Villarreal knocked and knocked and knocked, but it was only in the 72nd minute that Nilmar finally broke through, following a beautiful combination from Capdevila to Rossi, who was probably not supposed to play today.  Perhaps it was the rain, or perhaps it was the recent funk Villarreal have been experiencing, but they could not seem to find the back of the net despite numerous opportunities.

Jonathan was everywhere while he was in, but he did not have the finishing touch.  Pires also caused a lot of trouble for the Bulgarian side.  Villarreal will probably be happiest that they managed the win while resting Santi and Godin, and giving Ibagaza and Rossi a significant portion of the night off.  It was also nice to see Escudero make it on the pitch for a few minutes.

And, perhaps the most shocking aspect of the night, Lazio gave up two late goals to lose at home against Salzburg, allowing Villarreal to take a great early three point lead over them in the standings.

Uefa.com has a nice writeup, with highlights.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 23:18 and is filed under Europa League, Results. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.