Slumping in La Liga, Villarreal have attempted to turn back time by re-hiring Javier Calleja 50 days after giving him the boot“I know it’s not normal, that it doesn’t feel right, but Fernando Roig does the opposite of everyone else,” Fernando Roig said – and this time at least the president of Villarreal wasn’t wrong. Tuesday morning at the old orange grove they made their home and Luis García was packing up after training, worried about the situation his team was in but satisfied with the session and sure they could survive, when his phone rang. “Things have to change,” he’d said two days before, and things were about to change. Just not that much. And not how he hoped....
The Yellow Submarine are one of only six clubs whose salary limit is over €100m: they’re too good to go down. As in 2012Sergio Asenjo just sat there shaking his head. The goalkeeper who has suffered four cruciate knee ligament tears – three in his right knee, one in his left – was in no hurry to get up this time. “I want them to see what’s at stake in our eyes,” Villarreal’s new manager Luis García Plaza had said before the game against Huesca and they could certainly see it in Asenjo’s eyes now that it was all over. Slowly, he stood, went to the end where maybe 100 fans gathered stunned, silently handed over his shirt and turned...
Zinedine Zidane’s side have dropped more points than in the whole of last season and are 19 points behind Barcelona after Villarreal won at the Bernabéu – at their 19th attemptSergio Busquets probably felt like hiding behind his hands. “The ghosts appeared,” he said. It was a cold, dark night and everywhere he looked they were there. If he looked left, especially. Blue and white figures flew past. Over the other side, on the touchline, Ernesto Valverde pulled his jacket up tight and peered through the pouring rain. “You must have thought: ‘again’,” he was asked afterwards, when it was finally over – the match, the curse, probably the title, too. “Exactly,” he said. Everyone did. The day before, Barcelona’s...
Barça’s fate was in their own hands, which as it turned out was the worst place it could be against Málaga, despite the draw by La Liga title rivalsBarcelona’s fate was in their own hands, which as it turned out was the worst place it could possibly be. Saturday’s story was the story of the season in Spain: everything changed to stay the same, the table remaining unmoved. Another dead ball, another defender leaping to score, another victory coming for Real Madrid, this time in the city derby – the game the front pages had declared “half the league” only that was not the half of it. Pepe’s header would have been an appropriate way to win their first title...
Escribá’s appointment was a shock on the eve of the season but Villarreal have moved serenely into fourth place with a more relaxed approachFran Escribá was wearing swimming trunks and was on his way down to get an ice cream when the phone rang. It was 10 August, half past 11 at night, by the beach in Puig and he had missed a couple of calls already. He was on holiday after all, a football manager out of a job and pretty sure he wasn’t going to be in one any moment now: it was too late to start a season and too soon to save one. This time he recognised the number and picked up. “Hey,” he was told,...