Valencia's captain in purgatory

David Albelda was Valencia's captain and a club icon until his bizarre excommunication from the team last fall by Ronald Koeman. Denis Doyle/Getty Images

By Sid Lowe, Special to SI.com, World Soccer

Spanish veteran David Albelda should have been lifting the European title along with his countrymen in Austria last month. Instead, he missed his chance to even be a part of the Spanish national team -- the defensive midfielder has been locked out of the first team at Valencia in one of the more bizarre controversies in club soccer.

Once an icon at the Estadio Mestalla, Albelda was inexplicably branded persona non grata by club management, along with teammates and fellow former Spanish nationals Santiago Cañizares and Miguel Ángel Angulo. All three were discarded by former coach Ronald Koeman soon after the Dutchman took over Valencia last October and were told to look for new clubs. Valencia then suffered through its worst season in recent memory and Koeman was subsequently fired.

Albelda is supposedly back in the club's plans, but the damage has been done -- because he missed so much first-team action, Luis Aragonés chose not to include him in Spain's Euro squad. Albelda sat home and watched as his Valencia teammates David Villa, David Silva, Carlos Marchena and Raúl Albiol played key roles in Spain winning its first international title in 44 years.

Albelda is still baffled by the treatment he has received at his long-time club. World Soccer's Sid Lowe catches up with the former Valencia captain and two-time World Cup veteran.

World Soccer: Let's start at the beginning. You've won two league titles and a UEFA Cup with Valencia, you've been to two European Cup finals with them, and you're the most successful captain in the club's history. You were playing week in, week out and yet one day, just like that, the club told you they no longer wanted you.

Albelda: If it had been a sporting decision I wouldn't have had any problem with it; no player is eternal. But I don't like the way it was handled. Everything was fine; then one day, suddenly, I'm told to go. I was ostracized -- I wasn't involved in photos or official events and I wasn't allowed to train with the rest of the first team. Under normal circumstances, training is a step towards playing a match or being part of a squad. But when you know that you are not going to play a match however well you train, you cannot train in the same way, with the same intensity.

There have been weeks when the squad has had a lot of injuries but they've called up youth-teamers rather than pick us [keeper Cañizares and forward Angulo were also personae non gratae]. On Fridays, the squad would train at Mestalla Stadium while we worked at Paterna [Valencia's training ground] all on our own -- it was a new system designed solely to keep us isolated. Emotionally, it's been hard.

World Soccer: What did Koeman say to you?

Albelda: He told me that from now on I wasn't going to be part of his plans, and that was it. Nothing else. I asked him what the reasons were and he said he did not want to discuss it. The decision was taken.

World Soccer: What do you think the reasons were?

Albelda: In sporting terms, I don't think there was any reason. I was playing until three days before, so that doesn't make sense. Under normal circumstances, a player drops to the bench, he stops playing or gets the occasional few minutes, no one says anything, and there is a gradual slide -- it's a more natural process. Players have cycles, too. But to be playing one day and then to be told you've got no place the next is strange.