Be sure to read the full article for maximum chuckles: http://skysports.planetfootball.com...tle=Alaves+chief+in+Barca+boast&channel=spain Alaves' controversial president Dmitri Piterman has lit the fuse ahead of his side's clash with Barcelona this Sunday by claiming his side have better players than the reigning Spanish champions.
LMAO! Oh man, that is really good stuff. Honestly, that is great stuff. "Ronaldinho? He's very good, but I have Nene who as well as being left-footed and having great quality also scored 12 goals last year." "They have Eto'o? Well I have (Rodolfo) Bodipo, and if we are talking about the relationship between quality and price then for me Bodipo is a thousand times better." I have to imagine he said all of this with a smile on his face. I'm going like having this guy in La Liga. Not even from a rivals standpoint, I think I'm starting to become a fan of his.
Piterman was president of Racing Santander a few seasons ago. I don't remember if he resigned or was voted out. Here's some nice info courtesy of Side Lowe. Funny stuff: Dimitri Piterman, Racing de Santander's president, coach, delegate, kit man and photographer. Piterman rescued Racing by buying a 26% share and promptly made himself coach. Only there was a problem - Piterman hasn't got the necessary qualifications to sit on the bench. So, he applied to be match-day delegate. The Federation refused. He applied to be kit-man. The Federation refused. He threatened to buy up the front row and bark orders through a megaphone, before hatching a cunning plan: he named himself Racing's website photographer, wangled an accreditation and sat (without a camera) in an orange bib alongside the bench. "It's crazy," he moaned, "any imbecile can rule a country [and coming from the States, he knows], but you need a piece of paper to sit on a bench".
I know who Ricky Williams sold his reefer to. I live in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Alaves) anyone want me to give piterman your "regards" ?
I have read enough interviews with Dimitri Piterman before to understand him a little bit. Of course Alaves doesn't have better players than Barca, they don't stand a chance, but it is not in playing quality that Piterman thinks about. He is a businessman, and when talking about strictly business he does know what he is talking about, in spite of being quite "unique". He is running his teams (Racing before, now Alaves), as many medium sized business owners operate traditionally by being well involved in everything from the economics of the company to his employees, and he just can't see it in another way. His persistence in wanting to sit next to his bench proves this, he has to be in the front line watching them work, not just play. He gets to the point of training with his players and even directing some of the fitness training sessions. He may be a character who to some seems to be a lunatic, but what he is doing in the real working world is not unusual at all. It is in a soccer team, fine, but to him his club is his company and he wants to run it as he sees fit, just like anybody who owns any other company of this size. In this sense, everything he said which seemed so outrageous is really nothing out of the ordinary in business terms: his players are better than Barcelona's in a quality-money spent ratio, and they probably are. Of course Ronaldinho is better than Wesley, but is he really 300 times better given his salary and what Barcelona paid for him?. The truth is simply no without having to think about it too much, and to him this means that he is doing business better than Barca. He knows very well he is not winning La Liga or even getting close to it, but that is not what he meant. Sometime back when asked about Real Madrid's problems in defense and what he would have done about it he simply said that "Real Madrid does not have a problem that can't be solved with a small investment or 3 or 4 million". This was during the Pavones' period with Queiroz, and I thought that he was absolutely right. Of course you can find a player better than Pavon, Bravo or Borja for that amount, in pairs and with great ease in half of the world. The problem is that we (and Barca as well) have to spend money on players with a name who already have a rating and who therefore come well overvalued, it's what we did with Samuel and he wasn't worth half of what we paid for him. At half his price there could have been plenty of defenders to buy with no pedigree who would have done better than him. This is where his comments aim at. We win trophies but we waste a lot of resources in the process. If he manages to make Alaves stay in 1st he will have proven to be way more efficient than most teams above his. Not better, but more efficient and more "profitable" in business terms. Piterman breaks the mold, but he is really not that crazy.
Is Ronaldinho 12560 times better than me? The answer is of course not...but logic doesn't work that way. That's not how you measure financial success.
It depends. Alaves may show this year, let's say, a 200% profit over their investment and Barcelona may show a 15%. In money it means Alaves getting, let's say 200,000 euros in profit and Barcelona 6,000,000. If to that you add that Alaves makes their objective of staying in 1st true, and Barcelona even though finishing 2nd in Liga and 4th in the CL (just an example to prove a point, don't take it literally) does not make their of winning at least a major competition, it would clearly show that Alaves is a financially better managed club than Barcelona since their club & company objectives for the year have been achieved. I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but it is a very valid way of looking at it and the one Piterman does look at it. In that sense, well, Ronaldihno is 12559 times better than me playing soccer, but I am not a professional soccer player so I can't be measured up in this category against him. Wesley on the other hand is a very valid comparison. The thing is, can such a comparison be valid in these terms? can the financial comparison be valid also being such a difference between both clubs?. It can, but only at the end of the year comparing whose objectives have been achieved. Alaves is not aiming for the Liga, or Piterman, they are not that crazy, and Piterman is not really claiming that Wesley is better than Ronaldihno, only that Alaves is more efficiently run, and that Wesley is more efficient as an investment for as long as Alaves does achieve their objectives. You are just taking his comments literally to call him a nut case. He may be close, but I am just saying that I don't think he is really that crazy, actually I think he is a bit of a "romantic", wanting to do more with less, to achieve with a small team surrounded by giants like Barca or Real. To a team like them or life Getafe last year, staying in 1st and even doing considerably well in it tastes and feels better than winning the CL, that's what I think this is about to him. It is just that the way he operates stands out too much, but I think it is really not that abnormal. I guess we will call him crazy at the end of the year if Alaves goes down to 2nd div., but if it doesn't I wonder what it is that we are going to say.