Celta Vigo. LaLiga’s perennial “dark horse” for a European place in August, but a team that is always nervous about relegation battles in the spring.
The Galician side have only managed one top-place finish in eight years and have stayed several times closer than expected to relegation. From big names to the appointment of a left winger, the Celta board have tried their hand over the period in terms of their coaching options, without finding a convincing solution for long.
Maybe, this time it will be different. Claudio Giraldez, LaLiga’s youngest boss, has now been in the Balaidos hot seat for seven months since replacing Rafa Benitez with the club who are 17th in the table in March.
Giraldez’s win ratio during that period stood at 47%, one percentage point higher than what he achieved with Celta’s B team during a nearly two-year reign that ended abruptly with his promotion to the top job earlier this year.
He has now been LaLiga coach for 19 games, half a season to be precise, and his total of 30 points during that period represents his best performance in Europe, at least on the evidence of last season when Real Sociedad qualified for the Europa League with 60 points.
Giraldez who took the plunge was a breath of fresh air
Celta fans will not get too caught up in talk about their status as potential European challengers. They have heard it all before, only for the disappointment and reality to come, not least last season when Benitez was still a hugely experienced head coach and should have delivered even bigger things during the club’s centenary.
Benitez’s tenure came to an uninspiring end, with Celta fans growing tired of tales of bad luck as victory continued to elude them. As it turned out, Giraldez was the ideal remedy for Benitez’s team’s failure problems.
Just 36 years old at the time of his appointment, the Galician native provided a breath of fresh air, putting his faith in many of the young players he had worked with in the B team, while adopting bolder tactics than his predecessors.
While his initial success could perhaps be attributed to a sort of honeymoon phase as Celta comfortably beat relegation, Giraldez has only doubled down on his methods this season.
His team entered the second international break as the fourth top scorer in LaLiga with 16 goals, but also with the fourth worst defensive record with 15 goals conceded. Only matches involving Barcelona and a rejuvenated Villarreal have seen as many goals as Celta’s matches so far.
The young players took their chances
Celta have won as many games as they have lost this season, so once again talk of a serious push in Europe may be premature. There is no doubt there is a serious project underway at Balaidos and if there is anything that can unite a disillusioned fan base, it is the emergence of a number of talented homegrown players.
Under Giraldez’s guidance, the Celta B team is recognized as one of the strongest reserve teams in Spain. They reached the Primera Federacion play-offs in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons and there have been moments over the last two years, when senior side Celta’s relegation to the Segunda Division seemed as big a deal as promotion. their B team to the same league.
If this were to happen, nothing would happen and the rules would prevent the two from appearing in the same division, but the unexpected situation provides a useful bit of background to the goings-on at Balaidos since Giraldez’s rise to the top.
Since day one, the 36-year-old has looked to his former players for inspiration. His first game, away to Sevilla in March, featured three changes to Benitez’s final eleven, as academy graduates Carlos Dominguez, Hugo Sotelo and Hugo Alvarez all started in a 2–1 win.
It was a direct break from Benitez’s safer approach and a number of other young players have taken the step up to experience senior action since then. Apart from Dominguez, Sotelo and Alvarez, we also saw former Celta B team players Pablo Duran, Alfon Gonzalez, Sergio Carreira, Damian Rodriguez and Javi Rodriguez appear as starters in LaLiga several times this season.
The talents of 21-year-old Ilaix Moriba and 20-year-old Williot Swedberg are being nurtured elsewhere, but both have also logged more than 300 minutes of top-flight action for Os Celestes this season.
Aspas remains reliable, along with the progress of Iglesias and Mingueza
With many local players starting to emerge at a club that only last year cashed in hot prospect Gabri Veiga for up to €30 million, there is no shortage of options when it comes to selecting Celta’s best academy graduates.
The answer is of course obvious. It was Iago Aspas, who at 37 remains one of the best strikers in the league and continues to add to the huge legacy he will ultimately leave at his boyhood club.
With four goals and two assists so far this season, Aspas is on track to reach at least 15 goal contributions in the Spanish top flight, for the 11th time in his Celta career. The forward has had to carry sinking ships in seasons gone by, but he appears to have more help this year.
Borja Iglesias has also scored four goals, having failed to score a single goal in the football league during the 2023/24 season. The loanee from Betis, who is a product of Celta’s youth system, is clearly enjoying life in Galicia.
However, Celta Vigo’s biggest achievement this season is Oscar Mingueza. Giraldez has used the former Barcelona man as a full-back on either wing and Mingueza has played the best football of his career, with two goals and four assists helping to attract the attention of Luis de la Fuente who called up the 25-year-old. to the Spanish squad for this international break.
Rotation, rotation, rotation
With a squad full of young talent and a busy schedule that has seen LaLiga squeezed into two midweek games, it is perhaps no surprise that the Celta boss has opted for a rotation policy with his line-up over the opening two months of the season.
It seems that for Giraldez, half measures are rare. Celta’s starting lineup often changes wildly from game to game, even after wins, and there is no clear consensus on which team will be their strongest.
Even Aspas, who Giraldez recently described as a “unique player, a difference maker” has been rested twice, while Mingueza and Alvarez are the only players to have started more than six of Celta’s nine league games.
Although he now appears to prefer Vicente Guaita to Ivan Villar in goal, even the three centre-backs are making changes at a pace that defies conventional wisdom in a position where continuity and building a stable relationship is largely seen as unimportant. positive.
At least for now, Giraldez would rightly argue that the results clearly show that his method works.
He is expected to sign a new contract in the coming weeks and this weekend told local media “I want a challenge and I want that challenge to be here and we can develop here and take Celta to a higher level than it is now”.
With so many players still in the early stages of their top-flight careers, it is difficult to say for certain what the ceiling the Celta team can reach this season, or in the years to come.
What seems clear is that they are finally heading in the right direction and appear to have a safe partner in the form of one of Spain’s brightest young coaches.
Featured image Dancing through Juantiagues, CC BY-SA
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