Looks like 2025 will be peak Rayo.
Last season’s eighth place brought them European experience in the shape of Conference League, er, glory.
And a visit from North Macedonia hotshots Shkendija, who hail from Tetovo in the east, near the border with Kosovo.
The boys from the barrio were as old as Jimmy Carter last year.
And in Madrid’s Casa de Vacas (House of Cows) in the glorious Retiro park, the club had a celebratory exhibition.
Well it’s not the trophy room at Real or Barcelona, that’s for sure.
Smash and grab Rayo sneaked past a side with an impeccable European pedigree in a top-drawer statement victory.
The boys from the barrio are beginning to mug established Spanish names – not through a muscular display of bootboy thuggery but with a thoughtful and calm approach.
Superb defence frustrates big names perhaps thinking they’re in for an easy win, and killer goals just at the right time.
Away from the swank and swagger of Real and Atletico, the boys from the barrio are back in La Liga punching above their weight again.
Now Gareth Bale has retired there’s no hope of seeing him in the lightning stripe kit. Perhaps he’ll buy them!
Anyway, after thumping Real Madrid in November this was a good test of whether Rayo could come up with another statement win against the mercurial San Sebastian side who were quite a long way back in third behind Real and Barcelona.
![IMG_2945[1]](https://milesfromnowhere.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/img_29451-e1383652060812.jpg?w=450)
Not so much a football match as an outbreak of naked class war.
Rich v poor, city slickers v working class, left wing v right wing. In Spain, supporting a club is often a loaded political stance. Think of Barcelona’s ‘Mas que un club’. This was no different.
Before the match, the Rayo Ultras – known as Bukaneros – unveiled a giant banner that covered the entire Fondo Sur. It read: ‘Somos pobre como orgullo con cojones como punos’ – ‘We are poor, but proud, with testicles like fists’.
Continue reading Hasta la victoria siempre – Rayo Vallecano 2 Real Madrid 3
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