Mar
07
2010
Match Thread/Result: Espanyol 0-0 Villarreal
Posted by maddi in La Liga, Match Thread, Matchday, Results, SquadSorry there hasn’t been more content lately – things have been busy! Post all your match comments here.
The squad:
Keepers: Diego López and Xavi Oliva.
Defenders: Ángel, Javi Venta, Gonzalo, Mateo Musacchio, Godin and Capdevila.
Midfielders: Marcos Senna, Bruno, David Fuster, Cani, Ibagaza, Escudero and Pires.
Forwards: Rossi, Llorente and Nilmar
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My fault maddi, I was just getting online to do this. The “first leg” was the worst game of the season, as far as I’m concerned. If you don’t recall:
http://villarrealusa.org/?p=2577
I predict a boring game and a 0-0 scoreline. Let’s hope Nilmar has some Brazilian magic in his boots today. Endavant!
No surprise that the team is unchanged from last week.
Lineup:
Lopez
Venta, Gonzalo, Godin, Capdevila
Fuster, Senna, Bruno, Ibagaza
Nilmar, Llorente
Once again Marcano is in the doghouse.
Villarreal do not have a great record in their 10 visits to Espanyol. Only won twice , drawn 5 and lost 3, scored 10 and conceded 14. However this is their first ever visit to Espanyol’s new Cornellà stadium. So on that basis I’ll go for a 1-1 draw.
Reasonably good feed on rojadirecta @arena360.
Osvaldo with a half chance in 2′, puts it over.
I use futbolarg, it’s the DirecTV feed that you can watch in the Americas.
I am a huge fan of Garrido’s hand signals and general exuberance.
Espanyol clearly has us on the back foot to start. A lot of pressure in our half, but no real chances as of yet. Something about Gonzalo’s clearances – I would put the percentage of them that find the other team close to 80.
Two great chances: Capdevila and Nilmar. Looks very wide open, I am surprised.
AHHHHHH. Capdevila’s scoring foot lets him down as he knocks it across the face of goal. And then, 30 seconds later, another near hookup, this time between Nilmar and Llorente. We seem to be finding our bearings a bit.
Nilmar down in front of Kameni. Hit in the head by a punch clearing the corner, here comes the stretcher. Uh-oh.
Ouch. Nilmar was knocked out – or nearly so – by a Kameni punch to clear a cross. He is up, but clearly shaky.
Good to see Nilmar’s OK, he’s really our best attacking threat by a long way.
Cleared off the line by our central defense. Lucky in 13′.
Very little from Fuster and Ibagaza to this point. All of our attacking is coming from Capdevila, the central midfielders, and the forwards.
Foul drawn by Fuster, dangerous FK for Senna in 27′. Ugly game so far, as I predicted.
What a save by Kameni. Senna is really hitting them well these days.
Senna comes close with a free kick. He has been on fire with those of late.
Another clearance off the line. Godin, Gonzalo, and Lopez are communicating well, it looks like.
SO close from Llorente!
Llorente just missed in 45′. 0-0 on the stroke of HT.
HT: 0-0
0-0 HT. We should win this game. Let’s see what Rossi can do in the second half. Llorente still is misfiring.
53′ Cani in for Ibagaza. Great.
53′ Cani in for Ibagaza
61′ Espanyol comes as close as you can without scoring. I think it scraped the outside of the goalpost of the empty net.
61′ We gave up a 1v1, but Lopez again saves our bacon.
My feed didn;t show me the save – it just looked like he shot wide!
No, Lopez got his feet to that shot from Callejon. Went out for a corner.
Espanyol was offsides, but Diego Lopez makes an amazing save anyway.
66′ Good save by Kameni on Llorente.
We need some Rossi pronto!!
If this finishes 0-0, this is one of the more wide open scoreless matches we will see this year. Lots of chances on both sides, and no one can find the back of the net.
71′ Great move by Capdevila the Forward in Disguise in the box, but he catches the side of the net.
72′ Rossi coming in for….Llorente?
Correct, in 73′.
71′ What a great run by Capdevila. I thought it had gone in, but only the side netting. One side is close to getting a goal.
73′ Rossi on for Llorente, Yelloc ard for Fuster.
I would definitely like to see pires in now for Fuster.
76′ Callejon sent off for diving. Second yellow card. Come on boys!
Second yellow for Callejon for an obvious dive in the box, and he sees red…we will be playing against 10 men. Of course, we have been miserable against 10 men this year.
83′ yellow for bruno. We need Pires now. This is coming down to the wire.
90 – Escudero on for Fuster. A little late, if you ask me!
Sorry, that was 88′
85′ Another nice save by Kameni on Fuster. This game has been all about the goalies.
91′ Cani picked up a smart yellow to stop a break. he has played well since he came on.
FT: 0-0. Another nil-nil against a 10-man Espanyol. We played well, and that is an especially disappointing result.
Heh, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Gonzalo and Godin are back, and Diego Lopez was good, but the midfield was a bit stagnant. And not much from Nilmar.
Definitely not one of our worst performances of the season. We created chances, and our defense was better than in about 70% of our matches to date. And that includes Angel putting in a second-straight quality showing.
Clearly, there was a lack of imagination. Everything went through the middle of the pitch, unless Capdevila was out wide. I am a bit perplexed with the time it took to put another attacking midfielder in (Escudero in 88′), and I think it should have been Pires instead.
Lopez played well and made a few match-saving saves.
And in what has to be a turn of luck, there is a card in the box, and it went against the player for diving – no penalty given against us. One could argue that there was a handball by Espanyol in the box at an earlier point in the match, but that would have been a very cheap penalty if given.
I am very dissatisfied with the single point from the match, but I do think we played a positive match.
0-0 FT. I was right, and I’m not happy that I was. Our second-worst performance of the season, behind the last Espanyol game. Ugly.
y so down man? think positive!
Only had half an eye on the match as I was doing a bit of work but from what I saw we created very little, Capdevila and Llorente with probably the two best chances. We are really missing Santi in that midfield. Good to see Rossi back and hopefully he can re ignite his partnership with Nilmar next week. Positive is another clean sheet.
The yellow card shown to David Fuster was his fifth this season and he will therefore be suspended for the match against Xerez.
da fuster is up-down player. 1 -2 good games than nothing 4 da 1-2 games
da postives. lopez, double g, angel
da negatives; da bands – iba & fuster, llorente and garrido subs.
y da garrdo not put in pires after da espanyol go down 2 10 men? wasted chance to pick all 3 points & and welcome back 2 da g. rossi
da fact r da facts, da season is terrible 4 da vcf
Yeah, it’s just about all over but the crying. If we can’t beat Espanyol twice when they are down a man, there’s not much hope for Europe.
@sid. y so negative? ths da positive zone.
still don’t understand y da garrdo not put in pires after da espanyol go down 2 10 men?
88 min sub, is not even funny, wats wrong w/these managers?
da facts r da facts.
vcf close 2 – 200 million in debt
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