The first year of the post-Manuel Pellegrini era commenced with a startling thud, as through seven rounds last season, Villarreal propped every other Primera División team up at the bottom of the table.  This smooth, plucky team from the Valencian Community had not felt such futility since they made their maiden voyage to La Liga in the 1998/99 season.  In that campaign, Villarreal was relegated to the Segunda División after losing a relegation playoff to Sevilla, the last year that La Liga had a relegation playoff.

Staving off relegation never entered the mind Ernesto Valverde’s team, and they steadily improved through the next several months.  The upward curve plateaued, however, and in January 2010, the board sacked Valverde and promoted Villarreal “B” coach Juan Carlos Garrido to manage the senior team.

The unassuming yet intense Garrido knew that his time from January to the end of the season would become a de facto audition to keep the job.  He settled the squad, and Villarreal finished a respectable seventh place despite their torrid beginning.  Chairman Fernando Roig Alfonso rewarded Garrido for his work and extended his contract to June 2011 so that Garrido could have a full season to show his worth.

Garrido took that vote of confidence from the board into this season and returned Villarreal to their normal perch in the highest percentiles of Spanish football.

Even though Villarreal has been known for maintaining shrewd financial stances when it comes to signings and transfers, Fernando Roig Alfonso gave Garrido a decent transfer kitty with which to work this summer, but Garrido felt that the players he currently had were more than enough to threaten for a top-four position.  Garrido and Sporting Director Fernando Roig Negueroles believed that they only needed a couple of reinforcements from the summer transfer window.  They did not even need to use that budget because they earned enough from the transfers of Diego Godín, Damián Escudero, and Joseba Llorente to achieve for what they set out in the market.

Both of Villarreal’s summer signings, €2.2 million Carlos Marchena and €6 million Borja Valero, have made instant impacts with the team.  Specifically, Borja Valero’s sparkling play on both flanks has given both Joan Capdevila and Ángel López extra potency from their fullback positions because Borja’s combinations with them have created openings deep inside the opposition half that only enhances Nilmar and Giuseppe Rossi’s chances of finishing these moves.

Because Villarreal only signed two players for this season, Garrido felt that the players currently in the squad would raise their games and expectations from the last campaign, and they have not disappointed.

After a year of fighting major and minor injuries, Santi Cazorla has restored his place in the Spanish national team with sprightly, ebullient play for Villarreal.  Whereas Ernesto Valverde marginalized Cazorla to an extent by forcing him more into the central midfield, Garrido reinstituted Cazorla back onto the wings with the freedom to cut inside when necessary, and Cazorla has thrived under Garrido’s system with two goals, three assists, one behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Özil for the league lead, and countless numbers of pinpoint passes and unselfish runs that keep Villarreal flowing fluently.

Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar have made themselves into the second most prolific tandem statistically with a combined ten goals through eight matches, only behind Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín’s fourteen goals.  The previous season’s trio of Rossi, Nilmar, and Joseba Llorente looked formidable on paper because of Llorente’s height and strength as the center forward with the smaller, faster Rossi and Nilmar supporting on either side of Llorente.  With Nilmar adapting to Spain after his record €11 million transfer from Internacional, Rossi dealing with constant transfer rumors, and Llorente failing to feature in half of Villarreal’s fixtures due to injury and managerial decisions, they could not score consistently, even though Villarreal scored a respectable fifty-eight goals.

The most improved part of Villarreal’s team runs down the spine, as Villarreal “B” graduate and central defender Mateo Musacchio has admirably stepped into the void left by Diego Godín after his transfer to Atlético Madrid and central midfielder Bruno Soriano has controlled the center of his park by supporting the defense with his ball-winning as well as instigating counter-attacks with his array of passes.  Spanish national team coach Vicente del Bosque has been so impressed with Bruno that he called him up to the squad for their friendly against Mexico as well as their two Euro 2012 qualifiers against Lithuania and Scotland.

With all these ameliorative properties syncing together, Villarreal has won five of its first seven matches in La Liga, with only one loss to Real Sociedad in the opening round of fixtures, and currently lead their Europa League group with six points from three matches.

Villarreal, like their provincial neighbors Valencia, played through a fairly soft schedule and racked up a point tally that could compete with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona through the first seven rounds in La Liga.  Valencia has fallen back after sitting on top to their more familiar territory below Madrid and Barça due to consecutive losses to Barcelona last week and Mallorca this weekend.

After failing to claim the first position when they could only draw 2-2 against local rivals Hércules on Monday, the late Sunday kickoff against Atlético Madrid would start a stretch of five matches in the league that would truly delineate Villarreal’s odds of staying within striking distance of not only a UEFA Champions League berth but the alien concept of ripping the champion’s trophy away from Barcelona.

Villarreal could not count on the services of Mateo Musacchio and Borja Valero because of their suspensions stemming from their red cards against Hércules, but Gonzalo Rodríguez and vice-captain Cani were more than capable replacements for the pair.

For Atlético Madrid, they sent out their normal starting eleven with one exception: Diego Forlán sat on the bench for the second straight La Liga match in favor of Diego Costa.  Whether Quique Sánchez Flores kept Forlán on the sidelines because he had just played in the Europa League against Rosenborg on Thursday or because of generally poor form, the increasingly agitated striker has now become transfer speculation with links to Liverpool, Juventus, and other top European clubs.

Fortunately for Villarreal, Atlético Madrid played with a strange disinterest after the first twenty minutes that made work for the Yellow Submarine minimal to come out with a victory at home.  Cani was involved in both Villarreal goals, providing the end product after Nilmar terrorized Atlético with pure speed and composure on the ball to slot in Cani inside the box, and creating the second goal for Giuseppe Rossi after cutting in from the left wing to slice the Atlético defense yet again with a telling through ball into the penalty area.

Unfortunately for Villarreal’s perception throughout the country, Atlético Madrid did not provide the stern test that they forced Barcelona and Valencia through when they played those teams.  This match against Atlético was supposed to supply evidence whether or not Villarreal was for real.  Villarreal will have to wait to show their merits for the championship until November when they face Athletic Bilbao at home, Barcelona at the Camp Nou, and Valencia at home in consecutive weeks.  What transpired on Sunday night did not sway opinion one way or the other about Villarreal, but it did point out one glaring detail: Atlético Madrid’s schizophrenic personality has not been cured after a summer of therapy.

Fueras de Juego

- Luís Fabiano awoke from his slumber to score his first two goals of the season in Sevilla’s topsy-turvy 4-3 victory over Athletic Bilbao.  After all the summer haranguing about wanting to leave Sevilla, Fabiano stayed with the Andalucian club, and in his prior appearances before Sunday’s match against Athletic, he played and acted like a pouting schoolboy.  He actually looked interested throughout the match today, and when Fabiano cares, to no surprise, he produces with devastating aplomb

- Speaking of occasionally moody players, Cristiano Ronaldo poured in four goals in Real Madrid’s 6-1 drubbing of pathetic Racing de Santander.  While Ronaldo will receive the deserved plaudits for his outstanding performance, the man of the match was €25 million summer signing Ángel di María.  Besides assisting in two goals, he created Ronaldo’s fourth goal when Domingo Cisma felled di María in the penalty area and played an excellent left back, a position foreign to di María, when Pedro León replaced Marcelo with twenty minutes remaining.

Di María’s early struggles (he had only played in three matches for Real, mind you) had the Madridistas worried that he would become another flop.  His “Welcome to Madrid” moment came against Real Sociedad, when he gave his team the lead with a spectacular curler to the top right corner with his “weaker” right foot.  Ever since that point, he suddenly became indispensable to the starting eleven, and when a player receives the full confidence of José Mourinho, it will only help spur on his game.

- César Santin, the Brazilian forward for FC København, made himself an object of ridicule against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night when he stopped playing with a two-on-two breakaway with teammate Dame N’Doye, thinking he was called offside.  The assistant referee did not raise his flag, and referee Stéphane Lannoy did not blow his whistle.  That opportunity ended up as one of only two or three chances that København had of threatening José Manuel Pinto’s goal that entire night.

The situation took a turn to the weird when København lodged a formal complaint to UEFA on Friday, stating that Pinto simulated the referee’s whistle in order to dupe Santin.  Pinto could face a two-match European ban for this alleged “violation of decent conduct.”  With all the whistles that rain down from the crowd every match, Santin should not get his signals crossed with the real whistle, but if Pinto has the ability to whistle just like a referee’s whistle, full credit to Pinto for such a ruse.  Unsportsmanlike behavior, absolutely, but would not pride prevent Santin from admitting that Pinto fooled him into grinding to a halt?  Pinto could not even make the halfway line with his goal kicks, so apparently, he allegedly needed to use the last item in his bag of tricks to keep FC København at bay.  More column space about this delicious “Whistle-Gate” side story to come.

Vicente del Bosque hopes his team will continue its trophy-winning ways at World Cup 2010.

Yesterday, the goalkeeping and the defense were discussed, and while the three goalkeepers contending for the final goalkeeping spot will state their cases to Vicente del Bosque on and off the pitch, they will have little to no chance of participating in the World Cup.  The players who will compete for the final midfield spots, however, will more likely have a chance to run onto the field in South Africa.

Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, and Cesc Fàbregas, stalwarts in Spain’s midfield, have had chronic injury concerns throughout the second half of the season.  Iniesta might be back for FC Barcelona in their final match against Real Valladolid after a hamstring tear six weeks ago; Xavi continues to play with a muscle injury in his leg that could jeopardize his World Cup ambitions; and Fàbregas is still in rehabilitation after cracking his fibula against Barcelona in the Champions League in April.  While all three will be on the squad, there is no guarantee that they will be able to play in every World Cup game.

Besides the aforementioned midfielders, Xabi Alonso, David Silva, Sergio Busquets, and Marcos Senna seem to be locks for the plane to South Africa, so the last four midfielders will be competing for the last two spots: Juan Mata, Jesús Navas, Santi Cazorla, and Javi Martínez.

Juan Mata, in tandem with David Silva and Pablo Hernández, contributed significantly to Valencia’s attacking midfield as the fourth-best offense in La Liga.  While Mata has had a tendency to drift in and out of matches, he rose to the call nearly every time that Valencia needed him.  Nine goals in thirty matches in La Liga from the left wing position, a relatively healthy campaign, and three goals in seven international matches for Spain are an abundance of accomplishments that sees his inclusion into the Spain squad a near formality.

Jesús Navas’ anxiety problems due to clinical homesickness have been well documented, but his commitment to fight this issue as well as stellar play for Sevilla has reassured Vicente del Bosque that selecting Navas into his squad will not become a detriment to the team.  More than what he has done on the pitch, the courage and perseverance necessary to overcome his psychological problems shows that the crushing pressure of a World Cup will not get the best of Jesús Navas.

Flying down the right wing for Sevilla all season, he became the linchpin for Sevilla’s attack because of intermittent injuries to Luís Fabiano and Frédéric Kanouté.  Many times during Sevilla’s inconsistent season, he was the only player that had any sort of capability to bother the opposition because of his speed and guile.  Because Spain does not have a true right winger in the squad, Navas will likely earn a seat on the plane to South Africa.

Santi Cazorla is the only player that could oust Navas from the World Cup squad.  Equally competent on either wing, Cazorla has been a mainstay on the Spain squad since his surprise inclusion into the UEFA Euro 2008 squad, where he came in as a substitute in five of their six matches.  The injury bug bit Cazorla all season with inveterate leg and back issues, and Villarreal missed his influence considerably, as they mired in mid-table for a majority of the season.  Cazorla is starting to regain his fitness after he came back from injury in mid-April, but unless he stars in the Spain training camp and exhibitions, his lack of game action will be the sole reason he is left off the squad.

Javi Martínez of Athletic Bilbao was one of the surprise selections by Vicente del Bosque into the thirty-man squad, but if one has watched La Liga all season long, Martínez would not be that much of a revelation.  Only twenty-one years old, Athletic saw him as such a talent that they paid Osasuna €6 million when he was only seventeen.

More than a typical Bilbao rugged midfielder, his dribbling and shooting skill is unquestioned, as shown here in one of the most spectacular individual moments of the season.  His box-to-box energy throughout the season kept Athletic in the hunt for a European berth, and without his industry in their midfield, Gaizka Toquero and Fernando Llorente would not have enjoyed the freedom to focus on the final third.  Nearly every World Cup squad includes one player from left field, and although del Bosque has a glut of central midfielders, Javi Martínez should not immediately be dismissed as one of the seven that will not make the final 23-man roster.

Tomorrow, this column will focus on the battle for the final spot in the forward position.

Vicente del Bosque’s Provisional 30-Man Squad

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas, Pepe Reina, Víctor Valdés, Diego López, and David de Gea

Defenders: Sergio Ramos, Álvaro Arbeloa, Raúl Albiol, Gerard Piqué, Carles Puyol, Carlos Marchena, Joan Capdevila, and César Azpilicueta

Midfielders: Xavi Hernández, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Juan Mata, David Silva, Marcos Senna, Santi Cazorla, Jesús Navas, Javi Martínez, and Cesc Fàbregas

Forwards: David Villa, Fernando Torres, Fernando Llorente, Pedro Rodríguez, Dani Güiza, Álvaro Negredo

A festive atmosphere enveloped the Camp Nou on Saturday evening as the boys of the Blaugrana celebrated their unprecedented six-trophy year with their Barça faithful.  Villarreal was a mere afterthought as the Barcelona players deservedly received their plaudits for a year of literal perfection.  Even Villarreal showed them respect before the match when they created a tunnel for Barcelona to run through as the Villarreal players clapped and appreciated their host’s achievements.  When referee Bernardino González Vázquez blew his whistle to commence the game, however, the lovefest ceased, and Villarreal showed Barcelona and those watching in the stands and through their televisions why they have been a European force in the last six years.

Manager Pep Guardiola gave Lionel Messi the day off, as Pep gave him some extra vacation time.  Messi was there for the celebration, but he had just arrived from Argentina, and he was not match-fit.  Jonathan dos Santos played in Messi’s place, and it was his first start for the senior team.  For Villarreal, Ernesto Valverde left Giuseppe Rossi on the bench in favor of Nilmar as the lone striker, and he gave David Fuster only his third start of the season and positioned him just behind Nilmar.

When Barcelona scored in the seventh minute, there was a sense of a blowout as the feelings of euphoria brought about from the pregame fiesta carried into the opening minutes of the match.  The goal came from a typical Barça move.  In the final third of the pitch, Xavi Hernández played a diagonal ball to Dani Alves deep down the right flank.  Alves did well to whip in a cross into the middle of the penalty area.  The ball bounced in the box and into the vicinity of Thierry Henry.  The cross was a little behind Henry, but leaning on his left foot, he unleashed a half-volley missile that rocked the crossbar.  Pedro Rodríguez was alert, kept himself onside before Henry’s shot, and slotted home the rebound coolly to give his team the 1-0 lead.

If there is a criticism to be laid upon Barcelona this season, they have tended to start slowly in their matches, but with the quick goal against Villarreal, it would not have been unusual for Barcelona to get the second and third goals in quick succession.  Marcos Senna and Villarreal made sure that the seventh minute would be the only one conceded on this night.

Barcelona had their chances in the first half to add a second goal, including a sitter from twelve yards that Zlatan Ibrahimovic failed to get on target and a Henry header that flew over the crossbar in the 45th minute, but Ernesto Valverde employed tactics that few managers embarked on against Barcelona.  Villarreal played how Barça plays against all of their opponents: ball possession, a high defensive line, and constant pressure on the ball.

For all the recognition that Barcelona receives for their flowing, attacking style, their unending and unrelenting energy on defense is arguably the most important aspect in their six-trophy season.  Many teams sit back in their own half of the field and hope for a quick counter-attack against Barcelona, and this is why Barcelona has sixty-five to seventy-five percent of the possession in each match.  Valverde knew that this type of strategy would only lead to their demise, so when Barça was on the ball, a Villarreal player or two would immediately shift towards that man.  Barcelona was not used to this type of pressure put upon them, and it led to more turnovers in midfield and in their own third of the field.

Obviously, with this Barça tactic, a team has to have the players that can execute this game plan.  Clubs like Xerez and Málaga could not play the way that Villarreal did against Barcelona due to a lack of quality players, but with Marcos Senna and Bruno Soriano providing the steel in the midfield, and the attacking quartet of Cani, David Fuster, Santi Cazorla, and Nilmar working tirelessly to retrieve possession immediately after losing it, they out-Barça-ed Barça for a majority of the match.  The statistics would not necessarily support this statement, as Barcelona had a 60-40 ratio of possession in their favor, but the 60% is a low number for them, and many observing the game could see that Villarreal rattled their cage that slight bit, and Barcelona hardly had to cope with this throughout the season.

David Fuster made the most of his rare start by roaming around in his free role behind the striker and disrupting the normally tight Barcelona defense.  In the 28th minute, Cani crossed into the area near the end line, and Fuster flew from the penalty spot and nodded down a header that, ironically, he hit too hard.  Always taught to bring the header down, Fuster did exactly that, but it bounced off the turf and over the crossbar.

Eventually, Fuster’s presence in the Barcelona half of the field turned to gold in the 51st minute, when he converted after numerous chances to equalize earlier in the match.  Villarreal maintained a spell of possession in the final third, and when Nilmar’s shot was blocked, the move looked to be over, but Cani was first to the ball and provided sweet service to Fuster at the back post, where he perfected a technically difficult half-volley across goal and past Victor Valdés into the back of the net.

Barcelona stemmed Villarreal’s momentum when Andrés Iniesta came in for the largely ineffective Jonathan dos Santos in the 58th minute.  Dos Santos showed flashes of his enormous talent, but he was overmatched on this night, and his 19-year-old legs will see much better days.  Two minutes into Iniesta’s shift, Pedro played a skillful pullback to him around the 18-yard penalty line, but the pass was a little behind Iniesta, so he could not take the shot first-time.  Iniesta took a touch and shot an off-balanced effort that Diego López handled easily.

López nearly paid for a poor goal clearance in the 65th minute, when Iniesta reclaimed possession and curled a wonderful shot toward the top right corner of the net, but López made a soaring save to tip it around the goal.  The match ultimately finished 1-1, with Villarreal fully deserving a share of the spoils.

Villarreal has the reputation of playing pretty, passing football but not necessarily having the physicality needed throughout a long campaign.  They committed fifteen fouls as well as suffering twenty-two fouls against Barcelona, so at least for this match, they were not afraid to go into challenges and be fully committed to the job.  Iván Marcano and Diego Godín were stellar in central defense as they closed down Xavi and Ibrahimovic.  They frustrated Ibrahimovic, and this frustration boiled over when Ibrahimovic received a yellow card in the 88th minute for a late tackle on Godín.

A controversial no-call on a penalty claim by Nilmar on a clumsy Carles Puyol challenge may have given Villarreal all three points, but even though they earned only the solitary point, they know now that their poor early-season form was not a sign of future play.  Moral victories do not mean much in terms of position in the league, and Villarreal remains ninth in the table, eight points behind the final Champions League spot.  If they remain healthy in the midfield with Bruno, Santi Cazorla, and their inspirational captain Marcos Senna, their overall ability should see them rise into the European spots by the end of the season.

If Villarreal continues their poor run of form, El Madrigal will look similar to this on match nights.

After another underwhelming performance in a 0-2 loss to Real Madrid at El Madrigal on Wednesday evening, Villarreal currently sits in 18th place with only two points from four La Liga matches.  In their defense for their showing against Madrid, Villarreal played with one less man for 65+ minutes after Gonzalo Rodríguez received his second yellow card in the 35th minute.  In addition, they fought admirably and sometimes looked as though they were playing at even strength, but their legs eventually gave out, as each outfield player had to give that extra percentage in the absence of Gonzalo.  Zero wins, two draws, and two losses in La Liga along with a less than convincing 1-0 victory over Levski Sofia in the Europa League group stage has the Yellow Submarine sinking into unchartered waters.  Two factors that have led to this ominous start are the absence of Marcos Senna and the general lack of direction and focus of their play.

Marcos Senna is the anchor in front of the defensive line.  In tandem with Sebastián Eguren, they halt potential counter-attacks and anticipate the passing lanes before the back four has to be brought in for reinforcement.  Senna’s style is quite similar to Chelsea’s Michael Essien, where he controls the center of the pitch, plays from box to box, and scores from long range on occasion.  When Essien went down with injury and missed five months of the season, Chelsea lost their way and contributed to their third-place finish.  Chelsea lost only once when Essien came back to the squad in mid-February, and Marcos Senna has that similar effect for Villarreal.

In Senna’s absence, Bruno Soriano deputized in the center of midfield with Eguren, and while he is a capable midfielder, he does not have the presence or the ability that Senna possesses.  This was evident in Wednesday’s match against Real Madrid, where Guti and Kaká roamed around the final third and created many opportunities for their teammates.  For example, in the 23rd minute, Guti back-heeled a pass in the middle of the field to Kaká, who in turn sent a through ball toward Marcelo’s diagonal run in the box, and the resulting squared ball from Marcelo to Gonzalo Higuaín produced a wonderful attempt at goal.  Higuaín would scuff the shot high and wide, but any semblance of a decent hit would have been 0-1 to Real Madrid.  The sight of Marcos Senna warming up on the sidelines, as a potential substitute in the second half, is a good sign that Senna’s chronic leg and hamstring injuries may be healed sufficiently enough to appear in the first team, but until he makes that return, Villarreal will continue to sputter and be forced to grind out results.

In terms of their play as a whole, they lack a sense of identity and seem not to know what exactly they want to do on the ball.  When Manuel Pellegrini became the manager of Villarreal on July 1, 2004, Villarreal was an up and coming team that showed promise and inconsistency at the same time.  Pellegrini instilled a philosophy of passing football, using intricate one-two’s, passing triangles, and skillful runs from the fullbacks to generate goal-scoring opportunities.

With Ernesto Valverde, indecisive has been the overriding adjective to describe Villarreal on the pitch.  It very well could be that the team is still adjusting from the Pellegrini era to the Valverde era.  Pellegrini led them into the deep stages of the Champions League and high finishes in La Liga, and when a new manager comes along that has some decent success with Athletic Bilbao, Espanyol, and Olympiakos but does not have the cachet that, to them, would be worthy of Pellegrini’s successor, there could be a little friction inside the dressing room.

Valverde’s Villarreal has minor differences with Pellegrini’s Villarreal.  Valverde has his team play a slightly more physical game and tends to be more structured.  In a couple of matches, Villarreal experimented with a pseudo diamond formation that saw Eguren as the holding midfielder, Santi Cazorla and Cani on the wings, and Ariel Ibagaza as the playmaker behind the strikers.  Valverde continues to experiment with the team, and when he finds the right blend to fit his philosophy and creates the synergy necessary to compete for Champions League spots, Villarreal will be back to their winning ways and leave this mediocre start behind in the dust.