Download - "Forever Manolo Preciado"
1 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Forever Manolo Preciado
2 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Contents / Contenido
"Forever Manolo Preciado"
Summer-Verano 2012
Club - Levante's European Debut
First Team –
Player Focus: Juanlu
Season Preview (2012-13)
Official Kits (2012-13)
Fuera de Juego - Forever Manolo Preciado (Cover Story)
Born In The USA - Nuestro más sentido pésame
La prórroga - Frog Parking ONLY
3 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
agosto de 2012
Levante's European Debut Publicado por Deán Burrier Sanchis
In 2008, when Levante relegated back to Segunda, people weren’t talking about whether
Levante would return to the top flight. Instead talk surrounded on whether or not we would
ever see Levante again period. The club was on the verge of disappearing due to its
accumulated debts from a reckless and incredibly arrogant owner, Pedro Villarroel.
Now, in 2012, quite a bit has changed. The club is now socio-owned, fastly consolidating
and absolving debt, with a President whose trademark has been money-managing and
resource-managing, and a sporting director who seeks out the most inexpensive players, as
well as a growing fan base that is emerging from the shadows that the previous ownership
cast them in. What seemed like an impossibility, has become a reality. Not only have
Levante come out into the light, but on this Thursday, August the 23rd, at 2:45 EST, Levante
will step out under the lights of a humble Scottish stadium in a two-leg Europa League
qualifying match against Motherwell, a modest team with nonetheless a fair bit of experience
in European matches.
4 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Motherwell, Levante’s opponent and a club not all that different from Levante in terms of
circumstances and history, will have three key advantages in the opening leg in Scotland:
conditioning, European experience and home-field advantage. The first seems to stand out
most of the three. Motherwell won their first league match this past weekend and is currently
second in the Scottish table after three rounds of play. Levante, meanwhile, have only played
one league fixture and are still very much coming together as a team. For starters, the club
are awaiting the signing of another striker and another centre back. However, it should not be
overlooked that many of Levante’s signings have just arrived in the last week and a
half: Christian Lell, Dudka, Nikos Karampelas andGekas. Their adaptation to a new
language, club and team is still in its initial phase. In front, Levante has a rival that may be
inferior on paper but that will take the field competition-ready and in peak-condition.
Levante will most likely make some alterations to the lineup that took on Atletico Madrid,
however, JIM is notorious for sticking to his guns, so those alterations will most likely be
minimal. It will be interesting to see if Levante take the field looking to frustrate Motherwell
with some lockdown defense or frustrate them by dominating possession.
Levante have shown that they are capable of playing a different style of football other than
the counter-attacking they are more known for. In a preseason friendly against Villarreal,
Levante dominated possession and created a slough of opportunities, even if the final result
was not desirable. The starting lineup will tell us a lot. It would not be surprising to see
a Michel enter the starting lineup in a center-attacking role, with Gekas or Angel up-top,
pressuring the defense when on the back foot and springing forward through combination
play when possible. It also could be that JIM experiments with using Angel as a mediapunta
and Gekas as a more true striker. Pallardomay have also shown enough merit against
Villarreal and Atletico to start alongside Iborra in the midfield in place of Diop. According
to the analysis that Levante have taken of Motherwell, the Scotish club will look to attack
from the wings.
Whichever tactic Levante choose, to wait for the counter or to go after the game, the team
needs to be convinced of its style of play and be confident that it can take away a positive
result from this first-leg. This first-leg proves to be a battleground, a center stage appearance
for two of Europe’s more successful modest clubs. Which humble club will carry the
advantage into the second-leg in Valencia?
5 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
FIRST TEAM
In a yet another demonstration of class, Levante had the whole roster of players line up for the
traditional pre-match photo before playing Athletic Bilbao for the right to play the Europa
League
Season Preview 2012-13: Can We Do It Again?
Publicado por Deán Burrier Sanchis
Once again here we are, wondering how next season could possibly be any better than last.
Levante fans were overjoyed in 2011 to see their team play out to a 0-0 draw in Mestalla
against archrivals Valencia CF to mathematically avoid relegation. No one really ventured to
place the bar any higher than it already was, though at the start of the 2011-12 season,
Levante had clearly made a huge jump in the quality of its roster. At each position, Levante
improved drastically and in retrospect in should have been obvious that Levante were going
to be looking up and not down. Though the Europa League and a very foreign-filled roster
could prove to be major obstacles for the club’s 2012-13 Liga campaign, I am going to
venture to say that Levante can be as good and maybe even a little bit better than it was last
year. Let’s take a look at how Levante have improved…
6 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
DEFENSE Javi Venta < Christian Lell
Javi still is solid, however his form really fell off the deep end
midseason. Lell will bring youth and profesionalism, along with a real
hunger to compete. This should help Pedro López stay in top form with
some competition and provide for rest. Cabral < Hector Rodas & David Navarro & ???
Cabral was quicker than the other center halves, but mentally had
lapses, and so did Navarro. However, one has to believe that with a
young and inspired Rodas and a tough and experienced Navarro, who
will rejoin his former Mallorca mate Ballesteros, in the middle can make
fans easily forget Cabral… at least until Celta come to town, that will be
a sight to witness. Also, Levante are expected to sign another center
back. Del Horno < Karabelas
If Del Horno had not struggled so much with injury, this would go
the other way. If Karabelas can clean up his game (terrible own goal
against Villarreal in preseason friendly) and stay healthy, he can
probably be better than Del Horno, though Asier’s profesionalism and
all-out gifting of himself to the cause will have to be replaced by
Karabelas and someone else, hopefully Rodas. For just one of them, that
load would be too much to carry.
MIDFIELD Xavi Torres < Pape Diop
Younger, quicker and stronger defensively, Diop will be better than
Xavi Torres. Let’s not forget Iborra was the real star midfielder last year,
not X. Torres. Farinós < Dudka
The signing of Dudka from Auxerre seems close to conclussion but
is not official. If the deal did produce itself, Dudka´s youth and ability to
function at multiple positions (Defensive Middie, Centre Back and
Outside Back) would mean he will offer more to the coaching staff in
terms of strategy than Farinós did. Valdo < Pedro Rios
Ríos is faster and ever so slightly more imaginitive. This is perhaps
the closest battle, but Valdo clearly must have felt he could not keep up
to par this year in La Liga when he packed his bags to go to Cancun. Pedro Botehlo < Óscar Serrano
Even if Serrano turns out to be a total bust (again?), the mere fact
that he won’t look like he went straight from the discoteca (*ehem*, I
mean err… the dentist!) to the field makes him much, much, much better
than Botehlo. Even a dazzle of good form could be all Levante really
need from Serrano.
7 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Ruben Suarez = Michel This really is not a fair comparison as its not a direct swap, but
Rubén´s free kicks are just irreplaceable. Michel will do his best to post a
fair number of goals. Though he won´t equal the style of Rubén, if he
equals his goal register from last season, he will be a runaway success for
Levante.
ATTACK Ghezzal < Ángel
More agile and quicker in general, Ángel should fit like hand in
glove at Levante. Ghezzal struggled and came on strong, but never really
showed consistency. Arandà < Gekas
Much more prolific and much quicker, Gekas should be miles ahead
of Arandà, though it remains to see if Gekas has a better attitude than
Arandà who had a notoriously poor demeanor in his time at Levante. Do
not expect Gekas to learn Spanish. In all his years in Germany, he still
refused to speak even a little German. His reasoning, “they pay me to
score goals, not to speak”. KONÉ > ???
Let´s face it, the last signing Levante will make will be a striker and
barring some obscenely incredible turn of events (hey, it´s happened: see
Caicedo and Koné) the #1 striker will not be better than Koné. He made
the Levante counterattack work with his precision and most importantly
his quickness. Whoever Levante sign, the shoes may be far too big to fill.
Luckily the other strikers will carry some more weight this year as
opposed to last year, where Koné was mostly alone amongst the strikers.
Is it enough? While Levante have seemingly improved across the board, this alone is obviously not a
guarantee of success. The vast majority of the new signings are new to La Liga and
Spain. Language difficulties may present a serious problem for the club and the team. A
certain amount of adaptation time will certainly be required for many of the recent signings,
a time period that the Liga and Europa League calendars, beginning in earnest over this next
week, do not permit. Lastly, its not like the rest of La Liga has been sitting by idly. Sevilla,
Real Sociedad, Deportivo, Rayo, Granada and several other teams that theoretically would
compete with Levante in the table. A weakened Málaga and a disillusioned Athletic could
help matters, but the most important thing for Levante is not to focus on other teams, but
rather focus on each game and avoiding injuries, a tall task when considering the additional
games being played this year with a roster size about the same as last year. All things
considered, Levante should be in the middle of the table, hopefully avoiding relegation for a
third consecutive year. ¡Visca Llevant!
8 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Official Kits 2012-13 Publicado por Deán Burrier Sanchis
Yesterday, July 4th, Levante presented their new shirts
for the 2012-13 campaign in which the club will be
represented in European competition for the first time in
its history as the club plays a two-leg Europa League
qualifier in August.
Expectations were high among Levante fans as the new
shirts were the visit ever to be done by the Valencian company Kelmé, based in Elche. Levante
signed a 3-year deal with Kelmé during the previous campaign, ending a long partnership with
Luanvi, another Valencian company. Luanvi in turn will be doing the kits for Granada this year.
Kelmé has an ambitious plan to build a store in Valencia city and also sell Levante
merchandising in 50 countries, including the United States (as reported today by AS).
It had been announced in the press and here at Forza, that Levante would be opting for a Green
kit this year in a new marketing effort inspired by the club’s nickname “los granotas” or “the
frogs” in Valencian. Here are the kits as seen at the presentation in the Valencian aquarium,
L’oceanografique.
The first kit will be Levante’s classic blue and garnet stripped shirt. This year’s design includes a
shirt collar, some thin black lining across the chest and at the end of the shirt sleeves and a few
more stripes than in past years. Fans are pleased to see that this year, the stripes continue onto the
back of the shirt, whereas in past years solid colors have been used. For example, last year the all
blue back of the shirt with yellow numbers made Levante look like Getafe from behind.
The second kit will be the Green Granota kit. Worn by Vicente Iborra in the presentation, the kit
is a more tame version of the one presented by SuperDeporte last week and is actually fairly
similar to the green kit that Barcelona wore in the 2010-11 season. Rather than a bright, neon
green, the kit is more of a darker shade of green-yellow. The shirt features a blaugrana
hortizontal stripe across the chest in which the logo resides.
Historically, Levante has used its second kit to honor its origins as Levante Football Club by
sporting a black and white vertically-stripped kit, similar to Juventus. However, this year the
shirt is being dumped to third position and with a design that has infuriated fans. A single
white, horizontal bar of white, with slivers of white on the shoulders do not resemble what
Levante followers see as a classic shirt.
Ángel Ovejero presented a goalie kit that leaves little to comment except that the mostly white
design will feature different green and brown stains when actually worn in games by Gustavo
Munua.Team captain Sergio Ballesteros sported the new “Senyera Jacket” which pays tribute to
the Valencian regional flag, just as last year’s 3rd kit did. Levante will wear this jacket when
they enter the field before games, just as Real Madrid did last season with their Adidas jackets.
The first and second kits have pleased fans, while the third kit and team jackets are getting a poor
reception. What do you think of the new shirts? Will the Granota Green be a success?
9 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Player Focus: Juanlu Publicado por Deán Burrier Sanchis
The devout club football fan is one who appreciates the
players who only ever wear their shirt. Who rise through the
ranks of the youth teams to fight their way into the first
team roster, proving many of their own cynical fans wrong.
In theory every club has this prototype player, to greater or
lesser extent. We are nurtured on the idea that each club has
its own unique philosophy. Not just a philosophy of style of
play (as perhaps not all do), but a more all-encompassing
cultural philosophy of virtues, values and humanity, that
only those who are of pure roots can ever fully embody.
The great clubs have their club symbol, much like an insignia of the club itself, a hometown
hero. What Steven Gerrard is to Liverpool, what Xavi Hernández is to Barcelona, what Raúl or
Casillas is to Real Madrid, what Sergio Ballesteros is to Levante UD. Behind them in the ranks
are the aspirants to the throne, or the captaincy, thecanteranos, each arising in a burst of new
hope, anxiety and speculation. Can the latest call-up stick to more than just the practice squad?
Football is an ever evolving darwinian ecosystem, where 1 out of tens of thousands battles for
years to earn the right to be the standard-bearer for their club. They are legends in the most
medieval sense of the word.
At Levante, the current standard-bearer is without a doubt, Sergio Ballesteros. A former
canterano, who left to taste European glory with Tenerife, Mallorca and Villarreal and who
returned to lift Levante in its 100th year to a historic promotion. Juanfran took a similar road,
his tears of pure sentiment after a 3-2 come from behind win against Espanyol the truest
indicator of what Levante means to him. Vicente Iborra seems poised to succeed both in the not
too distant future as both captain and standard-bearer of Levante if he so desires, himself a true
embodiment of Levante values: humility, work ethic and discipline.
However, perhaps more rare even than the 1-club man, the club standard bearer, is that rare
breed of player who can come to a club from another part of the world and not only win the
hearts of the fans, but more importantly become an embodiment of the club itself and the fans in
the way the standard bearer does. A non-homegrown leader, who seemingly still carries the club
in his DNA. Simply put, if Levante could be embodied into one sole football player in terms of
trajectory, size, personality and sheer fight, it would be Juanlu.
At the start of the 2008-2009, Levante, a storied and historic club in Spanish football, was on the
verge of disappearing all together. Levante had hit rock bottom. Fans were disillusioned, the club
was bankrupt and there literally was no team. Preseason started with 6 players training.
The same season, Juanlu, once a goal scorer for an Osasuna side that competed in Champions
qualifying, was on the verge of disappearing from professional football and becoming yet
another irrelevant reject who never quite made it. He went the entire season without playing a
single minute for Betis, a club that had signed him to a four year deal and after several loans, left
10 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
him for dead. He was not even training with the first team, but rather the fourth division B team.
They made a mockery of him.
At the start of the 2009-10 campaign, Juanlu joined with Levante, and the roads of the two
continued similar trajectories. In that season, Juanlu, and Levante, were reborn. Since that magic
season, Juanlu has come to be almost a metaphor for the club itself.
In terms of size, Juanlu stands small in stature, just as Levante is known as a “little” club. Both
have been belittled and overlooked on account of their size. His personality very much represents
the happy go lucky, relentlessly positive and insurmountable spirit of Levante. He can make even
the most stern faced fans laugh themselves to tears. Whether its advising fans to put him in their
fantasy roster, calling for David Beckham to become a shareholder for Levante, instead of
Málaga as has been rumored, or when warning Segunda foes that when they went up against
Levante, they were going up against the big *expletive for human excrement*.
In the author’s personal experience, Juanlu can make light of any situation, much as Levante
have done over the last 103 years, find the light that keeps you moving forward, even after
failing time and time again. When injured last season, Juanlu
told me that I had come all the way from the United States to
Valencia, only to miss the chance to see ”the best player”. A
missed opportunity for which I hope to make amends later this
season.
In terms of footballing ability, Juanlu might not look like much
to the casual spectator, who makes the same miscalculation
some rivals make when they face Levante: underestimation.
His quickness and foot skills, even at 32, are surprising, his wisdom on the field and desire to do
whatever it takes to win, even if that means taking one of Di Maria’s elbows to his face.
Metaphorically and figuratively, Juanlu has done it all for Levante.
His 1-0 goal against Castellón pushed Levante to a 3-1 win to guarantee promotion to first
division in 2010. His lone strike in Sevilla against the club that dashed his dreams, Betis, vaulted
Levante to a virtual tie with Barcelona for first place in the 6th round of La Liga in 2011. One
round later a 1-0 volleyed strike against Villarreal put Levante alone atop the table of La Liga,
with 7 games played, a historic feat.
Not even a devastating, long-term injury could do away with Juanlu, just as time nor tragedy
have done away with Levante. Juanlu recovered and became Levante’s first European goal-
scorer just a few weeks ago in a historic first european 0-2 win for Levante against Motherwell
FC in Scotland.
At the end of the day, it seemed fitting. Newer arrivals El Zhar, Gekas and Ángel will net their
goals this season and work their way into the hearts of fans in the future, but a goal so important
to fans could only be scored by someone so intrinsically representative of the club and the hearts
he fights for when he wears the Levante shirt. Juanlu, you may not be a Levante canterano, not
even a native of the Valencian region, but somehow you have entered a place in our hearts where
only the most loyal and true have before. Here’s to you Juanlu, Billy the Kid, El Señor Cagazo,
the comedian, the welterweight champion, the friend and the little engine that could.
11 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Fuera de juego:
Forever Manolo Preciado Publicado por Deán Burrier Sanchis
Manolo Preciado (August 28th 1957 – June 6th 2012), loved and
defiant, a legendary manager in Spain, left us unexpectedly at
midnight last night due to a heart attack. He was just hours away
from being presented as the new manager of Villarreal, embracing
yet again the challenge of promoting a club from Segunda. He
accomplished the same feat with Levante in 2004, the club’s first
promotion to First Division in 50 years. Just three years later he
managed Sporting Gijon to a promotion and a long run in La Liga’s
top flight, resisting relegation all the way up until being fired midway
through this season. He will be remembered fondly across Spain,
particularly in the hearts of those whose clubs he managed: Gimnastica de Torrelavega, Racing
Santander (He also played 115 games for Racing and even coached the B team during several
seasons), Levante, Murcia, Sporting Gijon and, for one day, Villarreal.
An outpouring of messages and mourning is taking over the footballing world and online
communities as so many remember a loving man who resisted and fought on the playing field as
much as he did off of it. His perseverance will be remembered more than any on field
accomplishment he achieved. His life was rocked by a series of tragedies to his loved ones,
losing his wife to cancer in 2002 and his son to a car crash in 2004. Most recently, his father was
killed in a pedestrian crossing accident in 2011. It was after this most recent tragedy that Manolo
explained his perseverance through so much sorrow and tragedy. A relentless competitor, a friend to so many in football and an exemplary human being, may you
find peace and reassurance with your loved ones now that you have joined them and may your
memory fill the hole that you have left behind.
“Life has left me severed. I could have been vulnerable and end up shooting myself, or look to
the heavens and grow. I chose the second.”
Rest in Peace, Manolo.
12 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
Nuestro más sentido pésame a los familiares de
Manolo Preciado y a todos los seguidores del
Levante y del fútbol a quienes les impresionó.
Desde los miembros de la peña “Born In The USA” lamentamos
profundamente la muerte de una persona tan importante en la historia
levantinista como en los corazones de miles y miles de levantinistas.
Deseamos recordar y homenajear a Manolo por todo lo que significaba y
significa para el levantinismo, para el deporte del fútbol y para la
humanidad en general. Hay pocas personas capaces de sobrevivir
tristezas tan profundas como le sucedió a Manolo y seguir luchando y
seguir con ganas cada vez más ganas de vivir. Se nos ha ido una gran luz
en esta vida.
13 | P a g e S u m m e r – V e r a n o 2 0 1 2
En un rincón granota en Estados Unidos, nos encontramos con esto... En la próxima edición "Fall-Otoño 2012" descubrimos dónde se encuentra.