We’ve got with us all the luck that was so elusive in recent times!

Belgrano deserved to win it (as much as we deserved to win the first leg) but we held on and we are staying up!

Adiós, Clausura 2008! I hated every bit of you!

I just wanted to say hello to all of my “partners in suffering” from all over the world and here’s hoping we stay up.

VAMOS RACING!

Who would I keep? I think it depends on whether we escape the drop or not! It’s not the same thing preparing for a second division tournament than a first division one.

Wishing and hoping we stay up and following some reports and some confirmations, these are the players that will surely be gone for good and those who are rumoured to be going too.

Bastia (good riddance! Not his former self. He’s been very poor for as long as I can remember. He is off to Greece).

Hilario Navarro (rumours of a transfer to River or to Europe were in the press for a long time. His injury slowed down those versions but he’ll surely be gone).

Matías Sánchez (he is believed to be very close of joining Estudiantes de La Plata).

Sava (there were rumours of him joining Gimnasia de La Plata -one of his former teams- but I don’t know if that’s true or not. I don’t think he’ll stay but who will come if he goes?).

Who would I keep?

Hilario Navarro (provided he stays he can make a good 1-2 combo with Martinez Gullota)

Martínez Gullota (proved to have talent and reflexes as well as the composure to play in very difficult circumstances).

José Schaffer. Young but talented and good going forward. Needs to improve his marking but has room for improvement.

Gabriel Mercado. He showed he can play as a right-back or a central defender. He improved during this tournament and played some very solid games.

Cáceres. He is fast and he can play. Made a few crucial mistakes, like those two against Colón and Belgrano that led to both of their goals but if he has a few defenders to help him out, he can do a good job.

Franco Zuculini. My favourite player in the entire squad. Really plays with his heart and has a lot of talent. We need to take him slow as he is only 17 years old! But he should stay regardless of the division in which we play.

Claudio Yacob. He is slow, but he knows how to run the field and has a knack for recovering the ball. Can also play good through balls. Needs to improve a lot, though.

Matías Sanchez. Lost his cool a few times this season but you can’t really blame him. Good chaser of opposing creative midfielders and can shoot from outside the box as well. A lot to improve too, but has some good qualities.

José Luis Fernández and Pablo Cavallero. They played very few minutes but they showed some potential going forward. They would be very good coming from the bench and playing without a lot of pressure.

That’s it. Those are the only players I’d keep from the current crop.

I’d even get rid of Maxi Moralez. A player that has just really got to my nerves over the last few games. I can’t get no more of his attitude, his non-stop talking to refs or even fans. His decision-making has been the poorest I’ve seen (along with that of Manicero). I don’t think he is positive for the team.

I’d show the door to: Sosa, Menghi, Gonzalo García, Bastía, Bonet, Manicero, Avalos, Sava, Navia, Estevez, Chatruc, Arrieta, Malano, Campagnuolo and Fileppi.

That’s 15 players I’d get rid of and 10 I’d keep but not all of them to use as first-team regular starters!

It looks like the Cilindro will be absolutely packed on Sunday. I wanted to go and buy a ticket for myself but within 3 hours they’ve sold out.

I couldn’t even get to the selling points and there were a lot of fans left with no tickets after queuing for a good few hours.

A part of me is gutted because I wanted to be there on Sunday. But on the other hand I say: “Fair enough, so I don’t spend money on that bunch of horrible players we have. They don’t deserve it” hahaha!

Of course I wouldn’t be going to watch them. I’d be going to watch 11 Racing shirts (regardless of the players’ names).

Anyway…I’ll watch it on TV and I’ll hope for the best and for 2 or 3 quick goals to avoid the pressure to pile up!

Speaking of De Tomaso, Sam is correct. He is not in charge of Racing but the guy is appealing to the judge’s (Enrique Gorostegui) decision, so we will see what’s in store for us next.

In other news, there are a bunch of famous Racing supporters (people from the media and showbusiness’ stars ) that are believed to give a prize of 1 million dollars to the squad if they manage to avoid the drop.

If you ask me, this is just another ridiculous thing to come up to the surface.

This squad has failed every objective they had at the start of the season. They didn’t achieve ANYTHING and they are responsible for having us sleepless and with a very big risk of getting relegated and yet they are bound to get a really big bonus if they beat Belgrano on Sunday (or even if they get a draw).

I can’t think of any other activity in which you can fail every goal you set your sights on and still be rewarded big time.

If the players have any sort of dignity, they should reject the bonus offered to them and give it to the club or their favourite charity.

Of course that won’t happen and they will all be very happy to take the money and leave Racing after Sunday.

http://hastaelgolsiempre.com/2008/06/04/blanquiceleste-out/

This story (http://www.racing.com.ar/noticia.php?id=1696) on an unofficial Racing site suggests that Racing are currently without an official representative to the AFA, and that García Cuervo is acting as an interim, which the folk at Racing.com.ar take as a sure sign that Blanquiceleste are well and truly dead.

It seems De Tomaso did attend the Córdoba match, and was poorly received by the players. But he’s very definitely not in charge of Racing any more.

AVALOS, WHY is he there? He must be one of the worst ‘strikers’ Racing have ever had? I can only ever remember him scoring 2 goals! Yet he seems to be in there most games. Even Navia is better than him, he certainly tries harder, Avalos is just totally useless and very annoying.

With a combination of him and Sava up front, Racing needs to create ten or more chances a game to have an opportunity of scoring even one goal…

And the main creative player, Maxi Moralez is really poor at the moment, he seems totally incapable of standing up to the pressure of the situation.

I agree with Seba, 1-1 is *not* really a good result. I really don’t think Belgrano can win in El Cilindro – particularly if they approach it with the ‘doble 5′ formation they started with (exactly who in the Racing line-up were *they* so scared of?) but in a one-off game, anybody’s got a chance. Who would have expected Turkey to nearly beat Germany?

Sunday is going to be realy bad, but at least it’s the first game, I really couldn’t face sitting through Jujuy-Union first again, too much tension.
As for the final of the European Championship, well who cares?

They’ve squandered a good 10 points this year in the league. This is just a continuation of the same, the agonizing same. Can we bring back Ruben Paz and Pato Filiol? Hell, at least they’d give it 100% every damn game.