Liverpool FC 2-0 Valencia CF - Match Report

Valencia CF lost for the second time in preseason and it was a ugly loss, since Liverpool were not showing any positive results before this match and Valencia CF were in great shape. What this match shows is that the players need to gel and its now time for Unai Emery to stop changing the whole team in 45 minutes and choose the best: Guaita; Miguel, Rami, ?, Alba; Maduro, Banega; Feghuoli, Parejo, Piatti; Aduriz and field them for 70 minutes the next 2 matches. I know Aduriz and Guaita are injured, but from what we've seen so far and from what we know from last season they are the best options now in their respective positions.

What we saw today from Ever Banega was amazing and if he can stay in shape, have his mind in the right place and work hard he can be our best player and really help Valencia CF finish high, high, high.

Pablo is also lacking in the preseason and Feghuoli has been at least 2x better than Pablo so far. Surely Emery must start Feghuoli before Pablo after being better in all matches. Its also obvious that Juan Mata is really out of form and that Piatti plays best at left or right and not as an attacking midfield. I'd reserve the AM position for Parejo and Canales.

This match showed that VCF really has a lot more work to do and with still almost 1 month left before the start of the competition we need to improve and the team needs to gel more, especially the new signings although each match is better and better.

As far as the play by play of the match goes Carroll scored an absolute crap goal with Albelda gifting him the ball and Carroll actually managed to hit the woodwork the first try and only managed to score in the second try, talk about someone sucking with his feet.

The second goal for Liverpool came from Dirk Kuyt after maybe they were played onside by ?Dealbert? maybe. I need to watch a replay to see it again, to me it seemed like a total mess in the penalty area and someone should have headed the ball out of the area  even before someone from Liverpool has a chance to shoot. Diego Alves should also have done a better job, the ball was moving with 1kph towards the net, anyone could have catch up to it and save it.


Technical Details:
Liverpool FC (2): Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Fabio Aurelio, Adam, Spearing, Henderson, Aquillani, Downing y Carroll. También jugaron Kelly, Robinson, Leiva, Kuyt, Cole, Maxi, Ngog, Flanagham y Kyrgiakos.
Valencia CF (0): Alves, Bruno, Rami, Topal, Jordi Alba, Pablo, Albelda, Parejo, Mata, Piatti y Jonas. También jugaron Miguel, Maduro, Mathieu, Tino Costa, Soldado, Bernat, Ever, Dealbert y Ricardo Costa.
Goals: 6min 1-0 Carroll; 89min 2-0 Kuyt.

Diego 5 - Poor performance, even though he did nice against Caroll first try he should have reacted faster in the rebound. Basically assisted Liverpool on 3 occasions with his bad passing or shooting.
Bruno 5 - Beaten twice by Downing early on, failed to offer much support in attack and was quite reserved with defending.
Rami 6 - Good and assured performance by Rami, managed to stop several Liverpool attacks before they progressed.
Topal 6 - Had two good interventions and surprisingly good in defense.
Alba 6 - Did well in defense, certainly not beaten by anyone, had 3 good runs forward and provided few crosses.
Pablo 5 - Apart from two decent runs, was largely ineffective and failed to provide any crosses, any passes or anything positive in any way.
Albelda 1 - Absolutely terrible performance from the captain. Passed the ball to Carroll for the first goal, made several similar mistakes, a stupid foul for a yellow card. Right now Maduro is certainly ahead.
Parejo 5 - Not the best performance from Parejo, had a lot of missed passes, although he had absolutely no help in midfield. Will want to improve upon this performance.
Mata 4.5 - Absolutely invisible and when he got the ball he usually stalled the attacks or lost the ball. Right now 35 million euros seem way too good to pass out if some1 is willing to pay.
Piatti 5.5 - The most consistent player in preseason failed to lift up Valencia this time, and as the rest he failed to provide much attacking threat. Was a little bit better than Pablo though with his direct running.
Jonas 5 - Few runs here and there, but failed to get in good positions or create some attack going.
Subs:
Mathieu 6 - This is the Mathieu we want to see. Great in defense, making timely sliding tackles and winning the ball or at least postponing an attack and making forward runs and really troubling Liverpool.
Miguel 6 - Great improvement over Bruno and his attack mindedness really helps Valencia in attack, as long as there is someone to cover for his absence.
Maduro 5.5 - Guaranteed his spot before Albelda tonight. Really good passing, made himself available to receive passes and helped out in defense when needed.
Tino Costa 5.5 - Works really hard and runs constantly, but unfortunately can not control the midfield. Does good though when more forward.
Feghuoli 6 - Makes Pablo look like a school boy or something. Absolutely deserves to start over Pablo. Had great link-up with Miguel and Banega, got into dangerous positions, all he was missing today was lethality to finish off the actions.
Soldado 5 - Pretty much the same as Jonas. Had one good chance, but failed to score. Needs to improve!
Bernat 5.5 - Small improvement over Mata, was more involved and had two good runs on the left, went missing a bit towards the late game.
Banega 6 - Amazing performance from Banega. When he is in shape and his head in the right place he is an amazing player. Single-handedly overcome Liverpool midfield and created few scoring chances with his direct passing.
Costa 5 - Calm and collected, did not have much to do in 15 minutes.
Dealbert 5 3 - He had a good block as soon as he came in, some good passing range shown, may have been at fault for putting onside Liverpool attack for the second goal. I need to watch a HQ replay to judge properly though. May rewrite this rating after seeing a replay. EDIT: Well I just watches a good quality replay and yes Dealbert did play the whole Liverpool attack onside. Costa isn't too innocent as well, they both moved and that was even before the cross flew, Costa stopped though and Dealbert kept running. Still its 100% Dealbert fault, he should have known better.

Liverpool FC VS Valencia CF - Match Preview

Valencia CF is going to play the 6th preseason match tomorrow against English side Liverpool FC. From the looks of it Liverpool is not going to present much challenge to Valencia CF as Liverpool have been doing really poorly in their preseason matches so far and with their season to start earlier than Valencia it doesn't look good for the boys in red.

Valencia CF results so far:
PSV 0-2 Valencia CF
Leicester City 0-1 Valencia CF
Rapid Wien 4-1 Valencia CF
Sporting Lisbon 0-3 Valencia CF
Hamburg SC 1-2 Valencia CF

Liverpool FC results so far:
Malaysia XI 3-6 Liverpool FC
Hull City 3-0 Liverpool FC
Galatasaray 3-0 Liverpool FC
Valerenga 3-3 Liverpool FC

Liverpool FC ended last season on a very positive note with new manager Kenny Dalglish leading the team to a 6th place finish beating out Everton and acquiring the second most points of the second half of the season under Kenny.

Liverpool FC fans had every reason to be excited for the new season with new owner, new manager and some great signings in the winter transfer market last season, the likes of Suarez and of course the infamous and way overpriced Andy Carroll. He became one of the most talked about players and basically the laughing stock at English football and the overpriced English market.

Liverpool FC would do really nice in the summer transfer market as they brought in Steward Downing from Aston Villa, Charlie Adam from  Blackpool, the surprise player last season with his great performances. Apart from those purchases Liverpool FC were interested in Valencia's own Juan Mata and there was a lot of speculation that Mata could join Liverpool, but ultimately they decided to bring in Downing as he was a cheaper option, albeit a lot weaker option.

With Valencia CF being their last preseason match before the premier league kick-off Liverpool will be hoping to show their A game and be competitive against their toughest opponent yet Valencia CF.

Valencia CF on the other hand are coming to this match quite comfortable and confident in their ability after a great showing in Germany against Hamburger SV. With Liverpool FC performing poorly in preseason our team will feel really confident, though hopefully not overconfident and Emery should talk to the players and put things in perspective. We can't start to relax now and we need to push even harder, beat Liverpool 3 or 4 goals to zero and go really prepared against Roma for the first match in the Mestalla.

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

Technical Details:
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Line-up: Diego; Miguel, Costa, Dealbert, Alba; Feghuoli, Maduro, Tino, Mata, Parejo; Soldado
Tactics: mixed passing, high opposing field pressure, 3-way attack and positional changes from the wings, interchanging with the CM and AM.

Official: Sergio Canales joins Valencia CF

Its official. Sergio Canales is a Valencia CF player. Just as I've reported a week ago the deal is 2 years loan deal with a double purchase option, for 12 million for Valencia CF and 18 million for Real Madrid.

Valencia CF will destroy FC Barcelona

I don't want to come to conclusions early and hasty and I like to spend a lot of time analyzing these kind of things, but after yesterday trashing of Barcelona by Chivas with 4 goals to 1 I'm convinced that Barcelona's reign at the top of the game is officially over and Valencia CF will absolutely destroy Barcelona.

Yes the second half was filled with youngsters and that is going to be the excuse by Barcelona fans, but how do you attribute the loss to Manchester United previously and the draw with Hajduk? The game against Manchester United everyone except Xavi and Puyol played from their first team. Then there was the draw with Internacional and even though Barca won against Bayern in the Audi cup they weren't very convincing.

Barcelona is just past their prime and that is the truth about it. They've had 4-5 great seasons in which they've dominated football and made history by winning 6 titles in a row. But all those years of high intensity playing bring in casualties and Xavi has suffered last season, Puyol has suffered and has been out for half a season and David Villa seems to be past his prime as well.

Barcelona still have Messi, Alves and Iniesta, but you can't expect each season Messi to bail you out in all these games and certainly Dani's tireless forward arrays are going to start becoming tiring as we've already seen with Brazil where he was absolutely dreadful. Iniesta may still be young and probably has good 3 years left in him, but he is injury prone and he only works in tandem with Xavi as we've seen him struggling so many times when Xavi isn't there to keep possession.

Xavi is 31 years of age, riddled with injuries and won't be at the same standard he was even just few months ago.
Puyol is 33 years old and has been injured for most of last season and he is still injured now and even if he comes back soon at 33 years old and after such long injuries don't expect him to be good.
David Villa is 29 years old and he as well is not getting any younger, as seen even last season he is past his prime and while he is still able to score 10-15 goals in all competitions, he is not the 20+ scorer he was when he was in Valencia CF. Also the Barcelona possession football is not the most suited for Villa no matter what anyone tell you, because Villa requires space to be able to score and when the opposing team has 10 players in front of goal its hard for Villa to do much.
Dani Alves is likely to struggle this season as well as we've already witnessed with his play in Brazil at the Copa America. He has also been very lucky with not getting injured for so long and I feel like we may see him with a more serious injury this season and the fact that Barcelona don't have any cover for him will really expose them.
As for the rest of them Erik Abidal is 32 years old and as a left back at 32 years old you loose speed and agility and even though he has been good in preseason expect the amount of matches to catch up to him. Pedro has also been really poor in all the preseason matches and I really think he will be a fluke just like Bojan Krkic.

That leaves Barcelona with just few great performing members who are not past their prime and who can carry the team, especially Messi and Iniesta, but as we've seen from Messi in all his performances with Argentina he needs that support from Barca players for him to show his best and if Xavi, Villa and Pedro around him are not able to step up to the challenge Messi looses much of his strength.

The positive thing about Barcelona is the arrival of Sanchez, but he is very young, inexperienced against strong opposition and is not accustomed to Barcelona's play style, so he is going to have a slow adaptation rate. With Affelay already been ruled out for 2 months its looking mighty fine for Valencia CF, but also Real Madrid.

Last season was the last season of domination for Barcelona and this year they will struggle for even second place as Valencia CF destroy Barcelona in each of the matches the clubs meet. Real Madrid on the other hand have looked super strong and are the favorites for the title, although I expect Valencia CF to really challenge for the title this season.

Expect this season the title fight to be between Real Madrid and Valencia CF and maybe, just maybe we can hopefully win the fight.

Sergio Canales instrumental in Spain U-20 victory

Spain U-20 side just won against Ecuador U-20 at the World Cup for U-20 which takes place in Columbia. New Valencia CF signing Sergio Canales was instrumental in Spain U-20 win against Ecuador U-20 by scoring a goal just 10 minutes after coming on and then providing the assist for the second goal 5 minutes from full time.

Sergio Canales is yet to be officially announced or presented as Valencia CF players and rumors are the only wait is on Racing Santander who need to sign all the papers.

Write for this blog

Hi there ladies and gentleman. I'm looking for a person who wants to write for this blog. I write a lot and all, but I feel having a back-up would be nice and would enable us to cover more news and stuff.

This is a voluntary position and you will not be getting paid for.
Job requirements:
Fluent in English
Expert knowledge about Valencia CF
Follows Spanish football
You are a big Valencia CF fan
16 years of age or older

What you can write:
Any kind of news. Transfer news, financial news, player news, etc...
Features, editorials and analysis
Youth players reports (other than Valencia's)- required once a month

What you can't write:
Match Previews
Match Reports
News about other clubs or other topics other than Valencia CF.

If you are interested please send me an email at: slickr12345_at_yahoo_dot_com (remove "_", replace "at" with "@" and "dot" with ".")

Hamburg SV 1-2 Valencia CF - Match Report

Valencia CF just won its 4th match of the preseason in what was the best play I've seen from Valencia CF so far this preseason. This was by far the most complete and assured performance and its obvious the players and the coach have been working very hard to improve.

As soon as the match started Valencia CF gained control and used it to good effect with an early goal by Juan Mata by an assist by Feghuoli. It was a rather lucky goal as basically the ball hit Mata's leg and ended up in the goal.

Valencia would have several more chances as Soldado, Jonas and even Miguel would have a try at a goal. Hamburg had few chances of themselves with the biggest one coming after a cross when Costa slipped on the grass and allowed the Hamburg striker to head the ball towards goal, but Diego Alves was alert and caught the ball. Miguel would also have an early slip-up which would cause a counter attack by Hamburg, but once again the defense and goalkeeper stood strong.

Parejo and Maduro surprisingly had great understanding and did quite good together, with Maduro helping out in defense numerous times and having very accurate passes, while Parejo was really good as a playmaker and managed to carry the ball forward with ease.

Juan Mata would have a good chance later on, but he failed to pass the ball accurately and destroyed the chance, Feghuoli was playing on Jonas and a lot of the players, but ultimately the first half ended with 1-0 for Valencia.

In the second half Emery made one change as he brought Piatti for Soldado and Jonas and Piatti were changing positions. The second goal would come early after a counter attack from Valencia lead by Piatti who's pass accurately found Bernat who scored a goal from a difficult position.

Minutes later Alba would steal the ball from a defender in Hamburgs last 3rd and pass it onto Piatti, but this one only managed to shoot above the goal. Soon after Emery made a ton of changes and the dynamic of the play slowed a bit and Hamburg had some good opportunities to score, but mostly Topal and Albelda were able to handle it.

Hamburg would score a goal from a corner kick when Pardo was out jumped, but Valencia would manage to close out the match.

Technical Details:
Hamburgo SV (1): Brobny, Aogo, Westermann, Mancienne, Diekmeier, Kacar, Tesche, Ben Hatira, Elia, Petric y Son.
Valencia CF (2): Alves, Miguel, De albert, R.Costa, Maduro, Mathieu, Feghouli, Parejo, Jonas, Mata y Soldado. También jugaron Piatti, Topal, Bruno, TIno Costa, Albelda, Jordi Alba, Pablo Hernández, Bernat y Portu.
Goals: 0-1 Min. 4 Mata; 0-2 Min. 70 Bernat; 1-2, Min. 87 Behrens.

Player Ratings:
Diego 7 - Made some great saves, really confident for the first time and was really good today.
Miguel 7 - Apart from an early mistake when he lost the ball, improved drastically and was a rock in defense and a great asset in offense.
Costa 4.5 - Made two blunders by sliding on the grass twice. Could have cost us the game, but luckily Hamburg failed to convert those chances.
Dealbert 7 - Great performance by Dealbert, had a small mistake early on, but absolute dominant performance afterwards and had some great passes to play on the midfield and spur on possession and play.
Mathieu 5.5 - Did well enough in defense and had a few forays forward, but needs to improve.
Feghuoli 7.5 - Astounding performance by Feghuoli who's passing was spot on, provided the assist for the first goal, did well to help out Miguel in defense and was always a threat to Hamburg.
Maduro 6 - Really assured performance from the Dutch with great defensive coverage and about 90+% accurate passing.
Parejo 6.5 - Did really good as a playmaker, always available for a pass and managed to spread the ball well to the rest of the players. Great game by Parejo.
Mata 5.5 - He is not in full fitness or form and today he made it very obvious. Was presented with some good chances, but he managed to ruin them.
Jonas 6.5 - Very intelligent play by Jonas, made himself available and did really well to create chance and come into scoring positions.
Soldado 5.5 - Likely to be repeat of last season when he was really bad for half a season and then just exploded. He need to improve and improve really fast and really much.
Subs:
Piatti 6.5 - Is becoming a very consistent player, assisted a goal and is currently the leading goalscorer in preseason along with Bernat. Had two more chances, but failed to convert them to goals.
Alba 6 - Did good defensively and showed his attacking threat by stealing a ball from Hamburg defense and passing it to Piatti who unluckily shot above the goal.
Topal 6 - Had an instant reaction after coming in and saved the goal. Had several good tackles through the 45 minutes.
Bruno 5.5 - Did decently well in defense, lost a few balls needlesly and wasn't as impressive as in previous matches.
Pablo 5.5 - Had few good runs, with one specifically dangerous but the offside was called. Needs to work much harder and really improve or he is going to be benched by Feghuoli if he isn't already.
Tino Costa 5 - Had a few touches with the ball, made few passes, lost the ball carelessly two times, its obvious he is coming from injury and needs more work.
Albelda 5.5 - Did well to help out defensively and was pretty good with the passing, but nothing noteworthy.
Bernat 6 - Scored a goal from a pretty tough position and was very active through. He needs to improve his passing and learn to link-up better with other players.
Portu N/A - Not enough time
Pardo 2 - Had enough time to screw up and allow Valencia to concede a goal. Was way out jumped by Behrens for the goal. Isn't ready for the first league and tough matches that is clear now, if it wasn't already. We need to get a central defender and get a good one.