April 30th, 2008
Valladolid… ¡towards UEFA!
While this title seems a bit pointless because of this season Real Valladolid’s performance in the Spanish League (only 4 points above salvation with only 4 matches left), the Mendilibar’s team could play UEFA the next season due to their fair play.
UEFA rewards the Europe’s most sportsmanly three teams every season in order to promote fair play on the continental football. To achieve this, it selects one team for each country of Europe and then makes a darwing of three slots for the UEFA Cup. This year it will happen in May 13 at Manchester and Real Valladolid is the third most sportsmanly Spanish League’s team after FC Barcelona and Villarreal. However, these teams have an assured place to play European competitions the next season, so Real Valladolid is near to be selected as the Spanish representative. Of course, only if Deportivo who are at 2 points from Real Valladolid don’t surpass them before the raffle.
UEFA has in mind the behaviour of the supporters, the positive game, the respect to the referee and to the rival, and, of course, the number of yellow and red cards showed to the team’s players. Even though the priority for Real Valladolid is to survive one year more in the Spanish League, it is also true that they could play the UEFA Cup the next season.
