:00Phil Kitromilides:Exactly. The very nature of an accumulator is that the odds widen because there are too many results being multiplied by each other. Who do you think is going to go down then, Sid? I think going down are, well, Real Oviedo, obviously. I think that... Big call. Yeah, very big call, that. Do you know what? I think Osasuna and Mallorca are going with them. Wow. Osasuna, they've just collapsed as well, haven't they? I mean, we were talking about that earlier. That's it. No, no, hang on. Osasuna are not going with them. Do you know why? Because they're already... Because they're... The combinations mean that, yeah, I'm just looking at it now.

13:41Phil Kitromilides:Hang on. Yeah, I mean, this is ridiculous, isn't it? Because I'm looking at it now and still can't quite work it out. Because I'm assuming that Girona are going to beat Elche. And if that happens, Elche have 42 points, so they can't catch Osasuna. Yeah, this has been one of the sort of most... Mathematically shambolic. I'd say all over the place segments we've ever done on the podcast, to be honest. I'm not sure how much insight we've provided. If you're confused, you're sort of supposed to be. You know, that's the point of this. Yeah. So who do you think is going down? I don't know. What did I just say?

14:13Phil Kitromilides:So I'm going, okay, it's Elche Mallorca, Real Oviedo. Elche Mallorca. Okay. All right. Let's see. Let's see what happens. Yeah, that sounds plausible. That sounds plausible. I'm happy enough. Obviously, we'll do a full round of predictions on our preview pod on Friday, when hopefully... Do you know what? When we do that, maybe we'll actually try and work out what that actually means. Yeah. I mean, you know, no guarantee, but we'd like to think... I like to think that we could get it right. Okay. There is plenty of other things for us to discuss. Lots has happened, not just about the relegation battle.

14:53That was the most interesting thing about the final day. There were plenty of emotional goodbyes, long, slightly drawn out goodbyes. I was at the Metropolitano for Griezmann's...

15:06Phil Kitromilides:Did you have to come and take the whole thing? Is that why it feels very drawn out? were you there for quite a long time yeah yeah yeah yeah nobody there was it was just before we went on air they were like oh yeah there's going to be an hour homage to Griezmann afterwards an hour stick around and commentate that as well wow yeah it was so uh it felt uh I'll tell you one thing though nobody left nobody left no I did notice that in the footage and it was quite nice you know it was very nice actually I thought it was nice you know um it was nice it was nice and it was nicely done and they had loads of legendary figures there and Griezmann was visibly moved obviously he said sorry sorry for leaving sorry for going to Barcelona when I did I was young and I made a mistake and me and Al were there I was like you weren't that young you weren't that young I was just thinking that when you said he was young I mean all footballers are young I suppose but yeah in football in footballer terms he absolutely wasn't young he was what a decade into his career yeah you weren't that young but still i think i think they i think they've forgiven him i mean they've definitely forgiven him they've definitely forgiven him and uh he got a very very fitting send-off um he also produced an assist by the way in the game which was his 100th assist for uh atletico madrid so uh nice and he was absolutely everybody was desperate for him to score it was so funny it was almost like who is it who is it that really can score and just pulls it back to him instead.

16:33Well that happened a few times but Almada was one of them. Almada I think

16:36Phil Kitromilides:is one I'm thinking of and it's such a clear shooting opportunity so no I'm going to give it to that guy. Yeah yeah yeah that happened a few times he didn't manage to score but he did pop up with with an assist which is perhaps a a fitting way for him to bow out in front of the Metropolitano crowd. I mean we've spoken a lot about Griezmann over the years there's not an enormous amount for us to to add but there was sort of genuine so much warmth and affection towards him from everybody there in terms of his former teammates. Everybody seems to love Antoine Griezmann. And I know some people are pretty close to him.

17:07And he has a sort of a childlike enthusiasm and affection.

17:13Phil Kitromilides:I think that's the word, isn't it? It's the childishness of him, which occasionally is problematic, I think. Yes. But always means that even those people who get frustrated with him always know that there's no malice whatsoever in what he does. that there can be frustration from him. There can be moments when he gets upset. There can be moments when he doesn't feel right. But then when the joy comes, the joy comes and it's really, really genuine. And I think that was summed up, wasn't it? It was Simeone, wasn't it? One of the lines that he said, he said, it's very difficult for everyone to love you, for everyone to love anyone, for anyone to be loved by everybody.

17:47Phil Kitromilides:He said, but you are loved by everybody. Yeah, that was nice. There was also a homage to Bobby Lewandowski, who's leaving Barcelona. Is he going to the NYPD? He's left Chicago. After four years on the beats in Barca, which has brought 119 goals and three league titles, he's leaving. And the word legend has been thrown about quite a lot in terms of Lewandowski, with some people suggesting, no, he's not really a Barca legend. And other people suggesting he absolutely is a Barca legend. I'll tell you what he is, Sid. He's been a bloody amazing signing in terms of instant delivering. He's come in and just instantly delivered the bag full of goals that Barcelona needed and wanted and thought they were getting from him.

18:31Obviously, it wasn't cheap in terms of wages, but he's completely delivered. And you can't argue with the numbers and the titles that he's been heavily, heavily involved in.

18:40Phil Kitromilides:I was looking at the other day. I think he's won 15 league titles in his career, if you include his very first. Yeah, we're not talking about Germany. No, but actually, I think we can talk about Germany because remember that two of the titles he won in Germany were with Dortmund. so this isn't just this isn't just him scooping him up with Bayern but yes yeah but but what I mean is that this tells you something about the relentlessness of him yeah now for those of our listeners who don't know this I've been banging on about him being the Polish Ian Rush for years and I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you why now because um I'm friends with someone who follows Polish football who was talking about him in Poland before he went to Germany and at that stage he was quite tall and thin and had an Ian Rush moustache and for years I was talking about this guy's the Polish game.

19:21Phil Kitromilides:I don't ever see him play a couple of times, but my mate was like, oh, he's so good. And then he went to Germany and absolutely tore it up. And it's the relentlessness of it. It's the seriousness. And you had Hansi Flick, didn't you say that he, you know, essentially say he's the most professional person I've ever worked with. And Lewandowski, you know, you can question maybe whether it was the right style for Barcelona over the last year or so, whether he had the dynamism, the movement and all the rest of it. And obviously we know what age he's at, and there's a reason why he's not continuing, which is partly that his salary is very high, but also so that the contribution doesn't match the size of that salary.

19:51Phil Kitromilides:But you're absolutely right. If ever there was a player that was basically guaranteed, this guy will give you the goals. This guy will win league titles. Lewandowski's fulfilled that entirely. He certainly has. He certainly has. And remember, he came out of a very difficult period for Barcelona. He certainly did as well. Really difficult. And he's helped smooth things over, certainly on the pitch. So, Bobby Lu bowing out at the camp now. Oscar Trejo bowing out in Vallecas as well, starting for Rayo and providing an assist in their 2-0 win over Villarreal. There was a beautiful Tifo from the crowd as well and another extraordinarily legendary figure with Rayo.