Vicente Moreno's Espanyol plays with a net and without acrobatics

Solo leader, with 17 points out of 24 possible and as many goals conceded as losses: one. Numbers in hand, the start of Espanyol and its ability to adapt to the Second Division are commendable. However, something indicates that the requirement must always be maximum in a category that by history does not belong, at least until it reaches the only possible objective: promotion. In the parrot environment it feeds itself a discussion about the game displayed by the team. Should it be more colorful? Would you give more points if the brightness of your stars were exploited? Vicente Moreno has the answers.

“It would be very boring to come to work every day if we did everything well,” ironized the coach in his appearance last Friday, asked about the matter, not without adding that Espanyol is in permanent improvement and that it pursues “excellence”. Moreno has not deviated a millimeter from his plan, which at the same time is the plan of those who signed him knowing what your proposal would be, and that sits deeply on pragmatism. The clean sheet in seven of eight games it is its maximum evidence. Phrases like “it could not have been the three points, but we won one”, which he pronounced this Sunday, after the 0-0 in Tenerife, the maximum expression of his philosophy: everything that does not subtract, add.

Vicente Moreno's Espanyol plays with a net. His defensive network is not limited to Diego López –Although their speeches have given more than one point– or to the line of four backs, but extends to the solidarity of the whole team. The starting point of the parakeet style has become its maxim. Because, knowing his strength, the technician not only does not obsess over the ball Rather, he hands it over if necessary to the rival to wear him down, to surprise him in transitions. To take advantage of the enormous talent with which he has from midfield upwards to, in a flash, knock him down.

That's how has arrived with a score of 0-0 in six of his eight LaLiga games. And how he has won five times. Assuming the minimum of risks. Putting the group before the brightness of its players, in the most expensive squad of Second. And there it is where the role of individualities appears (or should appear), of their ability to make decisions that decide parties.

The day the formula is not finished, as it happened in Tenerife and before against Mallorca or Rayo –which made the parakeets drink their own medicine, with a great goal at the end–, the current appears that considers that it is wasting the quality of some of the footballers.

Stakhanovism or creativity is, ultimately, the dilemma that surrounds these first steps of Espanyol's career in Segunda. But both concepts can be perfectly compatible. And the team can perfectly continue to evolve, in a competition as long as there are 34 days still to be played.

In the same way that, beyond the positions on what is best for the perica squad, there is the experience of those who really know the category. And in accordance with it is the classification. Espanyol needs to go up. And, for now, the only objective is that at the point level it is on the right track.