Osasuna vs Valencia CF - Match Preview

Osasuna host 3rd place Valencia tomorrow night in yet another deciding match for both clubs, since Valencia can't end its objectives earlier and must go the additional length to do so, while Osasuna is battling to stay in the first division and each match for them till the end counts.

Osasuna have been a strange team this season and while they are in relegation zone and battling to stay in the first division at times they have been capable of playing amazing football and Valencia has been a victim of them when Osasuna managed to mount a comeback from 3-1 to 3-3 in the Mestalla and take crucial points from us.

Osasuna are now in relegation position since they've lost 3 matches in a row and Malaga has won recently so the positions have changed. Before this recent string of losses Osasuna were playing very good and even managed to beat Espanyol who were very good for a long time and battling with Valencia even for top spots.

Osasuna have a great defense, in fact for their bad position on the table they actually have a defense on par with Valencia, Villarreal and the likes at least statistically speaking with only 41 goals conceded. They also have a good scoring record as well, certainly nowhere near relegation level, but it seems they haven't had much luck and are now in a tough spot.

Osasuna is a compact side with good defending and able to score goals as well, so its going to be a tough challenge for Valencia. If there is one club that doesn't deserve to be in relegation position this is Osasuna and they have played better all season long.

Osasuna squad:
Goalkeepers: Ricardo López, Asier Riesgo
Defenders: Nélson Marcos, Nacho Monreal, Manuel 'Lolo' Ortiz, Josetxo Urtasun, Sergio Fernández, Damià Abella
Midfielders: Javad Nekounam, Francisco Puñal, Álvaro Cejudo, Javier Camuñas, Javier Calleja, Fernando Soriano
Strikers: Carlos Aranda, Walter Pandiani, Ferran 'Coro' Corominas, Kike Sola

Valencia CF on the other hand are sitting in 3rd position, still 6 points more than Villarreal after Valencia failed brutally last week at the might of Real Madrid and lost 3-6. Thankfully for us, Villarreal also failed and lost as well, leaving both sides at the same positions with the same points as before.

Mathematically a win tomorrow doesn't guarantee anything, but practically its going to secure the 3rd place position for Valencia, assuming Valencia don't go on to loose all other matches, but that is very unlikely and Villarreal also face Real Madrid and have a European competition to worry about so they are bound to loose at least once.

A win over Osasuna will also recuperate everyone, players, staff and fans after last weeks big loss from Real. Also finishing the season on a positive note is important and with Emery's position as coach still in question he would surely be looking to win tomorrow.

Valencia CF squad:
Goalkeepers: César Sánchez, Vicente Guaita
Defenders: Ángel Dealbert, Marius Stankevičius, Ricardo Costa, Jérémy Mathieu, Miguel Brito, Jordi Alba
Midfielders: Hedwiges Maduro, Mehmet Topal, David Albelda, Joaquín Sánchez, Juan Mata, Pablo Hernández, Éver Banega
Strikers: Roberto Soldado, Aritz Aduriz, Jonas Gonçalves

Technical details:
Formation: 4-4-2
Line-up: Guaita; Miguel, Stankevicious, Dealbert, Alba; Joaquin; Banega, Topal, Mata; Jonas, Soldado.
Tactical: medium defensive line, mid field opposing team pressure, wing and central attacking play, mostly short passing with high frequency crosses from the wings.

Result prediction:
Osasuna 2-3 Valencia CF
Judging from past experience with these sides I'd say there would be goals here, but I think Valencia will edge out a victory thanks to Mata and Soldado's good form.

Valencia transfer plans?

Superdeporte has reported Valencia's transfer plans? Personally I''l take this with a lot of salt and I certainly don't think Valencia staff have given them transfer plans, knowing that Llorente stopped 2 transfer negotiations because of leaks.

Anyways reportedly Valencia's whole back line will change for next season. David Navarro will go, Miguel Brito and Bruno will also go and apart from Adil Rami Valencia is suposedly searching for another central defender to partner Rami, so Dalebert and/or Stankevicious will go as well. Basically only Ricardo Costa is safe and on the left back position if they manage to keep Mathieu they will not buy anyone, but if a good offer comes along and no deal has been reached with the player they will sell him and then purchase another left back.

It is said that the midfield will also change with Vicente Rodriguez definitely ending his career with Valencia, Maduro contract will be extended, Ever Banega and Pablo may also leave if big offers come along, basically only Albelda is certain to stay and extend his contract by one year and even Joaquin may be sold as his current salary is too big and if they can't reduce his salary, VCF staff are going to listen to offers for Joaquin. The likes of Chori Dominguez Nacho Gonzales are certain to be sold.

The attack will reportedly be unchanged with the trio of Soldado, Aduriz and Jonas performing within expectations and last but not least there would be 3 goalkeepers next season with Guaita, Diego Alves and either Moya, Cezar or Renan.

Again I'd take this with a lot of salt as its quite hard to find two new right backs and just sell the current ones, I mean what happens if the new purchases turn out flops, you end up with no cover for the position. So one right back is certainly going to come, but not two.

As far as the midfield goes I think Chori, Nacho and Fernandes are certainly going to be sold, Feghuoli possibly loaned out again, but other than that I think everyone else will stay.

Valencia will go on...

Near, far wherever you are, I believe that Valencia CF will go on... :)

After the trashing from Real Madrid its hard to imagine such thing, but the best way for Valencia CF to break from this embarrassment is to win convincingly against Osasuna this week. Since Valencia CF is better at away matches anyways the stadium won't have any effect on the players, so a big win would be amazing and would also be a revenge for only drawing in the first half of the season against Osasuna.

Valencia is also still 6 points clear from Villarreal and we need to keep it that way, knowing the fact that Villarreal are yet to play against Real Madrid and also have matches against Porto in the Europe League, so that will keep them preoccupied and hopefully they will loose points against Getafe, Mallorca and Real Madrid.

Realistically Valencia have tougher matches coming up and they are all capable of taking points from us, so we should approach these matches cautiously, but yet energetically so we are able to win.

Next week or the one after I'll be doing a summer transfer windows analysis of who should Valencia buy and/or sell. And then either before or after the final match I'll be giving out awards for the best player, best new player, best young player, most promising youth player and this time I'll be also adding the worst player of the season award.

Valencia Mestalla Champions

Well the main team lost to Real Madrid pretty badly, but there is at least some comfort to be found in the fact that the youth team Mestalla have become champions in their group in the trecera division in Spain. Its not a huge achievement, but its a step forward from the past years where the youth team was talk of laughter and despair.

Mestalla are champions and with style after beating La Nucie who were second at the time. Right now Mestalla are first place with 79 points, 13 points more than second placed Olimpic.

VCF Mestalla are going to be competing with 16 other teams for access to Spain 2nd B division and are going to basically have 2 chances to get in. Its going to be hard, but I think they have the quality with the likes of Isco, Paco, Gil, Montoro.

Right now Paco is second on the scoreboard with 19 goals, Isco is second with 14 goals. So the chances to qualify for 2nd division are pretty high and hopefully Valencia youth team will be playing 2nd division B next year.

Valencia CF 3-6 Real Madrid - Match Report

Well its official, Valencia CF defense sucks and it couldn't be more obvious than today. The cover tactics were also poor, as there was only 3 players covering 3 countering players from Real Madrid and today the Real Madrid players proved more successful.

Basically all the goals Real Madrid scored were from counter attacks, but otherwise they played rather poor and sat back in their own half and defended. This was basically a very defensive approach by Jose Mourinho, something of the sort what Inter played Barcelona in the last year in the Champions League, not that defensive, but definitely may be called anti-football by some if people go into an argument.

Most of all though it was individual mistakes that made the big score differential, with Guaita, Mathieu, Stankevicious and Ricardo all doing defensive mistakes. The whole back line in a word sucked and this may as well be possibly one of the worst defensive showings in the last 3-4 years.

I won't go into detail or play by play, because its pointless, but I'll say that this is historically Valencia's biggest loss from Real Madrid and its pretty embracing actually.

Well at least this shows the disparity between the two top clubs in Spain versus the rest of the teams and maybe some huge and powerful guy reads this blog and makes something about it, or we are going to be seeing real-barca borefest for the next 10 years as things are going.


Player Ratings:
Guaita 2 - At fault for the first and third goal, should have done much better overall.
Miguel 4 - Lost Kaka for the 5th or maybe it was the 6th goal, who can remember there were so many, but yeah not a good performance overall, though he was probably the least at fault.
Stankevicious 1 - Made look like a newbie, lost position for one of the goals, got dribbled past for the 5th and bad performance overall, the scoreboard shows all.
R. Costa 1 - Same as Stankevicous, too relaxed and could have stopped at least one goal has he committed, but lost the challenges too easily.
Mathieu 1 - Very poor performance from the Frencheman, he went forward a lot, but completelly forgot about his defensive duties and 4 out of the 6 goals came directly from his side.
Topal 5 - Not his best night, covered pretty decent at the back and made a nuisance of himself, but in a 3 on 3 situation he looses position as he is not a core defender.
Maduro 3 - Not really effective at anything, was not doing much at defense, was not doing anything at attacks, he was basically just standing there and just returning every passed ball to him immediately.
Banega 5 - Same as Topal, more effective going forward, but is not too good defensively.
Pablo 4 - Had some good moments, but as much as they were good, they were bad at the same time as he missed 2 good chances for goal and didn't make the final pass on two other occasions.
Mata 6.5 - Very active in attack, very creative and run all over the pitch, one assist, but the match was over by then.
Soldado 4 - Little service tonight, had one run towards goal, but otherwise completely covered by the Madrid defense.
Subs:
Joaquin 5 - Same as Jonas, was not more successful than Pablo, maybe a bit more direct running, but could not change the game.
Jonas 5.5 - The match was pretty much over when he came in, not the game changer by any means, although he did score a goal.
Alba 5 - Scored a late goal.

Valencia CF vs Real Madrid - Match Preview

First of all sorry for the inactivity this past week, but what can I do, it just happens sometimes.

Anyways its this time again, Valencia CF faces the big guns Real Madrid in a basically season defining match. If Valencia CF win this match its done, they are going to finish 3rd place, it would be impossible for Villarreal in any way to finish above Valencia. Real Madrid on the other hand would most certainly finish in 2nd place, but after their recent success against Barcelona in the Copa Del rey, winning 1-0 over their fierce rivals, Real Madrid would be looking towards the champions league as that is more important to them now, winning 2 titles over Barcelona 1 Spanish title would be success for Real Madrid.

Valencia CF are actually coming to this match as favorites, I know how this sounds, but its true. Real Madrid just won over Barcelona 3 days ago in extra time no less and Jose Mourinho is going to rest most of his important players, such as Xavi Alonso, Ronaldo, Di Maria... So they should come out weakened in this match and Valencia CF should take advantage.

Valencia CF on the other hand have had a full week to recover and prepare for this match and should be in better form to take this match. The only player that is unavailable right now is Tino Costa, but otherwise all of the players are available and this should be an exciting match.

Emery has been practicing with the formation played against Villarreal again and the plan is to keep the ball as much as possible and also when the ball is lost to quickly pressure Real so they loose the ball too.

Its very likely Roberto Soldado will be the sole attacker once again, with Mata and Pablo on the wings, supported by Ever Banega and most likely Topal, although who knows as Emery has been playing Topal as defender in couple of matches.

Valencia CF squad:
Goalkeepers: César, Guaita.
Defense: Miguel, Dealbert, Ricardo Costa, Stankevicius, Mathieu, Jordi Alba.
Midfield: Albelda, Maduro, Topal, Éver, Joaquín, Pablo, Mata.
Attack: Jonas, Aduriz, Soldado.

Real Madrid are coming from a huge 1-0 win over their fierce rivals Barcelona. After suffering for 3 years domestically and even more years internationally, since the last galacticos era, Real Madrid have been under performing, each year they throw money at the problems, 40,50,80 millions of euros and still unable to win anything.

This season they have been rebuild and under the tutorship of Jose Mourinsho, arguably the best coach in the world Real have been able to break their "curse" in the champions league, beating Lyon, then totally trashing Tottenham and in the next round they face their biggest rivals Barcelona. Real Madrid hold the advantage as they lost one game, drew one, but won their last game in the copa del rey final against Barca and they have 2 more matches in the champions league, but they are going to go into them as favorites.

Since Real Madrid are 8 points behind Barcelona and even though there are 6 more matches to be played the battle is pretty much over so they should rest their best players against Valencia CF and this could give Valencia a chance to win and ultimately confirm that 3rd place finish.

Real Madrid squad:
Goalkeepers: Casillas, Adan, Dudek
Defense: Albiol, Garay, Pepe, Carvalho, Marcelo, Nacho Fernandez
Midfield: Lass, Ozil, Xabi Alonso, Kaka, Pedro Leon, Canales, Granero, Juanfran
Forwards: Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema, Higuain

Technical details:
Formation: 4-1-4-1
Line-up: Guaita; Miguel, Stankevicious, R.Costa, Mathieu; Topal; Pablo, Banega, Maduro, Mata; Soldado
Tactical: low defensive line, mid field opposing team pressure, wing and central attacking play, mostly short passing with decent amount of crosses from the wings.

Results prediction:
Valencia CF 1-0 Real Madrid
This is defenatelly a very interesting match and you shouldn't miss it for anything. Valencia CF are the favorties coming into this match jsut because Real Madrid should rest its best players and Valencia CF is in good form right now, the players are performing so I think we should be able to win 1-0.

Valencia CF 5-0 Villarreal CF - Match Report

Valencia CF absolutely dominated over Villarreal and beat them 5-0. In fact Villarreal defense most of the time looked like little kids to the powerful Valencia CF attack, which furiously bulldozed through their defense and absolutely dominated all match long. Not that Villarreal didn't have chances to score a goal themselves, they did in fact come close to scoring 3 times, but were luckally denied by some good defending, especially from Stankevicious who made few crucial interceptions.

From the start Valencia CF started with full control over the game and went on the attack. Miguel Brito after a lenghty pause with suspension from the club was playing admiarablly and a lot of the chances were coming from him on the right side. There was a good cross first with Topal header going just wide off goal and then came a great through pass from Miguel to Soldado, with this one not missing the opportunity and scoring a goal. It was 1-0 for Valencia CF.

Valencia CF continued dominating and had several more chances to increase the score, Miguel yet again found Soldado with a through pass, but the attacker failed to score.

Just few minutes later a good through pass from Tino put Soldado on chance again, but once again Soldado failed to score.

With Tino Costa getting injured and getting taken off for Dealbert, Valencia CF lost a little bit control and Villarreal made few chances and tries towards Valencia CF goal, but Ceraz and Stankevicious saved the day and the result ended 1-0 for Valencia CF at half time.

The second half started with Villarreal with more control and better play in the first 5-6 minutes, but then Valencia CF took over again and never looked back.

In the 55th minute Valencia CF would score again with Mata starting the attack, running forward and then doing a fast one-two with Banega and Mata was through on goal with just the keeper to beat, he scores and Valencia is up 2-0.

In the 62nd minute Valencia CF will score again, Pablo recieved the ball quite deep into Villarreal's teritory, run past one defender and passed the ball to the oncoming Ever Banega who easily slotted the goal in the net. Valencia CF 3-0 over Villarreal CF and the match was begging to feel like over, at least for Villarreal, though Valencia will go on to score two more times.

The fourth goal came from a good build-up by Soldado, who made a through pass to Pablo, this one with an assist towards Mata, who didn't have problems scoring to an empty goal. Valencia CF were basically playing very good, attacking very well with good build-up play and good individual movement.

With Villarreal's defense in shatters and completely disorganized it was pretty much right for them to receive one more goal, someone gave the ball away right to Topal who had easy time passing the ball to Soldado who sort of chipped the ball and lobbed the goalkeeper to make it 5-0, the final result.

Fantastic match with absolutelly positive score and result. Valencia CF are now still third in the table, but with 6 points ahead on Villarreal and the better side in the head to head matches with a draw away to Villarreal and tonight's 5-0 win at home at the Mestalla.

Technical details:
Valencia (5): César, Miguel, Stankevicius, Topal, Ricardo Costa, Mathieu, Pablo, Banega (Albelda, m.77), Tino Costa (Dealbert, m.30), Mata y Soldado (Aduriz, m.78).

Villarreal (0): Diego López, Mario, Mussachio, Kiko, Capdevila (Ruben, 57), Marchena, Bruno Soriano (Joan Oriol, m.65), Borja Valero, Cazorla, Nilmar y Rossi (Wakaso, m.70).

Goals: 1-0, m.14: Soldado. 2-0, m.55: Mata. 3-0, m.63: Banega. 4-0, m.72: Mata. 5-0, m.75: Soldado.

Player Ratings:
Cezar 6 - Made one good save, had a little mishandling, but largely untroubled, he had a confident performance.
Miguel 7 - Brilliant first half, best player in the first half, provided the assist to Soldado's first goal and almost had a 2nd assist to Soldado again.
Stankevicious 7 - Brilliant performance where everything he did was great. Had few crucial interceptions to keep Valencia CF from conceding a goal.
R. Costa 6.5 - Good performance from Costa as well, a little bit less effective than Stankevicious though.
Mathieu 7 - Good performance from Mathieu, went forward often enough, had a good assist to Pablo that could have put VCF even more forward, had also one shot that was a bit inaccurate.
Topal 7 - Slotted in a somewhat strange position between DM and CD, changed positions with Stankevicious, generally useful, covered in attack well and also provided good depth going forward with 1 assist and few good forward runs.
Tino Costa 6 -  Good until injured, had one great through pass and generally active and useful.
Banega 7.5 - Had some questionable passes and somewhat insecure after Tino left injured, but came back and provided a good performance with good ball control, passing and scored a goal himself.
Pablo 7 - Somewhat average first half from Pablo, but opened up in the second and became more active and really helped the team win with some good moves, passes and assist.
Mata 8.5 - Now this is the Mata I'd like to see, two games in a row with super performance, man of the match performance no doubt. Scored two goals and I believe he had an assist also.
Soldado 7.5 - Great once again. Full of running, always in dangerous positions and really useful to the team. Scored two goals, the second one especially good, could have scored at least 2 more times, but this is a good performance nevertheless.
Subs:
Dealbert 6.5 - Came in for Tino Costa, but ended in the back, had one bad situation as usual, but other than that had a very good match alongside R. Costa.
Albelda 6 - Not too much time for him to do anything, but provided some more defensive cover to close out the match.
Aduriz N/A - Not enough time.