Valeron and Tristan turn up the volume in a quiet revolution

Arsenal have five players on the not so shortlist of 50 for this year's European Footballer of the Year award. Deportivo La Coruña, whom they meet in the Champions' League on Wednesday, have none. The curious thing is that British bookmakers reckon Deportivo are twice as likely to win the European Cup: they are offering 10-1 against the Spanish club; 20-1 against Arsenal.

Which lends some mathematical support to the otherwise self-evident truth that on recent form Arsenal are a lot less than the sum of their parts and that Deportivo – compact as Liverpool, tigerish as Leeds, classy (almost) as Real Madrid – are a great deal more. The Spanish league leaders, who until 10 years ago had spent virtually the whole of the last century in the lower divisions, also happen to possess a couple of very impressive parts: two players who, if they sustain into next year the level of performance they have shown so far in the Spanish first division and the Champions' League, may well be in the running this time next year not just for the shortlist but for the coveted Golden Ball itself.

If it sounds far-fetched to suggest that Juan Carlos Valeron and Diego Tristan might make the leap in 12 months from international obscurity to international acclaim, then ask the Manchester United superstars whom Deportivo outplayed and defeated home and away in phase one of the Champions' League. Or simply ask Sir Alex Ferguson, who will tell you, as he has done on a number of occasions already, that no team in Europe are playing better football.

On that night last month at Old Trafford, when Fabien Barthez's two blunders served the useful purpose of obscuring how thoroughly Deportivo had deserved their 3-2 win over United, it was the attacking midfielder Valeron who called the tune, who made the likes of Beckham and Veron seem slow-witted and sluggish by comparison; it was the penetrative Tristan, not the battling Van Nistelrooy, who won the battle of the solitary centre-forwards.

Admittedly, Tristan had a less sure-footed defence to contend with, but the headed goal he scored was by any standard outstanding, imparting much more power and accuracy than seemed possible on an awkwardly delivered ball. Tristan's pace, his strength on both feet, his lust for goals and his physical powerwere a torment for the poor lambs in the Red Devils' rearguard.

His all-round attributes would have counted for nothing, however, without the consistently exquisite service he received from Valeron, who was at the hub of wave after wave of swift, billiard-ball precise Deportivo attacks. But that was no one-night wonder. He has been playing like that all season. An elegant presence on any pitch, Valeron is a player whose head is always up, surveying the options, whether he is running – in a metaphor the Spanish press accord him with tedious regularity – with the ball sewn to his feet, whether he is feinting left and going right, whether he is making as if to cross but passing short.

Valeron, in contrast to Beckham or Veron, is a late developer. He always looked classy but it is only now, aged 26, that he has acquired the confidence to shape and dominate a game. Bought last year from Atletico Madrid for £7.5m, he looks a snip today. As does Tristan, formerly of Mallorca, who is now 25 and also arrived at Deportivo last year, for a club-record £9.5m, £3.5m less than Ars-enal paid for Sylvain Wiltord, who is 27.

Last Wednesday both Tristan and Valeron started for Spain against Mexico. Barely in the running six months ago, they are now certainties for the World Cup squad and may finally provide the most consistently underachieving national team in world football with the bite they always seem at the moment of truth to lack.

And there is more reason for Spain to feel the winds of change might be blowing. Since Javier Irureta, Deportivo's unassumingly school-masterish coach, arrived at La Coruña (pop. 240,000) three-and-a-half years ago he has set about a quietly effective revolution, transforming a team made up almost entirely of foreigners into one that is predominantly Spanish. Of the 11 who started in the Old Trafford victory, nine were home-grown.

While it may just be a coincidence, Arsène Wenger might wish to reflect on the fact that no team in the Spanish league have a sharper combative spirit, a more defined style of play and a clearer collective identity than Deportivo.