It is July when I am first declared the new manager at Sporting de Gijón.
A new manager with lacking experience, with no chance of securing the teams place in the top division, that is what most people are saying.
I am here to prove them wrong, to show them that passion for the game, and for the team and the players, goes a long way. Tactics and strategy will come, I will learn, I will grow with the club.
Together we will make it, hopefully already this season, to Europe and to glory.
As I take charge, many of the coaches including the previous Assistant Manager have left and I am going to look for new additions.
I will later on announce our new signings both players and staff, as well as bring up a summary of our pre-season results and my thoughts about them. Thank you for your time and see you soon, I hope.
We had a pretty tough pre season scheduled when I arrived. We were going to start off with games against Bayern Münich and Bolton, and then off to some 'easier' teams on paper in form of Crotone and San Martín.
Against Bayern we had a good crowd of almost 21.000 fans cheering us on, not bad at all for a friendly game.
But we didn't really repay their support, we got off to a terrible start with a goal from Mario Gómez in the very first minute, then Müller added to that in the 12th minute and from there on we just fell apart. In the end we stood there, humiliated after losing 0-6 at home. Sure they are a great team, the German giants, but these numbers should not be happening against anyone, not if we want to play in Europe any time soon.
Sporting Gijón 0 - 6 Bayern Münich Mario Gómez (1)
Thomas Müller (12) Alberto Botía O.G. (26)
Arjen Robben (36)
Danijel Pranjic (64)
Luiz Gustavo (82)
MoM: Mario Gómez (9.0)
Attendance: 20.973
Bolton 3 - 3 Sporting Gijón
A pretty fair result even though Bolton had more chances they were not more dangerous than us, many missed opportunities.
A good turn around from us after being down 2-0 after 28 minutes we got the score to 2-3 but conceded once more in the 85th.
Crotone 3 -2 Sporting Gijón
We got outplayed by a Serie B team. Nothing more to say than we really have to improve our game, especially our defence, if we want to stay in La Liga after this season.
San Martín 0 - 6 Sporting Gijón
A very deserved result in a one sided game. Good last game of the pre season, to bolster our confidence a bit and hopefully get the form going, even if it was against weak opposition.
Season Tickets Sold Out!
Good news for the team, I'd like to thank all the supporters who bought season tickets, we've sold all we had.
A total of 22.500 tickets are sold and with a stadium capacity of 25.885 I'd like to say that's pretty amazing!
Thank you everyone for your support.
Thank you, I hope they will turn out more than decent. I actually sold Alex Serrano to make some money, I got atleast €1Million for him with more money incoming, if they sell him I get 50%. I needed it for a signing I made right after the last update, after this season Carlos Fierro is joining us!
Now we're finally starting off in the league, I have waited for this moment for a very long time, much longer than since I joined Sporting. It will be very tough but I sincerely believe we can have a rather sucessfull campaign, and it all starts now, against Real Sociedad.
Sporting Gijón 0 - 2 Real Sociedad Ion Ansotegi (9, 15)
MoM: Ion Ansotegi (9.2)
Attendance: 25.885
Not the start I hoped for, a fairly even match statistic wise but then again, you have to score to win, they did we didn't.
Two goals from a central defender, right, that's our luck isn't it.
We did some pretty bad defending this game and didn't capitalize on our chances, then this is how it ends up. Real Sociedad, a team we will hopefully be ahead of in the end of the season, we have much work to do.
Another game that looked even, if you ignore the score, but you can't do that. It's another heavy loss for us against a team that I hope will be below us in the end. Some dull offensive from our part and we can't seem to score when we get the chances. They did, and early as well, we tried well to fight ourselves back but didn't manage in the end, good game by Osasuna.
Another loss, making it three in a row. This time against better opposition and it showed throughout the whole game, we were on the defence for most part and never really challenged them for the points. Erick Torres tried to make something happen but yet again the shooting was nothing to cheer about, hopefully we can turn this around soon or we'll have a long way up from the bottom in a short amount of time.
At. Madrid 4 - 0 Sporting Gijón Juanfran (27) Alberto Botia O.G. (37) Arda Turan (65) Koke (78)
MoM: Silvio (8.3)
Attendance: 47.181
We didn't stand a chance, they dominated start too finish and the final results show that pretty clearly. We will have to man up for real now, even though they are a better team on paper, a 4-0 loss is not acceptable, not against anyone. And to think we're soon up against Barcelona, oh the dread. I'll make some changes in the defense perhaps, or the defensive tactics, to try and get it a bit more goal proof.
Arda Turan - Scored a goal as At. Madrid crushed Sporting Sporting Gijón 2 - 0 Racing Santander Oscar Trejo (33)
Pape Diop O.G. (89)
MoM: Alberto Lora (7.5)
Attendance: 25.885
Finally, a win, and a very good performance on our part. We dominated the whole game and should've gotten some more goals in, but what the ****, first win of the season, I'm not going to complain. A confidence boost and something to give the guys some more flow in the game. Too bad for Adrián Colunga who missed the penalty, but atleast he stressed an own goal on the rebound.
Oscar Trejo had to leave the pitch injured, hopefully it's nothing major.
Table & Stats
Not going soo good for us soo far but help us by cheering us on, we'll need it next game against Barcelona!
Hope you enjoy it soo far. Constructive critisism is very much appretiated.
Coming in with a win in the last game of September, we got some confidence. How long that will take us against Barcelona I will leave to the future to tell. The league is full of many great teams and we are doing our best to get some points, not an easy task at all, but we'll keep on fighting, go Sporting!
Sporting Gijón 1 - 4 Barcelona AlexisSánchez (3) Xavi (40) Eric Abidal (70) Miguel De las Cuevas (73) LionelMessi (90+4)
MoM: Lionel Messi (9.2)
Attendance: 25.885
Another game with terrible defending on our part, considering who we were up against though... It's a bit more understandable, but still. Their last game was after the whistle should've gone but the ref obviously wanted Messi to get another chance to score. We didn't have the game anywhere where we wanted it, they totally dominated and the class difference were obvious.
Sevilla 0 - 1 Sporting Gijón Siyanda Xulu (68)
MoM: Miguel De las Cuevas (8.3)
Attendance: 42.898
A great three pointer! The defence didn't collapse this game like it has before, but Iván Hernández didn't have a great game back there soo I took him out in the 65th and brought in Xulu who scored just three minutes later on a corner. First goal here for the lad, good for him.
Miguel De las Cuevas got the assist and has been our best player soo far this season together with Erick Torres.
Two wins in a row, great. Torres scoring, fantastic! His second goal was later placed third in the Spanish Goal of the Month. A brilliant shot from 18 yards out, the keeper stood no chance.
Next game we're up against Granada again and it seems that we have a good time against them, this game they had nothing to say at all and we steamrolled them pretty easily.
Granada 5 - 2 Sporting Gijón Diego Mainz (3) Siyanda Xulu (8)
Carlos Martins (20)
Guilherme Siqueira Penalty (37)
Henrique (41) Miguel De las Cuevas (82)
Jaime (87)
MoM: Carlos Martins (9.2)
Attendance: 23.000
A terrible performance from us. Perhaps we thought it'd be easier since we won last game soo easily. Never again underestimate... Granada scored five(!!!) times against us, the worst performance from our defence too date. Atleast under my reign. This is leg 1 out of two, soo in the end I wanted to push the team forward to get another away goal and it resulted in a goal from De las Cuevas, but then they managed another goal even later so I don't know. Hopefully it was worth it and there's still another game to play, and we will not give up!
We played well but wasn't dangerous enough up front. They got an early red card and went on the defence from then on out. Made it hard for us to create any chances even if we had most of the ball. Llorentes goal came on a break from then when Juan Pablo left a rebound straight out in the middle of the field where he stood and just forced the ball in to an open goal.
We got atleat two wins this month and are now at the 15th place in the league.
The cup will be hard to come back in but I won't give up and let Granada have it, but we will try really hard to turn it around at home in the next leg. We really have to get our aim more straight in the final third. Xulu is our best goal scorer with two goals, together with Torres and De las Cuevas. That's not good enough.
Great win against Sevilla and we proved to ourselves that we can compete with the better teams and come out on top.
