La Liga: Celta vs. Levante

This is a real bottom of the table clash and could well determine who stays up and who goes down. Celta are currently third from the bottom and with just one win in the last seven games. The other six matches they lost. New coach Hristo stoitchkov started well enough with a one nil home win over arch rivals Deportivo, but since then they have lost their next three matches and were unable to score in any of them. The truth is Celta are in deep trouble. They don’t have the squad to be in a position to fight their way out of a terrible season and will more than likely be relegated. A large portion of this can be blamed on Celta selling their star man David Silva to Valencia. For this weekend’s game the board of directors has lowered the ticket price in a bid to get more fans to go and help Celta with their support. This is a question of too little, too late, in my opinion and won’t really effect the outcome.
Levante have it a little better. Currently they are three points above Celta and with a couple of points more should earn a place in next season’s top division. Levante’s problems though, might just be beginning. There are rumours flying around Spain at the moment about a possible game fixing in Levante’s last game against bottom club Nastic. Apparently, some of Nastic’s players were supposed to have accepted bribes in order for them to lose the game. Their goalkeeper, ex Real Madrid and Argentinean international Albano Bizzarri, was mysteriously dropped for the first time this season a couple of minutes before kick off. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Spanish clubs has for many years been known to offer footballers of their rivals ‘incentives’ to win games. While this is illegal, most of the time nothing is ever done about it. But bribing players to lose games is another kettle of fish altogether and could have dire consequences on the league.
This is a difficult match to call. Celta have only won two games at home all season and Levante curiously have only won away from home twice. I think this game will end up in a nil nil draw, which won’t be of much use to either side.