Hugo Sanchez blamed his 2009 sacking as manager of Spanish strugglers Almeria on freak rain. Almeria’s 4-1 home defeat by Atletico Bilbao came amid heavy rain and Sanchez was sacked after the team’s next La Liga defeat, a 2-0 loss at Espanyol. The Mexican goal-scoring legend, who had been in charge at Almeria for a year, said: «It never rains here and the day of the Atletico match it was bucketing down. They put three past us from set pieces and we lost badly.» Almeria province is so dry that it was used as the location for numerous spaghetti westerns and the average annual rainfall is just 184 millimetres.
