1-0: Great header, but what was the GK doing? Our corners will improve with Borja. 2-0: Cani loves that pass (a saucer in ice hockey). World-class finish by Santi. 3-0: Very unselfish by Cani. I wish he’d be more assertive in general, though. 4-0: Great overlapping movement from the front six, leading to an easy finish for Cani. 5-0: Powerful strike from Nilmar. He’s not lacking in confidence. Not quite: Nice save on Jozy; great skill from Montero. Both should start in Belarus.
With the World Cup swirling, club football gets lost in the background. Now that the US has been knocked out, my feet are returning to the ground, and while keeping one eye on South Africa, it is almost time to start looking towards next season.
So far, Villarreal’s players in South Africa have been hit-or-miss. Diego Godin has been a force in the back whenever he has been in. Capdevila has been solid, but not especially involved to this point. Nilmar, unfortunately, is facing the likes of Bastos, Robinho, and Kaka among others, and it has been tough for him to find playing time.
Although there has been a lull in Villarreal off-the-pitch news, it has picked up a bit over the last couple of days.
Villarreal have placed a 3m euro price tag on veteran midfielder Marcos Senna, as he looks to be less and less in their plans for the future. There is reported interest from clubs in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Turkey. Any deal, apparently, would have to at least be for 2.5m euros. I can see him ending up in Turkey or Brazil, but I am not too sure about the other locales. As of right now, there are no offers, and he plans on reporting to Vila-real on July 12th.
Villarreal are reportedly tracking Dutch keeper Maarten Stekelenburg, who is currently starting for the Netherlands at the World Cup. This is due to the very possible transfer of Diego Lopez in the coming month. It will be interesting to see, if Lopez does go, if Villarreal will be content with Juan Carlos and Xavi Oliva, or if they will go after someone new.
Diego Godin’s strong tournament, on top of his regular good play for Villarreal, is attracting some strong interest, particularly from the city of Milan. Apparently both Internazionale and AC Milan are considering an offer for him. Villarreal have said that they will hold fast to their 20m euro price tag they have for him. I would be shocked if he didn’t end up going, although I would love to see him stay at the club for another year or two.
All the action seems to be in Italy this summer. In one of the crazier rumors I have seen, Jozy Altidore (along with fellow US forward/midfielder Clint Dempsey) has been linked to Napoli. No way that happens. A scenario much more likely would be that he actually stays at Villarreal as a 4th striker (not including Montero).
So far, Villarreal have either sold, loaned or released six players – Llorente (Real Sociedad), Escudero (Boca Juniors), and Marcano (Getafe) to other teams, and Pires, Ibagaza, and Javi Venta set free. A few more could leave over the next month, meaning that we still do not have a great picture of what the club will look like come August.
Time to end some streaks. Villarreal has won 1 match in La Liga away from El Madrigal. Villarreal never has scored a goal, let alone won a match, at the Estadio Nuevo Jose Zorrilla. Juan Carlos Garrido has not won consecutive matches in his short reign as manager. All of these mala rachas can be ended tomorrow in Valladolid.
La Pucela, as Valladolid are known due to their purple kits, sit in 19th place in La Liga, only ahead of colista Xerez. And Xerez comprehensively beat them 3-0 last week. Ouch. 7 points from safety, expect an all-or-nothing approach led by Brazilian striker Diego Costa and Bosnian midfielder Haris Medunjanin. For a laugh, check out Medunjanin’s pub league goalkeeping on YouTube on Xerez’s 3-0 penalty goal.
GKs: Diego López and Oliva. Ds: Ángel, Marcano, Godin, Capdevila, Gonzalo, and Musacchio. MFs: Senna, Pires, Bruno, Cani, Ibagaza, Fuster, and Cazorla. Fs: Rossi, Nilmar, and Llorente.
Senna and Godin return from suspension, while Escudero (in the doghouse) and Javi Venta (end of the road?) are omitted. A number of B teamers trained with Garrido this week, so it’s a slight surprise that only Musacchio was called up. But keep in mind that the B team plays Jony Pereira and Real Betis on Monday night in the Segunda match of the week, so the likes of Matilla and Marcos Gullon may have been withheld.
This week’s refrain: we can win away from home. Let’s play the same way on the road. Now it’s time to back up the rhetoric. Expect a reprise of the 4-3-3 formation: Diego Lopez; Capdevila, Godin, Gonzalo, Angel; Bruno, Senna, Cani; Nilmar, Rossi, Llorente. I predict a 1-2 scoreline, with goals by Nilmar and Rossi. Endavant Villarreal!
Update from maddi: A great win for the club, the second all season on the road, with the unlikely and stellar goal from Angel, and a second from Nilmar to put the match away. Highlights forthcoming….
Interestingly, Fernando Roig spoke to the players before officially giving Valverde the axe. I doubt that the conversation was determinative, but it seems pretty clear that Valverde could not have had that much support in the locker room at this point. A number of players had been more or less calling for a change, and it looks like the feeling was at least somewhat widely held.
On less happy news, we have poor, poor Sebastian Eguren. Someone please correct me if I am reading this wrong, but it looks like Eguren is signed with Lazio, but they may have no plans to use him. The Italian team just signed Thomas Hitzlsperger as their apparent efforts to avoid keeping Eguren were in play, and now it looks like Eguren might be hopeless for six months. He will be given an opportunity to get his blood pressure down – if that really is an issue at all – but you have to feel terrible for the guy. Hopefully all of this is rumors and things can work out. I would be happy to see him back at Villarreal, but it looks like that ship might have sailed.
For those of you wondering why Valverde went without Rossi, perhaps that wasn’t all his fault. Apparently Rossi came down with a case of the flu and couldn’t go the full 90. Who knows how having Giuseppe start would have changed the game? It looks like, from the opinion expressed at this site at least, that it might have been the best thing to happen for the club’s future.
Injury-wise, it looks like Javi Venta will be available for the Yellow Submarine when they travel to the island of Mallorca this weekend. His hamstring is getting back to 100 percent, and he hopes to be ready to go.
And as a side note regarding the website, VillarrealUSA is now into its 25th month of existence (if you go into the archives, there are a few posts that I lost due to server problems in the beginning). The site now consists of over 800 posts and over 4,700 comments. Thanks for all of your contributions to the quality of the site! ENDAVANT!
It has been discussed in the comments below, but Santi Cazorla is facing four to five weeks out after tearing his right hamstring. He is set to miss matches against Osasuna, Mallorca, Bilbao, Madrid, and possibly Deportivo. As we have already demonstrated, that is not an easy stretch even when at full strength.
David Fuster is recovering from the flu and is expected to be ready to go for Sunday’s match against Osasuna.
Javi Venta is getting close to being back at 100 percent, but is not expected to be ready for Sunday’s match.
In other news, La Liga will shortly begin to play matches on Mondays. This could be a great thing for those watching in the States, as theoretically it opens up another possible TV slot – and clears up the current mass of matches that starts the Sunday matchday.
Thanks to Kenez, here is the squad for tomorrow’s B Team match against locals Levante:
Keepers: Juan Carlos & Vicente Flor.
Defenders: Mario, Kiko, Musacchio, Carlos Tomás, Catalá & Ángel.
Midfield: Matilla, Natxo Insa, David Lázaro, Felipe Manoel, Jefferson Montero, Hernán Pérez & Cristóbal.
Forwards: Joan Tomás, Gerard & Marco Ruben.
Levante sit in 8th place, three points behind Villarreal B. The match is in Valencia; hopefully the Villarreal boys will put on a better show than the A team’s last trip south.
Marco Ruben is in the squad. I hope he will be able to shrug off his disappointment at not making it to England during the break and will come out ready to prove a point. But, according to some reports, a few English Premiership scouts will be in the stands in Valencia tomorrow. So that might not be over just yet.
Well, it has been one of those weeks. Sometimes everything seems to suddenly go wrong, right in the midst of everything going right. The Almeria match was disappointing, but the Celta loss was heartbreaking and mentality-crushing. Everything feels a little different on this side of that match. Call me over-dramatic, but I feel that the whole season might have taken a turn towards mediocrity over the last week.
And, if the season is shot (for purposes of getting into Europe, advancing significantly in the Europa League (momentum, people, we ain’t got it), and obviously the Copa del Rey), it might be time to begin to use this season to get the best possible results from it. And I am not talking about results on the field (although, of course, finishing in the top half of La Liga is mandatory). I am talking about the results that could be gained from getting in some serious playing time for some current-B-soon-to-be-A-teamers in La Liga when they will have essentially a pressure-free chance to enter a Primera mindset.
Because one thing we have to realize, by the beginning of next season, this team could look very different from how it does today. Talisman Robert Pires has essentially made clear that he will be on his way out in the summer. Ibagaza seems to be falling out of favor quickly, primarily due to age and injury (despite an impressive start to the season). Stalwarts such as Javi Venta and Marcos Senna are moving from the twilight of their careers towards midnight. Newbies such as Jony Pereira never really got the chance to settle in. Our defense is simply horrid, with the likes of Angel, Gonzalo, and to a degree Marcano making sub-par forwards look like Wayne Rooney, which means that any of them could be out. And don’t forget the rumors linking Diego Lopez and Santi Cazorla away from the squad to big time clubs.
And now this. It was to be expected, but Giuseppe Rossi is all but certain to be moving to Italy over the summer. Villarreal should be able to demand a good price, but at the same time they are somewhat weakened in the fact that it will be clear that he is ready to move on.
So what will we look like next year? I have a pretty strong feeling that if you took a look at the B-team roster, you would have a pretty good idea.
I guess “first thing this morning” didn’t exactly play out as planned….
After last week’s tremendous draw at the Camp Nou, Villarreal should have been able to carry its momentum into the midweek scrum with lowly Celta Vigo. Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep the good form going, and after a well-played 40+ minutes, gave up the lead and then drowned in their own mediocrity.
Nonetheless, Villarreal are riding their longest unbeaten streak of the La Liga season, four matches (Getafe, Atletico, Racing, Barcelona). This is a team against whom they should be able to continue that streak.
Almeria’s table-standing has generally been following a downward slope since the beginning of the year, and comes into the match three short points away from the drop zone, and have to feel like they are facing a season-long struggle. They managed a home 1-0 win over bottom-feeders (and Villarreal-beaters) Xerez last week, but in the five previous matches, had lost four.
Almeria have managed sixteen goals on the season. Notably, they tend to score during three particular periods of time during their games. Three of their goals have been scored between 30 and 45 minutes, three more between 45 and 60, and six have come in the final 15 minutes of the matches. In what should be a warning note for Villarreal, of the 20 Villarreal have conceded in La Liga this term, 9 have come between the 30th and 60th minutes of their matches. That could be the most dangerous period of the match for the Yellows.
This is a necessary three points for Villarreal. They are on a bit of an island at the moment in ninth place. While they are only one point ahead of a quickly retreating Sporting club, they are four behind Bilbao for 8th, and five ahead of the enigma that is Atletico Madrid. So although these three points cannot shoot them up the table in the immediate, it could put them in good position to take over the places of Bilbao, Getafe, and Deportivo.
Villarreal are only bringing four defenders into today’s squad, which is pretty amazing at this level. They will have Eguren and Bruno who could slide in if there was an emergency, but Javi Venta will be watching from the stands while Angel is the only available right back.
The midfield, though, will be deep, with the addition of Marcos Gullón from the B team. Could this be a suggestion of where Valverde is planning on going player-personnel-wise?
This is a very winnable, and perhaps must-win match. Home matches are vital if you are aiming at Europe, especially against the bottom-of-the-barrel teams in the league. This should be at minimum a 2-0 win. ENDAVANT!
Villarreal will breathe a bit of a sigh of relief this week, as Javi Venta has had a couple of pain-free days, and looks to be fit for Sunday’s matchup against Atletico. Despite their embarrassment today, Atletico Madrid generally have no problem scoring goals, so having a first-team defense – including Javi Venta – is very important.
Villarreal also expect to have Gonzalo and Fuster available on Sunday. Neither one is quite 100 percent, but with another four days to go, they are expected to be in full health for the trip. Gonzalo currently has a strained soleus, which is a muscle in the calf just beneath the primary calf muscle. Fuster is still recovering from the strained hamstring he picked up against Levski Sofia last week.
Unfortunately, Ibagaza looks to be out another week. The spark he provided will have to be found somewhere else, because his bruised right thigh does not look to be ready for Sunday.
Also, of course, Villarreal are dealing with the suspended players, Angel and Cani. Villarreal are hoping to be successful with an appeal of Cani’s straight red, as replays show pretty clearly that he was merely a passive bystander on the “foul” he committed in the box – he was shoved by Javier Casquero, and then bounced off of Angel onto Casquero’s legs.
Villarreal’s up and down season has continued over the last couple of weeks, seeing the 3-1 victory over Valladolid followed by the ugly 1-0 loss to Gijon. Villarreal played well midweek to advance in the Europa League. They now have to put all of that aside and make a serious effort over the next month to climb the La Liga ladder and get into competition for the European spots.
Getafe are an enigma. So far on the season, they have six wins and six losses. They have some impressive wins – over Valencia and Athletic Bilbao – but also a disappointing loss against Almeria. What is most intriguing is their goal-scoring trends. In five matches, they have been held scoreless, but in their other seven matches, have totaled 19 goals, including an opening 1-4 away thrashing of Racing, and most recently, a 5-1 drubbing of Xerez. Most notably, perhaps, for the first time all season, Getafe are following up on back-to-back wins. They now sit comfortably in ninth place, only two points out of Europe.
Villarreal have the general feel of improvement over the last few matches, but things are still shaky. They have won three of the last five, showing the first signs of life after a listless start. Despite this, there is no question that at any moment, they can completely fail to show up on the pitch, like last week’s heartless 1-0 loss at Sporting Gijon.
Villarreal will be missing a few players for the match. Gonzalo is out because, of course, he is coming off a red card. It is at the point that perhaps it should only be mentioned when he is not coming off a red card! Also in defense, Javi Venta has not recovered from the muscle he pulled against Valladolid. Unfortunately, both David Fuster and Ariel Ibagaza – two players that seem to bring out the best in Valverde’s playing style – are out. Fuster is still out after going down against Levski Sofia in midweek. Ibagaza suffered a bruise to the right thigh, and is expected to be back for the Atletico match. Joseba Llorente made the lineup, but he is coming off a few days of gastroenteritis, so don’t expect him to get the start, or have much energy if he makes it onto the pitch. The squad:
Keepers: Diego López and Xavi Oliva.
Defenders: Marcano, Ángel, Godín, Capdevila and Fuentes.
Midfielders: Cani, Eguren, Marcos Senna, Santi Cazorla, Bruno, Pires and Escudero.
Forwards: Jonathan Pereira, Nilmar, Rossi and Llorente.
I really do not know what Valverde will bring today. I can’t imagine him wanting to put Senna and Bruno/Eguren in midfield, but without Fuster and Ibagaza, he might look back to the traditional double-pivot and play a bit conservatively. Theoretically, with Santi back, he could put Pires in as a withdrawn striker, with Cazorla on the left and Cani on the right.
Important note for today: the match is on GolTV at 1pm, and today you should be able to see the VillarrealUSA banner up behind the goal to the right, when viewing on your television screen, next to the banner for Els Flamencs Grocs.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. I am in the process of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 18 people here in Vila-real, none of whom have ever had a Thanksgiving dinner, so it is not your usual Thanksgiving. And just to warn you, this post may come across as a lot of personal storytelling, which is not my goal. I believe that despite the fact that I am relaying my experiences, many of you may be interested because of what the experiences show about the magnanimity of the club and its people and the city of Vila-real.
I have some great photos and videos that I will be posting upon my return to the US next week, including videos from down on the pitch in an empty El Madrigal, photos from the players’ dressing room, and views of the city that I figure many readers might be interested in. I will talk more about it when I post the pictures and videos, but Vila-real is a very beautiful town, with great people, incredible culture, and a very relaxed feel.
Sitting in the stands at El Madrigal to watch the Valladolid match was a very special experience. The 3-1 victory only made it that much sweeter. I will have a lot more about this when I begin to post pics later.
I met President Roig, his daughter Elena who is in charge of PR, and Jose Manuel Llaneza on Sunday after the Valladolid match, and discussed VillarrealUSA and Villarreal’s supporters in the US with them. They were very happy about the development of a US fanbase, and welcomed us as a penya. I also met with Martijn, the president of the Belgium penya and four of his fellow Belgian Villarreal supporters, all very nice people. Martijn is assisting me with obtaining penya bylaws in English, and is very supportive of further developing the penya and the development of relations between all international penyas.
If you watched the Valladolid match, you may have noticed, the banner was not hanging in El Madrigal just yet. Because of the timing of my arrival and the match, there was no opportunity to have it up just yet. The club has the banner now, though, and promised that it would be hanging behind the southern goal (to the right when watching on television) next to that of Els Flamencs Grocs. So look for it when watching the next match from Vila-real.
Yesterday, after touring El Madrigal, I attended training and met most of the players (missed out on Godin, Fuster, and Cazorla for various reasons, including Cazorla’s rehabilitation. All of them were very easy to talk to (with a translator), very down to earth. Pires and Rossi were the only players that spoke English, but all of them were patient with me when I used the little bit of castellano I have been working on while here. Truly, we support a very special team full of very special players. I had the team sign a large banner that, when VillarrealUSA meets as a penya for the first time, will be hanging on the wall.
While at training, I was briefly interviewed for VillarrealTV. The questions were generally simple, but I was interviewed by someone who did not speak English, and, having been working on my castellano so much while I have been here, my English did not work as well as I would have wanted! So if you see it and I look like an idiot, please forgive me! Later that afternoon, I was interviewed on Radio Vila-real by Javi Mata, who you would recognize from VillarrealTV. I had a translator, which made it easider, as did not being in front of the camera. I will be able to post an MP3 of the interview when I get back to the US.
With faster access to the internet, I could have had a brief exclusive yesterday. Capdevila injured his knee in practice, but assured me when I spoke with him that he will be available to go this weekend. Later, he related the same to the general media.
The Russian club Rubin Kazan offered 20 million euros for Giuseppe Rossi, which is a lot of money. Rossi had no desire to play in Russia, though, and turned the offer down. On a side note, I have to say that he is a very likeable person. I met him after practice yesterday, and we talked for a few minutes. He was excited about a penya beginning in the US. Not expecting him to accept, I invited him to Thanksgiving dinner – he said he appreciated the offer and would have considered it, but his family was in town and they had plans.
On a related note, President Roig has indicated that the club has no plans to purchase any players this winter. The rumor is that the club is looking to promote Kiko to the first team, and that he would replace Fuentes. A friend of mine spoke with Fuentes recently in Madrid, though, and Fuentes said he knew nothing of a transfer away from the club.
Santi said the other day that he was at about 90%, but that he should be ready to go soon. I watched him in practice yesterday, and other than a little extra attention from the trainers and some rehab after practice, he was at full speed and participated with the team.
Welcome fellow fans of Villarreal CF, especially those in the United States! This is the website of VillarrealUSA, the official United States penya (supporters group) for Villarreal. The penya is primarily based in the US, but incorporates views, and welcomes members, from around the world.
You can contact the authors on this site by email: maddi - maddi [at] villarrealusa [dot] org, nick - noc [at] villarrealusa [dot] org, or sidarth - sidarth [at] villarrealusa [dot] org.
VillarrealUSA.org is proud to announce a new partnership with the NewsNow website.
Check out NewsNow for easy access to English-language news on Villarreal C.F.
Important note for today: the match is on GolTV at 1pm, and today you should be able to see the VillarrealUSA banner up behind the goal to the right, when viewing on your television screen, next to the banner for Els Flamencs Grocs.
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