Lotina fights for Vigo job, but CV lacks imagination

GALICIANS have rather more to worry about than UEFA Cup ties this week, what with 70,000 tonnes of oil lurking off their shores waiting to devastate their livelihoods. With that in mind, the few travelling supporters from Vigo accompanying the Celta team to Glasgow for tonight’s match are unlikely to be in party mood. Nor are their team likely to offer too much in the way of on-field exuberance.

If Spanish football currently possesses most of the flamboyance and style in Europe, somebody forgot to tell Celta Vigo. Celtic’s opponents are a long way from the Mediterranean, and a similar distance away from the grace and vision we have seen in the Champions League from Barcelona and Valencia. If Celtic had to draw a club from La Liga (and on the whole you suspect Martin O’Neill would rather have not) Celta might turn out to be the most amenable.

Don’t tell the people of Vigo, but the suspicion is that their club has been over-achieving for the past few years. In that period they have always been floating around the top six or seven in Spanish football, always capable of delivering a cold bucket of Atlantic water over the cocky visitors from Madrid or Barcelona. They thrived on a resentment of the achievements of their Galician neighbours Deportivo La Coruna. If the rivalry is hardly in the Rangers-Celtic category, there’s certainly an edge to the mutual hostility, which stems from a civic antipathy between the two cities.

In Vigo, Celta were moulded by the dour disciplinarian Victor Fernandez into a formidable if niggardly outfit, always likely to win more points than friends. Victor Fernandez was respected but never loved in Vigo, and there were few tears shed at the news that he wouldn’t be renewing his contract last summer. He headed south to Seville where he has the task of adding some toughness to Real Betis’s plentiful supply of flair. He departed with a few grumbles about Celta’s lack of ambition, about the board’s unwillingness to provide him with the funds necessary to pull the club up to a level with Deportivo.

Celta spent months casting around for a replacement, with John Toshack a likely candidate at one point. Instead the job went to Miguel Angel Lotina. He came from the hardly illustrious Osasuna, and has failed to capture the fans’ imagination. An inability to sign any players of consequence before the start of the season, and a tactical caution that occasionally makes Fernandez seem like Kevin Keegan by comparison, has left the fans muttering in discontent. Celta have already been knocked out of the Spanish Cup by second division Numancia, and have only won once in their past six games.

Lotina’s frustration might be compounded by inheriting a squad packed with South American journeymen. Brazilian full-back Silvinho is a ghostly parody of Roberto Carlos, and a player Arsene Wenger wasted no time in shifting off the books at Highbury. His compatriots Giovanella, and Edu in midfield show only intermittent flashes of Copacabana style, while Celtic will be glad that injury rules out Vagner, who seems to model his game on David Batty rather than Ronaldinho.

Gustavo Lopez, the Argentine midfielder, is consistent, and a regular international, although regarded in Buenos Aires as a fetcher and carrier rather than a creative influence. Lotina’s biggest problems are in attack, where Catanha is that rare bird, a Brazilian target man, a kind of tropical John Hartson, with a first touch that might attract jibes from Emile Heskey. A possible alternative, the South African Benni McCarthy, has suffered a slump of confidence, possibly induced by Celta’s constant attempts to sell him, farm him out on loan, or just pretend he doesn’t work there anymore.

Too much depends on Celta’s lone genius Alexander Mostovoi, who is carrying an injury. He’s known as the Tsar and plays with all the caprice of an old-fashioned autocrat. In the right mood he is imperious, running the game, managing to be both playmaker and finisher, toying with the opposition. At other times, he is aloof, uninterested, a brooding absence in sky-blue. Recently it has been the latter Mostovoi who has been more in evidence, provoking suggestions that the Tsar has tired of his Galician empire, and wants to move somewhere more appreciative of his romantic temperament.

Being a haughty sort of Russian, Mostovoi would be the last to admit it, but he seems to be missing his compatriot, Valery Karpin. Like Fernandez, the influential midfielder declined to further his contract with Celta last summer and moved to the more salubrious environment of San Sebastian. There he has become the orchestrator of the Real Sociedad side that has been the revelation of the Spanish league season. They sit at the top of the table while Celta, after a promising start when they led the league, hit a patch of inconsistency and slumped to fifth.

This is not to suggest that Celta won’t be daunting opponents, certainly a cut above the abject Blackburn. By now Lotina will realise that a decent UEFA Cup run is his best chance of salvaging a difficult season. Whether he can be tempted to be a tad adventurous at Celtic Park remains distinctly dubious. He may go in search of a 0-0, and rely on the intimidating atmosphere at the Balaidos stadium to pull Celta through in the return. If he fails, he may find his sojourn by the sea short-lived.