Villarreal's Marcelino responds to Rayo claims of collusion
Villarreal boss Marcelino responded to claims made by Rayo and Getafe: “You have to distinguish between professionalism and sentiment."
Villarreal coach Marcelino García Toral reacted to accusations by Rayo president Martín Presa that his side had not taken the decisive match against Sporting seriously. The relegation battling home side won the match 2-0, relegating both Rayo and Getafe on the final day of the Liga season. Marcelino started his career at Sporting, which led Presa to suggest that Villarreal had not bothered to prepare for the trip to El Molinón on Sunday. Marcelino had stated in the run-up to the final weekend that he hoped Sporting would survive the cull, but rubbished Presa’s claims in his post-match press conference.
“You have to distinguish between professionalism and sentiment. The important thing is to be true to yourself. The game was between a side who are playing for their lives and one that had already achieved all its objectives. Sporting scored two cracking goals.”
Marcelino also faced criticism from Getafe manager Juan Esnáider after Getafe were relegated based on Sporting’s victory and their failure to beat Betis to secure their own safety. “I don’t need to respond to that. I’ll just say that La Liga is a competition of 38 games and at the end every team is where they deserve to be. Barça ended up as champions and I don’t think Madrid will say they didn’t win the league because of what Granada did.”
The Villarreal boss also responded to Presa’s claims that Villarreal didn’t make any effort against Sporting, either with their line-up and substitutions: “We always make a lot of changes. After the huge blow of losing to Liverpool the team’s performances have dropped off; we haven’t been able to play as were beforehand. Against Depor we wanted to give our fans a win and we couldn’t. We had a lot of players carrying injuries and others who have played a lot of minutes and even so several regular starters played. I know whatever I say is irrelevant because there are people who will always think in another way. In the end, Barcelona are champions because they scored more points than everybody else and Sporting stayed up because they got more points than the other three teams.”