Barca Blows Another, Squanders Points At Valladolid

Sad, sorry, 19th-placed Valladolid managed to split points with mighty Barcelona in the lone Thursday game featuring one of this week's top 25 squads. The home side went up after 17 minutes but Jar Jar equalized for the Catalans three minutes before half time. What can I tell you about Valladolid? Besides the fact that they suck? How bad do they suck, anyway? They're 19th out of 20 teams in the Spanish top flight and have won only one game (out of 10 played) this season. The lone victory game on opening day--Aug. 26--at Espanyol, so that makes it nine straight games without a victory. In the last six games, they have garnered two points. As for the makeup of the team, as far as I can tell only one of their starters from today has been capped: Daniel Ngom Kome, who played for Cameroon at the 2002 World Cup and 2004 Africa Nations Cup. He's been a Spanish citizen since 1999 though. Maybe that's why he has three names. The only name I recognized was Bartholomew Ogbeche who played for Paris Saint-Germain for four years earlier this decade. Ogbeche has also been capped, for Nigeria, but he came in as a second half sub. Still, two internationals? Even the Red Bulls have more than that! But Barca, though obviously in poor form--only one win in their last four games--at least did not lose today's game and can also take comfort from something else: arch rivals Real Madrid came away with the identical 1-1 result when they played at Valladolid back in September.