Spanish Inquisition: The Return Of Juan Carlos Valeron Santana

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Against Real Madrid on Sunday, Deportivo la Coruna coach Miguel Angel Lotina took the gamble of playing a certain player who hadn't started a game in over three years, a player who in the past three years has been utterly ripped apart by injuries, a player who at 33 is past his prime. Lotina started with a player who in the past three years has gone under the knife thrice.

However, in the first five years of this century, this player was the finest and most destructive central midfielder in Spain, a player for whom life on the football pitch went, and goes, almost nonchalantly in slow-motion.

Meet Juan Carlos Valeron Santana, once described as "Spain's Zidane, only better", a player who is strangely and unusually loved universally in Spain, a player who could have graced more lofty heights had he not been pulled down by a serious knee injury.

On Sunday Valeron started a match for Deportivo la Coruna for the first time since January 22, 2006. Since 2005-2006, he had featured in only 34 league games and understandably there was a lingering apprehension that he might not be up for it.

But not only did Valeron start the match against the reigning Spanish champions, he finished it too, playing the whole of 90 minutes and the morsels of injury time against a Real Madrid side that defeated them 1-0 thanks to Raul's ear. On other occasions, this feat of Valeron might not have be a very noteworthy one but in the context of what he has suffered in the past three years his starting the match and playing the full 90 minutes signal a romantic triumph of will over circumstances.

Way back in the now misty times of the early years of this decade, Valeron was Spain's finest player. He didn't do the Zindane-esque roulette or the Figo-esque stepovers and hardly even ran but relied more on his vision and ability to pick out holes in the opposition defence even when they were not there. Valeron, the 5ft 9in man with the physique that hardly resembles that of a footballer, could rip apart any defence, however watertight, on his day.

He destroyed Arsenal in London in the 2001-2002 season, leaving Highbury looking like Central Park in The Happening, and demolished Manchester United at Old Trafford with the slickness of Jack the Ripper and the cunningness of Cleopatra. He also dented Real Madrid's centenary celebrations in 2002 when he won the Copa del Rey at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

Valeron arrived at Depor in the summer of 2000 from Atletico Madrid after Atleti were relegated to the Segunda Division. He was immediately escorted into the first team and gradually became the fulcrum of the Depor side that became Super Depor and gave the impression, with their domestic and European exploits, that the Real Madrid-Barcelona duopoly in the Iberian peninsula could be broken at long, long last.

At the time Deportivo were overwhelmed with players such as Roy Makaay, then Spain's most fearsome marksman, Brazilian World Cup winner Mauro Silva, Spanish star Diego Tristan and talented Brazilian Djalminha. Valeron though was the conductor of the orchestra and played a crucial role in the Blanquiazules finishing in the top three for four successive seasons.

In the 2003-2004 season, it was Valeron's creativity and flair and seemingly gracefully careless game that led Depor to the semi-finals of the Champions League.

It isn't a coincidence that as Valeron disappeared into the injury mist, Deportivo rumbled onto the relegation dogfights. In 2005-2006 they finished 8th, in 2006-2007 season they finished 13th but only after battling against relegation for much of the season and although they were 9th last season, the relegation vultures had been circling their head for a good fraction of the season.

In the past three or four years, the Galicians have missed a leader in the centre of the park, someone who could inspire the team with his character and game; in short, they have missed a certain Juan Carlos Valeron Santana.

But whenever Valeron has played or has even been anywhere near the Depor camp, the results have come. He was included in the squad against Real Madrid in 2006-2007 with Depor hovering above the relegation zone and they beat the Spanish giants 2-0, setting on a run that would see them finish 13th in the table.  

Last season Depor hadn't won at home since September until the win over Valladolid in January 2008 when Valeron came on as a second half substitute. In the summer, he scored a goal against Israeli side Bnei Sakhnin in the second leg at the Riazor in the Inter Toto Cup, leading Depor to European football for the first time in three seasons.  

Against Real Madrid at the weekend, Valeron couldn't weave his sorcery big time and frankly no one really expected him to. That he was starting a match after three years in which he has observed Depor plummet from a Champions League regular to a relegation candidate was more than enough for all of Spain. However, Valeron's touch and vision were still quite apparent in the game, his crisp passes from the midfield reminiscent of those defence splitting through balls of yesteryear.

Valeron played with his same old style of waiting in the midfield and controlling his side's movements, picking out team-mates and threading the odd through ball but alas, his three years of dwelling in the injury wilderness and Depor's mediocre squad contrived against anything spectacular. 

Nonetheless he was one of the higher-rated Depor players in that encounter, and set up his side's best chance by weighting an excellent pass for Rodolfo Bodipo. That it didn't result in a goal was unfortunate, but Valeron's input was clear to see.

Juan Carlos Valeron will perhaps never become the same player he was at the start of this decade and if anything, this is a loss to the footballing world. But Spain in general and Deportivo la Coruna in particular wouldn't mind too much as long as he manages to start matches and play regularly. After all, he's shown that he can still produce the form that made him a living legend in the first place.

Subhankar Mondal