Fate took advantage of Espanyol and filled with cruelty a descent that has become inevitable day after day. With the desire to look in the mirror and sing the mea culpa, the players and the coach of the perico team were overcome by the bitterness produced by several debatable refereeing decisions, some of them scandalous, to assess the relegation accomplished in Mestalla when they receive an added goal. The defense, always the defense, has condemned the white-and-blues. But self-criticism immediately appeared, the only way to explain what has happened in a dark season. Things have not been done well.
The second relegation in three seasons has definitely turned all the spotlight on the box office. They all blame Chen Yansheng, who on Sunday became the first (and only) president with two relegations behind him. Terrible.
For years, the owner of Espanyol has been acting in vain and this is reflected in the instability of the club and, especially, of the first team. Since January 2016, when Chen bought the majority of Espanyol's shares with the promise of going to the Champions League, the club has had four general managers, five sporting directors and up to eight coaches. If adding two descents makes one shudder, this dance of names is also terrifying.
The feeling conveyed by Spanishism is that the credit of the Chinese tycoon has run out. No one disputes that he was concerned that the team was doing well, or that he put money out of his pocket to save the club from a very delicate situation. But that is already part of the past. The reality is that the accounts have been making losses for three years, that he no longer scratches his pocket, and that he does not seem to trust anyone, which gives rise to an instability that the team has not been able to withstand.
"The responsibility for relegation lies with the management of the club. We have not learned from the mistakes, but we will put all the resources to return to Primera", proclaimed yesterday with some ambiguity the owner of Espanyol, in the same line as the first institutional reaction after the defeat of Mestalla, which came from Mao Yes. "We will get to work immediately, thinking about the future", declared the general manager in the morning to the official media, not even to the special envoys in Valencia.
Chen's latest nonsense, because no one has any doubts who is the first person responsible for all the important decisions that are made at Espanyol, came with the relief on the bench this season. With the substitution of Diego Martínez, whose credit had run out, just after the international break, two weeks of work that would have been of inestimable value for the footballers to get used to the methods and the booklet were wasted by Luis García.
By the way, the coach is one of the few who keeps the club's image intact and will be in charge of trying to get the team back to Primera. It must be remembered, and it is not futile, that the previous five times Espanyol achieved promotion the following season.
With the sale of the club to an American investment group parked, negotiation which, by the way, ended up costing the position of general manager José María Durán, and with more than possible relief in the sports dome, Espanyol faces a very delicate summer. The budget reduction due to relegation – television revenues will be five times lower (10 instead of 50 million) and the compensation fund of LaLiga that allowed to maintain the structure of the team three years ago this time will be much smaller – will imply a deep restructuring of the staff and the more than likely departure of heavyweights such as Joselu or Darder.
The thorniest case of all is that of Nico Melamed (22), Luis García's philosopher's stone on which the future of the team is built, whose contract ends next year and has not yet renewed it. A few weeks ago, in addition, the castelldefele player changed his representative and signed for Team Raiola, which the club took as a not at all positive sign.
At the moment, the only certainties that Espanyol cannot escape are that next year they will have to survive the Segona hell and that Chen will continue to manage the club's destinies. The Chinese, like Hans Christian Andersen's new emperor, do not seem to be alerted to mistakes by the environment. It is thousands of kilometers away, on the banks of the Llobregat, where the town points to them. Now I just have to listen to them.
