He Malaga CF and José Alberto López meet again. Little more than a year has passed since the Asturian was dismissed as blue and white coach, and now he returns as a rival, just in the worst sporting moment of the blue and white entity in recent times. His stage on the local bench at La Rosaleda ended sooner than expected, after a resounding and bulky 0-5 defeat against Ibiza, and when they met again, The man from Oviedo can cause a major fire if he manages to get a positive result from Martiricos with his Racing.
On January 22 of last year, Málaga CF lost to the Ibizans and only two days later José Alberto was struck down. His work in the first months in office was very good, but everything went wrong, the locker room began to blow up and, after that setback, Manolo Gaspar, former sports director, made the decision to do without it. The paleno recognized in his farewell press conference, a few weeks ago, that the biggest mistake he had made in his time in sports management It was the dismissal of the Asturian. And seeing what has happened afterwards, with four more coaches in one year (Natxo González, Pablo Guede, Pepe Mel and Sergio Pellicer), perhaps he is absolutely right in the world.
After the departure of José Alberto, the blue and white team did not improve. In fact, he went from being in the middle of the table to achieving a permanence suffered, with more pain than glory. And this course things have gotten even worse. Málaga CF finds itself, with 13 games to go, 8 points away from permanence and needs a historic comeback to stay in professional football. A comeback that should begin precisely this Sunday (6:30 p.m.) against José Alberto’s Racing.
The Oviedo coach returns to La Rosaleda, but this time to sit on the visitor’s bench. The Cantabrian group trusted him to revitalize a team that was also in a delicate situation, and for now it is succeeding. José Alberto has already led Racing in nine league games and the balance, for a team from the bottom half, is very positive: four wins, three draws and only two defeats. Or what is the same, 15 points out of 27 possible. Its impact at the level of play and qualifying has been notable, it caught Racing in relegation places, 3 points from permanence, and in just nine days it has managed to get it out of the hole and now have an income of 4 points over the Red zone.
José Alberto is now focused on his new project, but if at any time he felt that his departure was unfair now he has a chance to prove himself as a coach and take the law into his own hands. A victory of his, even a draw, with his new club at La Rosaleda would leave Málaga very touched, with a distance with the permanence very difficult to solve with only 12 days to go.
How will La Rosaleda receive you? Probably fine, but with all the hope in the world that, at least in this match, he fails and Málaga can continue in the battle.