Rubén Baraja’s bleakest Mestalla memory returns with Alavés | OneFootball

Mestalla hosts a weekend of reunions. Alavés, with Sivera and Quique Sánchez Flores, return carrying the memory of Rubén Baraja’s final game on their last visit.

"It was a very hard spell, I can tell you as someone who lived it." He said this in an interview with Radio Marca.

Valencia reached that day with 12 points from 18 matches, 19th and sinking. In a week without a General Shareholders’ Meeting and amid mass protests against Peter Lim, the Alavés fixture felt like an early survival final. In the year’s last home game, the reaction never came.

Short of rhythm and precision and fragile at the back, Baraja’s team were outplayed from the start by a well organised Alavés. The visitors led, murmurs grew and parts of Mestalla sang "Pipo vete ya".

After the break Valencia tried to respond and Rioja levelled it, then a Joan Jordan penalty pushed Baraja to the brink. A late Dani Gómez equaliser could not spare him, days after the president had backed him. His Mestalla reign was over.

"Valencia needs investment, a project and to align its history with the current reality." "I only breathed when the referee blew at the Benito Villamarín and we achieved survival."

Source: Superdeporte