Hehe, Valverde wasn't sacked at Valencia, you should inform yourself, he rejected them. He took Valencia "mid" season in shambles and almost got them into the CL, they were more than pleased with him.

What makes him a winner: achieving his goals everywhere he's been except at Vila-real and even overachieving most of the time.
He reached a UEFA and a cup final with frigging Espanyol. He put frigging Athletic Club into the Champions League. These are mediocre teams which overachieved with him. He also reached a cup final with Athletic.

Also, Real Sociedad is a much better team than Athletic right now... who's best player is a 36 year old.... Athletic were 5th last season (with Eusebio also at Real Sociedad, btw). And look at his team... they are journeymen.

Compare that to Lucho's trajectory before Barça, were he was mediocre everywhere he went... he's definitely a better choice than Lucho. Lucho before Barça:
Good at Barça B (like Eusebio btw).
Poor at Roma (once he left Roma jumped to Champions League rapidly).
Average at Celta (kept them at Primera, but once he left they jumped to Top-half of the table).

Not only has Athletic pressed us to death, they've been more able with the ball than us many times, with a team that is average at best.

even if he wins nothing in the end of the season, his three years here (in my opinion) wouldn't be considered a failure but a rather big success..

two doubles and a CL + potentially another double in three years is more than decent.

Luis Suarez had a 40 minute interview recently discussing several different things hinting that enrique may want to take a break from managing to spend more time with family

free_cat wrote:Hehe, Valverde wasn't sacked at Valencia, you should inform yourself, he rejected them. He took Valencia "mid" season in shambles and almost got them into the CL, they were more than pleased with him.

What makes him a winner: achieving his goals everywhere he's been except at Vila-real and even overachieving most of the time.
He reached a UEFA and a cup final with frigging Espanyol. He put frigging Athletic Club into the Champions League. These are mediocre teams which overachieved with him. He also reached a cup final with Athletic.

Also, Real Sociedad is a much better team than Athletic right now... who's best player is a 36 year old.... Athletic were 5th last season (with Eusebio also at Real Sociedad, btw). And look at his team... they are journeymen.

Compare that to Lucho's trajectory before Barça, were he was mediocre everywhere he went... he's definitely a better choice than Lucho. Lucho before Barça:
Good at Barça B (like Eusebio btw).
Poor at Roma (once he left Roma jumped to Champions League rapidly).
Average at Celta (kept them at Primera, but once he left they jumped to Top-half of the table).

Not only has Athletic pressed us to death, they've been more able with the ball than us many times, with a team that is average at best.

Uhm. Valencia were consistently a top 3 team under Emery. Valencia sacked him for no reason and replaced him with a clown but they quickly rectified their mistake when Valencia were still only 7 points off from top 4 and still had 20+ games left to play. So how does reaching 5th place and losing on the last match day in a do-or-die game comply with the definition of "winning"? It doesn't.

Athletic is a mediocre team? Yes, maybe compared with Barca and Madrid. Compared with the rest of the league there is nothing mediocre about them. There is no reason why Athletic Bilbao should be scoring less goals than Malaga or Las Palmas and loiter around 9th place together with the Espanyols and Eibars of this world.

That 36 year old you are talking about has scored close to 100 goals in 236 appearances for Athletic. Atletico's main striker could only dream of such numbers, let alone the main strikers of the rest of the league bar Madrid and Barca.

Athletic team, this season, is very poor. They have no quality at all. Aduriz is starting to be finished now, and they only have Beñat and raw Iñaki Williams as quality players. Very poor team. Being in 8th position is a miracle with teams like the ones you mentioned that have much better quality.

Valverde, again, did very well at Valencia, almost overcoming a 7 point gap to get to the CL. After he left, Valencia plumetted. (he saw it coming though, that's why he left).