Sporting Lisbon vs Valencia CF - Match Preview

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, Valencia fans, this is going to be the telling match if Valencia CF is good enough to actually fight with Real Madrid and Barcelona or not. I know its still early in the season, but this is the time when Valencia CF must start showing character, determination and good play. I've watched Real Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and Villarreal and I must say that all except Villarreal look really solid.

Real Madrid have started strong and continued strong through all their matches, Barcelona started slow, but have been improving tremendously through every match and Malaga started kinda slow, but have been in great form ever since. The only team I've watched and performing bad is Villarreal, but I won't count them out yet.

So this is the match where we can see if Valencia CF has made progress or regress in the last few days. I've seen the training session and they seems quite good overall and the players seem happy and confident, so I would expect a great showing tomorrow against Sporting Lisbon.

Sporting Lisbon is a Portuguese club based in the city of Lisbon, the club was founded in 1906 on the 1st of July and has been one of the top 3 clubs in Portugal ever since. Sporting Lisbon rivals are well known and they are Porto and Benfica who might be known a little bit more with their recent success. Whatever the case Sporting has won many national and international titles, including the Uefa Cup in 63/64 and more recently finishing runners up in 2004/05.

I've watched Sporting Lisbon play against Juventus just a few days ago and they absolutely destroyed Juventus. They won 2-1, but the score doesn't relay the great football they played and the struggles Juventus had, it was only Del Piero's magical shot in the last few minutes that gave Juventus a consolidation goal. Sporting don't play defensive football and we can expect them to go out and attack Valencia right from the start and really compete with us.

Sporting Lisbon is certainly going to be the toughest opponent we've had in preseason yet and apart from Roma the toughest overall, so I expect a great match first and foremost and a real overview of where Valencia CF stands.

Valencia CF on the other hand has had quite a bit of news come out with the transfer of Sergio Canales to Valencia CF on a loan deal from Real Madrid with the option to purchase the player, the news about Standard Liege central defender Mangala which is still up in the air with the blockade being the player himself asking for bigger salary and we have the reserve option of signing Pareja if the signing of Mangala fails.

What is more important though is that Tino Costa has been training normally with the rest of the squad, Ever Banega has also joined the squad and is training with the squad with the only worry right now being Bruno who has an injury.

Valencia CF squad:
Goalkeepers: Guaita, Diego Alves and Adrián.
Defense: Miguel, Bruno, Dealbert, R.Costa, Rami, Pardo, Jordi Alba, Mathieu and Salva Ruiz.
Midfield: Maduro, Tino Costa, Albelda, Topal, Banega, Feghouli, Juan Bernat, Pablo, Portu, Piatti, Mata and Parejo.
Attack: Jonas, Aduriz and Soldado.

Technical Details:
Formation: Most likely 4-2-3-1
Line-up: Guaita; Miguel, Rami, Costa, Alba; Pablo, Topal, Tino, Mata, Parejo; Aduriz
Tactics: mixed passing, high opposing field pressure, 3-way attack and positional changes from the wings.

Sergio Canales to Valencia CF?

Spanish papers are reporting that Valencia CF is on the verge of signing Spanish U-19 and now U-20 player Sergio Canales or at least have him on loan for two years.

Reports have it that Manuel Llorente has been negotiating the trasfer for quite a while now and reports have it that a 2 year loan deal with an option to buy the player is most likely to happen. I've heard reports of fully signing the player, but we'll just have to wait and see is any of this is true.

Real Madrid may choose to sell the player to Villarreal though as they are interested in the player after selling Cazorla and they have the money to make this transfer happen.


Bogus or not?
- Not bogus. Valencia CF president Manuel Llorente and Braulio Vasquez said to expect 1 or 2 players and this is the result. They've been obviously negotiating in secret for the purchase or loan deal of Canales, but having media find out about this may jeopardize the deal and make way for Villarreal to hijack the negotiations and purchase the player themselves. I'm rooting for Valencia CF to sign or loan the player, but we'll have to wait and see if its going to materialize.

Jonas Goncalves profile

Name: Jonas Gonçalves Oliveira
Playing position: Forward, attacking midfield
Previous club: Gremio
Number: 7
Birthday: April 1, 1984 (age 27)
Nationality: Brazilian
Height: 1.83m
Weight: 73kg
Contract ends: 30.06.2015
Player Rating:



Market Value:

Previous clubs:
Guarani, Brazil 2005-2006
Santos, Brazil 2006-2007
Germio Brazil 2007-2011
>Portuguessa, Brazil 2008-2009 loan

2010/11 Statistics
TEAM	Competition	GS	SB	G	A	SH	SG	FC	FS	YC	RC
Valencia	La Liga	8	5	3	3	26	13	15	13	2	0
Valencia	UCL	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0

Glossary

GS: Games Started, SB: Used as Substitute, G: Goals, A: Assists, SH: Shots, SG: Shots on goal, YC: Yellow Cards, RC: Red Cards, FC: Fouls Committed, FS: Fouls Suffered, SV: Saves, OF: Offsides, W: Wins, D: Draws, L: Losses

Eliaquim Mangala set to join Valencia CF

Valencia CF is set to sign Standard Liege central defender Eliaquim Mangala and the deal should be done within 2 days. His price is set to be between 3-4 million euros, but his salary would be very low bellow 1 million.

Eliaquim Mangala (born 13 February 1991) is a French professional football player of Congolese descent who currently plays for Belgian club Standard Liège in the Jupiler Pro League. Mangala is a France youth international and is currently playing with the under-21 team having made his debut on 13 November 2009 against Tunisia.

SK Rapid Wien 4-1 Valencia CF - Match Report

Well the third match didn't turn out as we'd all hoped and expected as Valencia CF was pretty much embarrassed by Rapid Wien and while they are already in their season and I've written that they will be in full form and fitness and for us to expect a tough game, I didn't expect Valencia CF loosing 4-1.


First goal Wien scored was mainly because of a Rami mistake, he marked the same player Costa marked and then Portu failed to mark the player Rami was supposed to cover in the first place. So this was a double fail, although I'm not blaming Portu so much as he isn't a right back in the first place.

Second goal for Wien was a weird one as one of their player tried to cross and ended up being a shot, fooling Diego Alves and ending up in our goal.

In the second half in was a completely different starting 10 with only Diego left on the pitch, but the result did not become any better.
Wien would go on to score 2 goals, before Pablo Hernandez scores a consolidation goal for Valencia CF.

Wien's third goal would come after a counter attack from the right wing and even though the goalscorer was clearly offside the goal would stand.

Forth goal came from a counter attack as well, so this means that someone was loosing the ball too much in the middle of the pitch and there wasn't enough cover for the defense. I'm looking particularity at Maduro and Topal here, but would need to review the match to see exactly who committed the mistakes. Anyways Dealbert set up a nice offside trap only for Pardo to come rushing back and playing the striker onside.

Technical Details:
SK Rapid Viena (4): Novota, Patocka, Schrammel, Sonnleitner, Kulovits, Salihi, Hofmann, Katzer, Prokopic, Trimmel y Alar. También jugaron Gartler, Nuhiu,

Valencia CF (1): Alves, Rami, Albelda, Feghouli, Mata, Aduriz, Piatti, Alba, Parejo, Ricardo Costa y Portu. También jugaron Miguel, Pardo, Dealbert, Mathieu, Pablo, Topal, Maduro, Bernat, Jonas, Soldado.

Goals: 1-0 Min. 23 Alar; 2-0 Min. 41 Schrammel; 3-0 Min. 74 Gartler; 4-0 Min. 83 Gartler; 4-1 Min. 89 Pablo

Player Ratings:
Diego 4 - Received a weird goal in the first half from a cross, in the second half he looked shaken, but made few saves to redeem himself although it was not a performance to remember anyways.
Portu 3 - We can clearly see today that he isn't a right back. Lost the ball way too often when pushing forward, missed the marking for the first goal, although he wasn't particularly the main falter.
Rami 3.5 - Had a great game before and after the goal, but really screwed up for the 1st goal marking the same man that Costa was marking.
Costa 5 - Had a good showing, didn't make any mistakes which is most important.
Alba 5.5 - Good defensively, not so effective going forward as in the previous friendlies though.
Feghuoli 5 - Had an average game, few too many times afraid to push forward though.
Albelda 5 - Decent game from the veteran, showed good composure and provided good defensive cover.
Parejo 5 - Has great technique and good vision, but was not very influential in the position he was in.
Piatti 5.5 - Had blistering pace as he showed again, less effective since the left wing was crowded too much by Mata and Alba.
Mata 5.5 - Good first match from Mata, showed a bit of leadership and had a constructive game with good movement and passing.
Aduriz 4.5 - Deprived of any balls he was left alone in the penalty area.
Subs:
Miguel 4 - Not particularly good in defense or in attack. Lost several challenges and left frustrated going forward.
Pardo 3 - Helped Wien attackers get onside at least once, I'm 99.9% sure the 3rd goal was offside, but he certainly played onside the Wien attacker for the 4th goal.
Dealbert 4 - Had a debatable action for the 3rd Wien goal, but that should have been an offside, set up a good offside trap for the 4th goal which unfortunately Pardo played onside. Not very convincing either way.
Mathieu 5 - Good defensive showing and was more offensive today, but he needs more consistency.
Pablo 6 - Saved himself until the end to score a wonderful goal after passing 4 players. Didn't do much otherwise.
Topal 5.5 - Did well to pass the ball around and good in his defensive duties.
Maduro 5 - Didn't do much of anything, several touches and passes but seems like he doesn't know what his role should be.
Bernat 4 - Few touches with the ball and that was it, invisible for the large majority of the match.
Jonas 4 - Missed passes, failed to catch passes and his movement was very limited.
Soldado 3 - Came in frustrated and even if the referee didn't show him red card for that challenge I feel like he would have done anything and everything to get dismissed. Way too frustrated.

SK Rapid Wien vs Valencia CF - Match Preview

Two matches, two wins, Valencia CF preseason so far so good. The training has been going on great, the players are working hard and the morale is pretty high. Tomorrow though is another challenge for Valencia CF and we all expect improved play from the previous two matches as Valencia CF has had more training and preparation.

SK Rapid Wien is an Austrian club located in the capital Vienna which is a beautiful city, kind of old looking but grandiose and anyone who can should visit. But more importantly its the club Wien that we are interested in right now since tomorrow its going to take on Valencia CF.

Rapid Wien is the most successful club in Austria and has lifted the national trophy 32 times. Some of the more notable names through their ranks have been Dejan Savicevic, Zlatko Krajncar and Mario Tokic.

SK Rapid Wien season has actually started and they have already played 2 matches and won both matches. They are currently holding first place in their league with 6 points, 4 goals scored and none received.

Valencia CF on the other hand is coming to this match as the big club, the big favorite and is going to serve as an sort of promotional match for Rapid Wien in order to lure as much fans as possible after having quite low attendance no attendance because of a penalty since fans stormed the pitch in their last match of last season and Wien was penalized(thanks to randomrapidfan for pointing that out). For Valencia CF this will be the biggest challenge so far as Rapid Wien have finished their preseason a lot earlier and are towards their 3rd game in the season so they are going to be in in full form and fitness and ready to play 100%.

The weather hasn't been too good the last two day, but the squad has continued training in bad weather conditions even though some more technical training wasn't possible.

Valencia CF squad:
Goalkeepers: Guaita, Diego Alves and Adrián.
Defense: Miguel, Bruno, Dealbert, R.Costa, Rami, Pardo, Jordi Alba, Mathieu and Salva Ruiz.
Midfield: Maduro, Tino Costa, Albelda, Topal, Feghouli, Juan Bernat, Pablo, Portu, Piatti, Mata and Parejo.
Attack: Jonas, Aduriz and Soldado.

Technical Details:
Formation: Most likely 4-2-3-1 in the first half and then change it to 4-4-2 once few players are substituted.
Line-up: Guaita; Bruno, Rami, Costa, Alba; Feghuoli, Topal, Tino, Piatti, Jonas; Aduriz
Tactics: short passing, high opposing field pressure...

Unai Emery: Victory is important

Unai Emery continued his good preseason matches with Valencia CF with a 1-0 win against Leicester City FC and previously a 2-0 win against PSV Eindhoven.

Coach Unai Emery had this to say after the match: "This victory is important, but we can improve a lot more. You've seen during the match in some moments we played really good and in others quite bad."

On the two half's he said: "The first half we were better, in some moments when we were attacking we played 4-4-2 formation which I really liked. We must continue working on it, because we are likely to use of of the two formations against Osasuna."

Emery analyzed the performance on individual players and said: "Jonas and Aduriz played great, this was the first time they played together and up till now they only worked on two trainings together. Today they have shown their knowledge and professionalism.
I also have to praise Pablo Piatti who works very hard, in him we got a great reinforcement. Then there is Daniel Parejo who immediately showed us that he is a big reinforcement for the club."

About the next match against SK Rapid Wien Unai Emery said: "The idea is for the first eleven to play a little bit more minutes and after that to have substitutions. Its very likely that Juan Mata will get his first preseason minutes playing time in the match against SK Rapid Wien."