BarcelonaThere are still a few months left until the end of the season, but now is the time to decide what Espanyol will be in the coming years. Despite the crisis of the game and the results of January and the Tourmalet in February, I think we will end the season having fulfilled the sad goal set by the club’s leaders: to continue in the First Division. Therefore, when I consider that we are now playing our future, I do not think about the immediate sports results but about two decisions that will determine it. Óscar Melendo – the only player in the club’s history who has reached the first team having started at the club’s school – and Rufete – sporting director – end their contract at the end of the season and, by logic and rumors, it is now being decided its continuity. All indications are that the midfielder will leave and the sports manager will stay. Two reasons to be very worried.
I admit that I have a weakness for Oscar Melendo. Maybe because my life as a parakeet fan is a constant search for what, at the age of eight or nine, I heard watching Dani Solsona play. Or for a vital choice for small and home players, different coaches, who play with their heads held high, punished by the brutality of the opposing kicks, of those who find the space where it seems that there are only legs of defenders. I like Melendo’s football and I like Espanyol’s football when he is the protagonist: let’s remember that Rubi’s Spaniard who, after so many years, qualified for Europe with a brilliant Melendo.
Maybe if you want to make a team to be among the top four Melendo would not be the protagonist. But at least in the short term, that’s not the plan. At the moment, we are the tenth budget in the league with healthy accounts. And in the tenth team of the League Melendo has a place. Especially if he’s in the club of his life. And even more so if this club wants to make its commitment to the youth club its hallmark.
I’m afraid that the operation of the coming months will be to make us believe that it’s not that Espanyol doesn’t want Melendo, but that it’s the player who wants to leave. Everything is relative. If the renewal offer is not good enough, you are invited to leave. If they don’t make you feel loved and valued, they are inviting you to leave. It is up to the club to decide who it wants to be. Because a club in which Melendo (with everything he represents both symbolically and footballingly) does not feel good and Aleix Vidal, Dimata, Loren, Vadillo, Fran Mérida, Calero or Embarba, yes, has a serious problem. We will address this issue next week.
