“Lightning Liverpool next year!” It’s the fashion song in Vallecas and is played in the preview of Sunday’s game against Sevilla. “Let’s see if Liverpool come in…” jokes Álvaro García, one of the bastions of a Rayo who rubs shoulders with Miuras like Athletic, Betis or Villarreal for moving into European positions. “In the dressing room we are careful, but it is logical that people are excited and dreaming. It’s the second round now and it’s no coincidence that we’re up there,” said the winger.
Although the last two draws (1-1) against Getafe and Sevilla have tempered the Rayista euphoria, Vallecas is backing a team that sits sixth in the table after 22 league games with the sixth-lowest salary cap. This Sunday they had to be called out ahead of Seville, where they are and who their goalkeeper Bono saved from defeat in south-east Madrid.
Rayo’s starting XI against Sevilla poses with their fans in the background at Vallecas INMA FLORES stadium
Commander of the Rayista ship is the youngest first class trainer. Andoni Iraola (Usurbil, Gipuzkoa, 40) managed promotion in 2021 and eight of the 11 starters against Sevilla were in that squad. One of them is Álvaro García, who spent two seasons in the second division with the Vallecanos before enjoying the best moment of his career at the age of 30. “The key is the dressing room, we know each other perfectly and with the same coach, the newcomers adapt perfectly,” he explains.
David Cobeño, former Rayista player and sporting director, highlights the importance of this block. “I talk to the footballers about it. They are the same but after spending several years in the elite their confidence is different, the rivals have more respect for them and it shows. They are better than last season and also worse than the next one,” he sums up.
In Rayismo, the character of Iraola seems to be the key to the team’s good progress. With advanced pressure and vertical play, Rayo is the sixth team in the league with the most shots on goal (13.14 shots per game). Nacho del Molino, a Rayista member, commented before the game that “he knows a lot of people who, without being from Rayo, wear the team’s games to see good football” and that in this regard he “never disappointed”.
Rayo 2022/2023 is at its best in club history at this point in the season. He has 34 points in 22 days, just like in the 2012/2013 season, when they signed their best historical position with Paco Jémez on the bench (eighth with 53 points). They also had 34 points at this point last season, where they achieved championship positions in the first round. But the drop was significant in the second round and they were only able to add eight more points to reach 42 and finish in twelfth place. Aware of fears of history repeating himself, Iraola nevertheless told a press conference that he saw “a more balanced team in their results” this year.
For this part of the season they have signed Raúl De Tomás, who stood out in his first spell at Rayo and scored 17 goals for Espanyol last year, leading to the Spain side’s call-up. The summer soap opera of his departure from the Catalan club had the worst possible outcome: his return to Rayo was forged from the period and the player has been training for four months without being able to play. Teammates, managers and fans will keep their fingers crossed for RDT to regain its best version and bring an extra quality to the Rayo forward who already had a promising youngster like Sergio Camello and a veteran like Radamel Falcao.
The inflow into the stadium of Vallecas (capacity almost 15,000 spectators) has grown compared to the previous season: According to Transfermarkt, it has increased from an average occupancy rate of 57.2% to 82.9%. Antonio Castilla, President of the Peñas del Rayo Federation, enjoys the great sporting moment of a club that is the “emblem of its neighborhood” and coexists in the capital with two giants of the likes of Real Madrid and Atlético. “There have been important transfers (to Getafe or Valladolid) and the youngest are getting hooked even though the board has removed the child’s season ticket,” he says.
Rayo President Raúl Martín Presa has publicly asked Isabel Díaz Ayuso and José Luis Martínez Almeida for help to expand a stadium in Vallecas that he says has “become too small”. Also small is the structure of the club, which consists of very few workers. “We’re few, but we all love the Strip. If we stay in the first class for more years, the organizational chart will expand,” confirms sporting director Cobeño.
Two Rayo fans celebrate Florian Lejeune’s goal that led to a 1-1 draw with Sevilla. INMA FLORES
Rayo is a special club for many reasons, but one of the most striking is that a large part of the fans coexist around him, very leftist and with a working-class spirit, with a president who invited the Vox leaders into the box as Fans have not yet had access to stadiums due to the pandemic. Living together is not easy and the clubs do not give Presa any credit for the good sporting situation. “Their decisions vary depending on the day and time,” says Antonio Castilla.
When the ball rolls, differences of opinion with the board are of course forgotten and illusion prevails. The big challenge for those from Iraola is to keep up. “It’s easy to cope with the euphoria because we’re a modest club,” says Cobeño, who smiles when he talks about running the strip through the fields of Europe.
A single European participation
The only time Rayo Vallecano participated in European competitions was in the 2000/2001 season. The Madrileños finished last season in ninth place but were invited to the UEFA Cup for being one of the teams with the fewest bookings in Europe. They advanced to the quarterfinals where they were eliminated by Alavé, who would finish runners-up after the unforgettable final against Liverpool.
In the 2013/2014 season, after the best season in their history, the Vallecanos should have also played in the Europa League as they finished eighth and Malaga was sanctioned but the club was in bankruptcy proceedings and UEFA didn’t let them granted license to play. It was Sevilla, of all people, their last rival, who took part in the tournament and ended up clinching the title after beating Benfica in the final.
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