Pining for a Depor.

In Phil Ball’s quite excellent book on Spanish football “Morbo” he uses the story of a young Galician women who upon being asked by a TV crew wheater she felt sorry for the incessant rain that was pouring down on the rest of Spain replied simply; “Que se jodan.” Translation: “F*** them”. The rest of Spain were outraged at the woman’s crass reply but were also amused by the typical Galician sprit.

That was in the summer of 2002 when Deportivo La Corunna regularly thumbed their nose at the perennial Catalan and Madrid powers in Spanish football. Depor had won La Liga in 2000 having challenged for it consistently before then. Javier Irureta, the man who makes Avram Grant look like a jester led Depor to the championship, Kings Cup and the quarter-final of the Champion’s league in a glittering three year period punctuated by the brilliance of Juan Carlos Valeron.

Depor and Valeron meekly slipped away from La Liga last season, and the memories of them toppling Spain’s big guns faded with them. It now seems a mere myth that a club like Depor once smashed the established order.

The top table in Spain used to be able to accommodate more than Barca and Madrid. But no longer. The chastening chasm between the big two and the rest appears to be widening even greater this summer.

We all marvel and appreciate we live in blessed times when watching Barcelona, while the box-office element of Real will always be there. But where is the competition? Athletico have lost David De Gea and Sergio Aguero. Valencia are forever in limbo. Villarreal have clung onto Giuseppe Rossi and made a canny capture in Christian Zapata but nobody expects the yellow submarine to emerge at the top.

Rafael Benietez’s Valencia were the last to really split the big two but that is not likely to happen again. Not as long as any bright youngster such as Sergio Canales is whisked away to Madrid at seventeen. Not as long as money remains a monopoly plaything to Barca. Yes their success is built upon the ideological rock of La Masia but let’s not gloss over the extraordinary spending that the Catalans have committed to in the last five years.

Rather depressingly it may be the new money of Malaga that registers a blip in the La Liga radar this season. But as they are likely to find out brutally in their opening tie with Barca, fusing a new team takes time. Gelling one that can take on the dominant duopoly will take years.

The new television deal, signed at the beginning of the year only cements the position at the top. The others will survive, but they will not thrive. The title will be decided by two games while the rest will jostle for the bronze medal.

Yet we can still hope that someone somewhere will put it up to those two. As the Galician lady said “F*** them”. It never seems to rain on them.