Kiat Lim wanted to see Valencia play so badly, so that is what he did. It was week four in La Liga, 6 September, and for the first time since he was given the presidency 18 months earlier, the owner’s 33-year-old son was going to watch his team play a competitive game. He was going to do it from the inside, too, so he took a flight to Spain, landing at Manises in a black mask and cap, a van to the hotel, then the team bus to Mestalla.
He looked through the window as they rolled along Avenida Suecia, a huge, noisy crowd waiting, but when he got off and headed through the iron gate with its ornate club badge, he saw that this was no welcome. Above him as he went in were giant portraits of Mario Kempes, Antonio Puchades, Juan Sol, Gaizka Mendieta, David Villa and Santiago Cañizares, footballers from a better time; around him were yellow banners and whistles for the footballers there now. Inside, Lim saw the game start with the lower south stand empty as fans stayed away until the 19th minute, the sound of another protest drifting in from the street.
They were out there still when, sitting alongside Joan Laporta, he saw Lamine Yamal score the sixth-minute opener then get a second. And although that, also from Lamine Yamal, was ruled out, he eventually saw Barcelona get four more, presiding over a 5-0 debut defeat. He had seen supporters leave early, seen those that stayed turn towards him, chanting for him and his family to leave for good.
He had seen the hankies come out and his players head into the tunnel heads bowed. He heard his manager insist that they were hurt but not sunk. What he did not see – what no one had seen yet but everyone would see soon enough – was the verdict from the bench.
Withdrawn after an hour to a standing ovation, the World Cup winner Rodri took a towel and turned to Pau Cubarsí. Very bad.” He asked where they finished last season, pulled a face that said seriously?! when he was told just outside Europe, and noted that they had not left their own half. Valencia, he said, were malísimo.
The sequence was caught on camera by El Día Después, and soon it was everywhere. Rodri called Valencia’s captain José Luis Gayà, saying sorry. After Barcelona’s Champions League win against Feyenoord three days later, he offered a public apology.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
