JIM: clean sheet in half of Zaragoza's games

The Real Zaragoza did not solve his alarming lack of goal in the winter market, an unforgivable sin and not only of the sporting director Miguel Torrecilla, but since the arrival of Juan Ignacio Martinez the Aragonese team has managed to overcome four places in the classification and up to eight points with the descent, an extraordinary merit of the veteran Alicante coach, who is based on the 'Romareda factor' (five wins, one draw and one loss) and, especially, on a recovered defensive solidity, with up to seven clean sheets in the last fifteen days, a figure that explains everything.

With JIM at the helm, Zaragoza is the team that fits the least in the category (barely ten goals in fifteen games), a virtue that has allowed them to compensate for their very poor production, with their three maximum bets up front with some numbers that reveal its ineffectiveness: Neither the Slovenian Vuckic nor the Uruguayan Toro Fernández have made their debut yet and Álex Alegría, the one chosen by Torrecilla to correct this enormous deficit, has only scored one goal in twelve games. Iván Azón improves the three of them in each game, but JIM only sees it, for the moment, as a shock, even though the Aragonese youth was decisive for the victory in Fuenlabrada.

So without the goals from their forwards – only Narváez, with nine goals, has justified his signing – Zaragoza have had to live off the goals from their defenses -Four of the last seven filmmakers of the team have been defenders- and the solvency of their defensive organization, an undoubted merit of JIM since his arrival on the bench and in which Zaragoza is cementing its dramatic fight for permanence. Considering what has been seen, it is the only way to achieve salvation and, incidentally, the survival of a club with 89 years of history, up to nine titles, and 71 million euros still in debt.

Zaragoza has managed to keep its goal unbeaten against Lugo, Logroñés, Ponferradina, Tenerife, Mirandés, Cartagena and Fuenlabrada, and now he aspires to do the same on Sunday against Almería to take another step towards permanence.