Juan Mata to Barcelona?

Marca reports that Barcelona's coach Guardiola has given his blessing for the signing of Juan Mata if the deal with Sanchez fails.

For those who do not know Barcelona are currently trying to sign Alexis Sanchez from Udinese and are offering 28 million euros and Jeffren for him. The player wants to join Barcelona, but Udinese have recived a 40 million offer from Manchester City and want to sell the player to City.

Reportedly Barcelona want to bring two high profile and qulity players this summer so they are unable to raise the offer for Sanchez. Barcelona reportedly have 50 million euros for transfers, plus any selling they do.

Another option is Giuseppe Rossi from Villarreal but Barcelona have already had 30 million bid for the striker rejected and reports have it that Juventus are planing to offer 40 million euros for Rossi. This leaves Barcelona with the option of signing Juan Mata who is reportedly to be let go if an offer of 30 million euros comes through to Valencia CF.

Paco to fight for senior team place

Paco Alcacer will train and travel with the senior team in the preseason in which he'll have a chance to try and impress Unai Emery and possibly be included in the senior team for the whole season. This was talked between Valencia CF Braulio Vazquez and Paco's agent.

In case Paco doesn't make the cut, he'll either return to the Mestalla team or be loaned out, depending on the player choice.

This is in essence some encouraging news for Paco and since Valencia was aiming for a 4th striker in Gameiro, Paco may very well have a real chance at grabbing a place at the senior team.

Valencia court blocked a 90 million hotel

Lets get away from all the sporting news for a while and talk about some of the other stuff going around our favorite club Valencia CF.
Long story short the Valencia court has blocked an agreement between the city council and Valencia CF when Juan Soler was president to use the ground around the Mestalla to build a hotel.

The problem is that while Mestalla owns the ground in its original plan or contract it was supposed to be for sporting development, meaning additional fields or dressing rooms or stuff like that and the previous owners have argued that the land was sold cheaply and they were being lied to that it will be used to build sporting buildings and the court ruled in their favor.

You may ask why do Valencia CF even need a hotel? - Well its a way to increase the value for the land for one, as you know Valencia is looking to sell the current stadium and having a hotel next to it will certainly increase the price, but more importantly Valencia CF may sell all its land, including the hotel to build and if it doesn't manage to sell it, well then the hotel will bring additional income to the club.

Valencia is a tourist city and there are quite a few tourists from all over Spain and European countries so building a hotel is a good business.

Juan Mata Spain U21 report

Spain U21 are in the finals, but not as everyone expected. If you'd asked any "expert" before the game they would have all told you that Spain U-21 are going to cruise to victory by 2 or 3 margin. Well the match turned out to be a lot more interesting as Belarus scored a goal in the 38th minute after a weird shot that luckily went into Spain's net. De Gea had absolutely no work, no saves to make for 90 minutes, except getting the ball out of his net.

As the second half started Juan Mata found itself in a good position to score, jumped to a cross, but was barely late to head the ball. After few minutes Juan Mata made a superb pass and found Adrian alone on goal, but the striker missed the goal with his shot.

Spain U21 managed to score a goal in the 89th minute and bring in into extra time and Mata was once again instrumental in Spain's win as he started the action that lead to Spain's second goal.

In the end Jeffren fired a powerful long shot and made it 3-1 for Spain U21 with Mata having a solid showing once again.

Joaquin Sanchez could leave in the next 24 hours

Transfer talks between Valencia and Malaga are going rapidly over the transfer fee of Joaquin and could finish up quickly with an outcome that both clubs can be pleased.

Malaga has increased the transfer fee money for Joaquin to 4 million and with few clauses it would reach 5.5 million euros.

Valencia is pushing for 4.5 million euros raw money and additional 1.5 million in clauses. Valencia is very likely to accept a 5.5 million total offer from Malaga in order not to loose out Joaquin in six to twelve months for free.

How things turn out is anyone's guess at this point, but expect Valencia and Malaga to reach an agreement within the next 24 hours or 48 hours at max.

Valencia CF news

Vicente Rodriguez is set to go to England as reports have that he is being chased by 3 England clubs, though not everything is set and there are rumors that he is going to go to a Spanish club. Whatever the case I wish Vicente the best of luck.

New Atletico Madrid coach wants to bring Diego Alves and Bruno Saltor to his new club. I don't know if he'd herd, but Diego Alves just signed for Valencia CF few weeks back and is surely not going to be leaving for Atletico Madrid anytime soon.

The case with Bruno is different as his contract ends next season and he could well be on the way out for a little more than 1 million euros. I think the situation of him leaving is 50-50% depending on how the transfer market turns out for Valencia in the next 2-3 weeks.

In the case of Miguel Brito he is on the transfer list with a price tag of 4 million euros, but so far no club has shown any interest in the player. The player himself has expressed that if Valencia want to sell him, he'd like to return back to Portugal.

In some good news Ever Banega played the full 90 minutes for Argentina against Albania in a friendly match in which Argentina won 4-0. Ever Banega played quite good, spread the ball well and covered quite a bit of ground, but the main star of the match was Lionel Messi.
Anyways with Ever Banega possibly being sold this summer, maybe it isn't that great, although there were reports that he may in fact stay in Valencia.

Juan Mata Spain U21 report 2

Spain U-21 squad faced Ukraine U-21 squad and beat them convincingly 3-0. Juan Mata was once again the main player on the field and scored two goals for Spain U-21 ensuring Spain placed first in the group and will be in the semi-finals.

For the first goal Mata was basically at the right place at the right time and with only the keeper to beat he scored. The second goal came from a penalty, but his overall play was very good as well, although not as striking as his previous performance.

Mata has so far scored 2 goals and provided 2 assists, making him a standout player so far in the tournament. 

This tournament is very good for Mata as it makes Mata a better player, gives him more experience and its good for Valencia as well because he is our player and when he returns to Valencia he will come as an improved player.