Javier Aguirre wasn't the first phone call Valencia made, and nobody at the club wants that said out loud.
Ernesto Valverde was. He knows this league, and he knows a mess when he sees one, and he turned Valencia down. Only after that did the club turn to other names, and Aguirre's moved to the front of the queue. Nothing's official yet, but word is there's a verbal agreement in principle with the veteran Mexican coach. Call it close, not done.
My problem is the process, not the man.
Aguirre is a serious, respected coach with a long history in Spanish football. At Mallorca he did exactly what he's known for: he kept a drowning side afloat. That's a real skill, and it's also the tell here. Valencia didn't go chasing a coach to build something. They went chasing one to stop something from getting worse. You don't hire a firefighter because you love the architecture. You hire one because the house is on fire.
The house is on fire. Valencia sat bottom of the table after five games, winless. Last weekend Peter Lim swung the axe in every direction: out went head coach Carlos Corberán and his staff, out went CEO Ron Gourlay and his directors, all in one sweep. Braulio Vázquez came in from Osasuna to run the sporting side. That's someone hitting the panic button with an open palm, not a plan.
Remember what Corberán actually did before this season soured on him. Firing him doesn't touch any of the things Mestalla has been furious about for years now. Fans have protested Lim's ownership repeatedly, called the squad mercenaries, described the whole operation as a patient in intensive care. The rot they're angry about lives upstairs, in the ownership box, not in the dugout.
So Lim changes the dugout again.
Settling for your second-choice coach, and one whose calling card is survival rather than progress, is the most honest statement of ambition this ownership has made in years. This is a club that's stopped trying to be good and started trying to just not get relegated. Everyone at Mestalla can feel the difference.
None of this is a knock on Aguirre. Credit him if he walks in and does what he's always done: steadies a listing ship and buys the club some air. He might. He's pulled off harder rescues than this. But the ceiling on this appointment is built into the appointment itself. You don't bring in a relegation specialist because you're dreaming of Europe. You bring one in because you've quietly admitted what you're actually fighting for.
Valencia used to fight for trophies. Now they're finalizing terms with the guy you call when you're fighting for your life. If Aguirre keeps them up, he'll have earned every euro. But he shouldn't have been the answer to a question a properly run club never has to ask.
The manager isn't the problem at Valencia. The manager has never been the problem at Valencia. Until the man who keeps hiring and firing them looks in a mirror, the next name is just another coat of paint on a burning wall.
