COLUMN: Jose Bordalas can turn water into wine, but not without the General of Getafe | OneFootball

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As the hours and the minutes ticked down on transfer deadline day earlier this month, ambitious Serie A club Como made an enquiry about the availability of Getafe midfielder Luis Milla. Negotiations took place for a €7m transfer; for a few million more, president Angel Torres may well have sold his team’s best player.

If that had happened, Jose Bordalas probably would have resigned on the spot. And I wouldn’t have blamed him.

Instead, Milla stayed through the winter transfer window. Two weeks on, Getafe took an enormous step toward safety with their first home win for three months, a 2-1 victory over Villarreal in which the 31-year-old played a key role once more.

“Milla went wherever he wanted to go,” wrote Javi Teruel in Diario AS.

Bordalas can go without a lot at the Coliseum. Such is life when you’re Getafe’s head coach. His boss Torres eagerly loaned Christantus Uche to Crystal Palace last summer, the South London side agreeing to a buy obligation of around €20m. He also sold Omar Alderete, long a key defender for Bordalas, to Sunderland in a €12m deal.

Image via Getafe

But Bordalas absolutely cannot do without his midfield marshal Milla, who has played 2,024 out of a possible 2,070 minutes in LaLiga this season. That is 97.8% of the available minutes, not counting a loss to Espanyol on the 13th of December (for which he was suspended).

In a team otherwise built for combat with hardy players like Mauro Arambarri, Djene Dakonam, Abdelkabir Abqar and Domingos Duarte, Milla is the siren’s song. More than just his team’s dead-ball specialist, this son of a former Barcelona and Real Madrid midfielder brings Technicolour to Getafe’s black-and-white football.

“Arambarri provided the drive, and Milla provided the pausa,” Teruel wrote of his performance on Saturday.

It is worth remembering that Milla is a late bloomer. He didn’t debut in LaLiga until his age-25 season, when Granada signed him from Tenerife for €5m. When Granada were relegated two years later, Milla moved to Madrid and signed with Getafe for the same fee.

Milla is making up for lost time now, in his fourth season with Los Azulones. Milla is level with Lamine Yamal for the league lead in assists with eight, already a career-best figure for the Madrileno. Only Yamal, Arda Guler, Edu Exposito and Kylian Mbappe have created more chances than Milla’s 52. He’s also among Europe’s most progressive passers; for a team like Getafe, outscored by everyone in the league save Oviedo, that quality is worth its weight in gold.

On Saturday against Villarreal – a team that has been in the Champions League places all season – Milla did not contribute to a goal like he did against Alaves in the previous matchday, when he slid a silky-smooth pass to Luis Vazquez to open the scoring. Having been sent off from the reverse fixture, a 2-0 loss at La Ceramica in December, Milla won an impressive 11 of 12 ground duels, made five recoveries and won four tackles.

Unheralded though he may be suiting up for Getafe, the Atleti youth product Milla has quietly been among the league’s most consistent midfielders this season. He has been vital to their present four-game unbeaten run, which has seen Getafe rise to 11th in LaLiga with 29 points…despite scoring only 20 goals across 24 rounds. 

Say what you will about their style of football, but few teams in LaLiga know themselves as well as Pepe Bordalas’ boys do. It’s hard not to have at least a grudging respect for their functional football, and for how Bordalas continues to engineer midtable finishes with one of LaLiga’s smallest budgets – which was expanded just a tad in January to accommodate the loan arrivals of Vazquez, Martin Satriano and Zaid Romero.

“Getafe have been revived,” wrote AS’ Getafe beat reporter Alvaro Ramos after Saturday’s game. “With fresh faces in the squad and a restored identity, the team is once again that uncomfortable opponent no one wants to face. The nightmare of November is behind them; today, at the Coliseum, a new season has begun.”

It’s a revival that can’t be understood without Milla, who paid his dues in Guijuelo, in Fuenlabrada, in Santa Cruz and Granada before earning his stripes as Getafe’s general.