The truth is, it's open to interpretation whether MAL was being sarcastic or whether he was trying to soften the message by actually praising Valverde. MAL's tone was ambiguous.
Not really. I mean, sure, sarcasm is always subjective. But, to me, that wasn't anywhere near sarcastic. Starting with the fact that I can't remember him ever going for sarcasm (or even humor). He is as to the point as they come. It's usually just a smile and a cliche. And when he's mad he'll say what he means (and we've seen him be even more direct than that).
He was in an interview with a Spanish channel, and he was ending it on a smile and a high. I have not heard what that last question was, it seemed to be on how he felt about what transpired. And his answer was that [he was feeling] "angry at these silly actions by the team with the world champion, and what a
famous world champion we have." It was clear as day, IMHO, that that was a remark on Valverde's stature, ie, this wasn't Rui Costa (sorry, Rui, you were a fun rider and great at the Tour de Suisse) but Alejandro Valverde, the great Spanish Champion. Yet most of the translations I've seen are jumbling up the order of the answers and skirting a word here and there. Sure, viewers like a bit of
morbo,
polemica sells papers, and spin is the name of the game, but spinning a translation in the most uncharitable way strikes me as cheap even for sports infotainment. Even for an informed, skeptical viewer, unless you can speak the language, there's no way to critically think your way around a translation being gamed.