“I want to talk about qualifying for European competitions, I don’t want us to just be outside the relegation zone on goal difference. We are a historic club and we have great fans, we are a great institution. I'm not thinking about just not being relegated.”. These words were not those of a manager of Villarreal or Athletic, but those of the Mexican Jesús Martínez, president of the Pachuca Group which is none other than the main shareholder of Real Oviedo. This media intervention took place on the occasion of the dismissal of the coach, who started the season, Veljko Paunović, and who logically aroused a lot of astonishment and mockery in Spain.
It must be said that it is quite unusual for a promoted player to fire his coach in October under the pretext that he is not in a qualifying position for a European competition. Especially since Oviedo had a complicated start to the season schedule, having already faced Barça, Real Madrid or Villarreal in the first days. And, on paper at least, we cannot say that Oviedo's squad is of such quality nor built to be at the top of the table, with 3.5 million euros spent this summer alone. There are certainly some rather interesting players, like goalkeeper Aaron Escandell, defender David Carmo, Leander Dendoncker who we saw in the Premier League or French winger Haissem Hassan, but a place in the soft underbelly would already be quite an achievement for such a squad.
A club that is going downhill
Since Paunovic's dismissal, the team is still winless and has sunk into the relegation zone, with a nineteenth-place finish only Carbayones will have a hard time leaving given what they've been showing for a while. Worse still, on Tuesday evening, Real Oviedo took the door in the Copa del Rey against Ourense, a team which plays in the third division, and became the first La Liga club to be eliminated in the competition this season. Suffice to say that for a club which calls itself so ambitious, it is “a real shame”. These were the words of captain Dani Calvo after the match.
The club's problems do not end there as a Mexican judge has issued an arrest warrant against club boss Jesús Martínez, after the latter refused to appear in court for various cases in the country. This is not going to help matters, as anger rises among the supporters. In a few months, they went from immense joy at the idea of returning to the first division after 20 years, to significant annoyance following the actions of management. With a complicated month of November to negotiate, since Luis Carrion's men will have to travel to the pitches of Athletic Club and Atlético de Madrid in particular, the coming weeks are likely to be even more difficult to live with…
