Victor Fernandes was a native Spaniard from the northern autonomous community of Aragon.
At fifty-four years old, nearly all of his achievements in football had come in northern Spain. Zaragoza and Celta Vigo had been the peaks of his coaching career, especially Celta Vigo around the turn of the century. Led by a group of players headed by Makélélé, they had achieved the best results in Celta Vigo's history.
After reaching his peak with Celta Vigo, he had coached Real Betis for a time, then moved between clubs such as Porto, Zaragoza, Real Betis, and Belgium's Gent. His results had never been particularly ideal.
This summer, he had returned to Deportivo La Coruña in northern Spain.
Over the past four years, Deportivo La Coruña had been relegated twice and promoted twice. Their fortunes had swung wildly, and their results had been highly unstable. This season, the management's requirement for Victor Fernandes was simply to avoid relegation.
The Deportivo La Coruña of today was long past the days of Super Depor. In fact, in this summer's transfer market, Deportivo La Coruña was one of the few teams with no net transfer activity at all.
That did not mean they had made no signings. Their finances were limited, and they had no way to pay transfer fees, so they could only rely mainly on loans and free transfers. They had not spent even a single penny in the transfer market.
That was the tragedy of a small club.
As the Head Coach, Victor Fernandes had to produce a meal that was at least edible despite having no rice in the pot. That was his responsibility, and it was also the key to whether he could remain at Deportivo La Coruña.
In the first three rounds, Deportivo La Coruña's results had been, in