FC Barcelona vs Valencia CF Match Preview

FC Barcelona vs Valencia CF

Stadium: Nou Camp

Date: 02.09.2012; 21:30 CET

3rd matchday, La Liga

Coaches: Tito Villanova and Mauricio Pellegrino

FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona are coming to this match after a hard fought victory against CA. Osasuna at El Sadar, Pamplona, some say the hardest place for any team to travel to and they might be right, as FC Barcelona almost lost the match and only a late second half brace by who else if not Lionel Messi saved Barcelona from the jaws of defeat, some would say undeserving and with the help of the referee. Thing is there has been so many bad calls by referees these days its really ridiculous and one can always claim there to be something, certainly Valencia CF has had the referee experience playing against Real Madrid each year and there always being controversies as the referee decisions go to Real Madrid's benefit. 

So for each fans they would see these decisions differently and so Barcelona fans may argue, its about time some decisions went our way, after last season decisions going against us.

Refereeing decisions aside, Barcelona played a tiring match against Real Madrid for the Spanish Super Cup just a few days before their match against Osasuna and were likely a bit worn off. For the match against Valencia CF that is going to be the case as well as Barcelona are coming in lesser force and probably quite a bit tired and demoralized after a devastating away goal loss to Real Madrid, to loose the Super Cup title. While the cup loss within itself is not that big of a deal, its really a glorified friendly match that does not bring any money or prestige, though loosing to a rival like Real Madrid is not something you want and in that sense it was more important than it would have otherwise been.

After such loss, Barcelona will be looking to continue their winning ways against Valencia CF in the Spanish league and make it three wins in three match to have themselves a little winning streak and possibly forget about the loss to Real Madrid.

FC Barcelona are top of La Liga table right now with 6 points from 2 matches and most goals scored at 7 even this early in the competition. One thing that might trouble Barcelona is their huge reliance on Lionel Messi to win matches in tight and hard games like the last one vs Osasuna. If not for Lionel Messi, Barcelona would have most likely lost that match and things would have been very different right now, as it stands they are in a better position and Messi is the key player, but he can not be in full form and fitness all the time and there may be injuries as well. 

Barcelona fans will be relieved with the return of David Villa though, who scored on his first match after coming from a season long injury to help Barcelona cruise 5-0 past Real Sociedad in their opening season match. Another name that returned from long injury is Puyol so that is good news for Barcelona as well, with few other players fully fit as well that had some injury woes.

FC Barcelona coach Tito Villanova is likely to field pretty much the same squad that started against Real Madrid in the super cup, as it seems he's decided on the starting eleven quite firmly, with possibly one or two changes due to tiredness and the old trio of Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta starting in the middle, with Sanchez and Pedro on the wings forward and Messi in the central striker role. We might see Fabregas incorporated maybe for Iniesta or even see Villa instead of either Pedro or Sanchez, but I can't see any bigger changes that Barcelona coach Tito can and or will make.

FC Barcelona squad:

Technical Details FC Barcelona (probable setups):
Formation: 4-3-3
Line-up: Valdes; Montoya, Mascherano, Pique, Alba; Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta; Sanchez, Messi, Pedro.
Tactics: High defensive line, all round pressure, keep possession, mostly short circular passing, tripling up on the right wing.

Valencia CF

Valencia CF on the other hand is coming to this match after a devastating draw against Deportivo La Coruna in the Mestalla in the first match of the season in front of the home crowd. Not a start you want to have, Pellegrino should be furious, especially since Valencia CF squandered off a big 3-1 lead they had at half time. Thing is Valencia CF started the season in the best possible fashion, drawing with last season's champions Real Madrid and all it needed was a win at home to make the draw against Real Madrid count and the team failed.

Valencia CF was playing some amazing football in the first half, especially the first 25-30 minutes, one would think by the performance we would easily challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid for the title, but then Gago was injured, he was replaced with Daniel Parejo and all heal broke loose. Even though Parejo provided the assist for the third Valencia CF goal, immediately after coming on, he was unable to do what Gago was doing so damn good and that is retain ball control. Not only that Parejo doesn't have any defensive skills and while Gago is not a real defensive midfield, not a destroyer like Albelda is, he knows how to defend quite good, but Parejo lack the ball controlling skills that make for a solid center midfielder. Between Parejo and Tino Costa both are essentially attacking midfielders who lack the ball retention skills that Fernando Gago and Ever Banega posses.

So coming in the second half Deportivo started to slowly but surely dominate the game and attack after attack they found cracks in our weak defense. To help them out additionally was Ricardo Costa who gave away a needless penalty and got himself dismissed with a second yellow card, meaning he would miss the match against Barcelona and Valencia CF now only has 2 defenders and will have to call up some defender from the B team, possibly Quantilla, Delgado and I was thinking Pardo as well, but he has now been released from the B team and signed for another team. He was also 24 years old, but wasn't good enough and couldn't make the jump to the first team.

Right now Valencia CF has only two points from two matches and we desperately need a win if we are not to have one of the worst starts in recent history. The schedule doesn't help us at all and going against Barcelona at their own stadium is really bad, although with the recent loss to Real Madrid for the supercopa we might have a chance to at least get a point. Judging from Barcelona's match against Osasuna they were coming into that match after the first leg of the supercopa and were quite tired and ineffective, barely winning with some questionable refereeing. So Valencia CF should theoretically do better than Osasuna and at least get a draw here, if not win.

Our attack has been quite potent with the players scoring even from small chances, last match Soldado and especially Jonas were on fire and we can see the strength our attack posses, so I'm quite confident in our attack, its the midfield I'm worried about. Yeah the defense is lacking as well, but they can hang in as long as their is good cover in front of them and with Gago injured and possibly missing the match, I feel our midfield is going to be completely destroyed by Barcelona who are the masters of possession football.

Valencia CF squad:
Goalkeepers: Diego Alves, Vicente Guaita
Defenders: Joao Pereira, Antonio Barragán, Adil Rami, Víctor Ruiz, Aly Cissokho, Jeremy Mathieu
Midfielders: David Albelda, Fernando Gago, Tino Costa, Daniel Parejo, Sofiane Feghouli, Juan Bernat, Andres Guardado, Jonathan Viera
Forwards: Jonas Goncalves, Pablo Piatti, Nelson Valdez, Roberto Soldado

Technical Details Valencia CF (probable setups):
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Line-up: Diego; Pereira, Rami, Ruiz, Cissokho; Albelda, Tino Costa; Feghuoli, Jonas, Guardado; Soldado.
Tactics: Low defensive line, own half pressure, counterattacking, mostly long wide passing, doubling down on the left side.

Results Prediction:
FC Barcelona 3-2 Valencia CF
This is a very hard prediction, because I don't know if Gago will be fit for the match and exactly which players will Pellegrino play. With Emery it was easy, because I knew his style, I knew the formations and players he would do, with Barcelona he started with two left backs, that was his signature move, but with Pellegrino his style is still a mystery.
So basically for my results prediction I'm going from historical results and with our defense being rather trim this season I will say we are going to see lot of goals. Barcelona are going to be a bit tired from their Supercopa match against Real Madrid, so that may give us a chance to do something, but as I said not knowing Pellegrino style its really hard to say how he will set up the team and which players he'll select exactly. This is why I'm predicting more goals and Barcelona just barely edging us as always.

Soldado called to the Spanish national team

Roberto Soldado got the call for the Spanish national team. Soldado was called in for the world cup qualification match against Georgia.

Here is the full squad:

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Victor Valdes (Barcelona) and Pepe Reina (Liverpool).
Defenders: Juanfran (Atlético), Jordi Alba (Barcelona), Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Pique (Barcelona), Albiol (Real Madrid) and Monreal (Málaga).
Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Busquets (Barcelona), Iniesta (Barcelona), Silva (Manchester City), Cazorla (Arsenal), Fabregas (Barcelona), , Navas (Sevilla) and Beñat (Betis).
Forwards: Pedro (Barcelona), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Roberto Soldado (Valencia) and David Villa (Barcelona).

Valencia CF players that also got the call are: Diego Alves, Jonas, Adil Rami, Joao Pereira, R.Costa, Sofiane Feghuoli, Andres Guardado and Gago.

Valencia CF in Champions League group F

Valencia CF was drawn in group F of the Champions league and will go against Bayern Munich, Lille and Bate Borisov. In fact we are in one of the harder groups, a little bit easier than the group of death D.

Group A: Porto, Dynamo Kiev, Paris St-Germain, Dinamo Zagreb

Group B: Arsenal, Schalke, Olympiakos, Montpellier

Group C: Milan, Zenit St Petersburg, Anderlecht, Malaga

Group D: Real Madrid, Manchester City, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund

Group E: Chelsea, Shakhtar Donetsk, Juventus, Nordsjaelland

Group F: Bayern Munich, Valencia, Lille, Bate Borisov

Group G: Barcelona, Benfica, Spartak Moscow, Celtic

Group H: Manchester United, Braga, Galatasaray, Cluj

Group F schedule: 

19.09.2012 - Bayern-Valencia

02.10.2012 - Valencia-Lille

23.10.2012 - Bate-Valencia

07.11.2012 - Valencia-Bate

20.11.2012 - Valencia-Bayern

05.12.2012 - Lille-Valencia

Official: Pablo Hernandez transfers to Swansea AFC

Its official, Valencia CF and Swansea City AFC have reached an agreement over the transfer of Pablo Hernandez to Swansea City AFC.

Finally this saga closes and we can move on. Pablo Hernandez was firm that he wanted to leave Valencia CF and join Swansea and so as I reported previously Braulio realized that having a player that didn't want to be in Valencia CF will only be detrimental to the team as a whole and decided on selling him.

There were some rumors towards the end that Pablo might stay after all and that Swansea backed down, but we now know those reports were lies.

As I said previously, I think this is a good move, as having a frustrated Pablo in the team would have been really bad and same as if he wasn't here. So a good move, the reported fee is 7 million euros and that is acceptable. I valued Pablo Hernandez at 8 million euros on my latest update, so we are one million short, but the options rather limited here.

Champions League draw

Valencia CF has been placed in pot number 2 and this is the pot with the slightly weaker teams historically that the teams in the first pot. Valencia CF won't end up playing against Spanish teams, at least not in the group stages or the first knockout round. Overall there are 4 pots.

Here is Pot 2: Valencia, Benfica, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St. Petersburg, Schalke 04, Manchester City, Braga, Dinamo Kiev

Here are the possible Valencia CF opponents:


Pot 1: Chelsea (ENG), Manchester UTD (ENG), Bayern Minhen (GER), Porto (POR), Arsenal (ENG), Milan (ITA).
Pot 3: Ajax (HOL), Olympiakos (GRE), Juventus (ITA), Anderlecht (BEL), Spartak Moskva (RUS), PSG (FRA), Lille (FRA), Galatasaray (TUR).
Pot 4: Celtic (SCO), Nordsjiland (DEN), Montpellier (FRA), Dinamo Zagreb (CRO), Cluj (ROM), Bate Borisov (BLR), Borusia Dortmund (GER).

Paco to Getafe, Pablo to Swansea

Well its official, Valencia CF have reached an agreement with Getafe over the loan deal for Paco Alcacer. The player has signed the agreement as well and is expected to travel to Getafe tomorrow.

Valencia CF technical director Braulio Vasquez talked to Mauricio Pellegrino and convinced him that this is the best option, since Pellegrino has said all along that he wants Paco to stay.

I think its probably the best option as well, I mean we've seen the past two games, Paco wasn't even in the squad and so instead of not playing at all, he'd get more chance at Getafe. There is always risk of having some of the attacker injured, but we are covered nicely, as we have Canales and Viera to play as AM and Piatti who can play pretty much everywhere.

Pablo Hernandez is close to leaving Valencia CF and transferring to Swansea City AFC, Pablo reiterated his stance on leaving once more, so Braulio has decided its best to let him got, rather than have a player in the team that doesn't want to be there.

I think this is a good solution, I actually said that letting Pablo go would be best, wrote about it in the forum, you should join if you still haven't. What I said is that Pablo wants to leave and has stated it numerous times, not selling him would just cause negativity and tension and he would pretty much be like if he wasn't here, he will not be motivated, he will be bitter and is likely to cause troubles in the dressing room as well.

Plus Valencia CF should have players that don't want to be there in the team, simple as that. So I think selling Pablo is the best option and if we get 7 million euros for him, would be pretty good for us. I rate him at 8 million euros, so anything lower than that is a loss, but at this point there are no other options.

Valencia CF star players past,present and future

A friend and a fellow Valencia CF fan and website owner Adi recently wrote a pretty good article about Valencia CF and the "6 steps to success" on his website. I recommend people from the Balkans read it.

It wasn't an analysis of what needs to be done, more of a statement and affirmation of some, I'd say basic truths.

But I did find his first step titled "stars" unrealistic and impossible and if followed it would have destroyed the club. Now I know it was more of a statement for the future, but its important to know and understand the past, to be better prepared for the future.

So I decided to write an article, around his article and "stars" paragraphs and sort of rebuttal him on some points. Also I wanted to write something on this topic for quite a while, but just couldn't decide on the start, so his article gave me sort of the excuse.

Here is my English translation (believe me Google translate is terrible): "We won't bring in stars, we are going to have them by creating them, and that is something we(VCF) do great. In fact our new player, I'd say a star of the club is Aly Cissokho, and he is certainly going to remove any difficulties on the left back side that Pellegrino had by the sale of Alba to Barcelona. The biggest star of the club is of course Soldado and what amazing miracle that Llorente didn't fall for the 30 million euro bid from Tottenham. We've even heard from the administration that they want Goldado to finish his career at Valencia(stay alive and see it to believe it). This summer only Alba left from the important players, which many supporters think was overrated anyways.
Selling of best players to Barcelona and Real Madrid
Speaking of Alba we must mention the key reason why Valencia CF can't have the same results as "their" dear Real and Barcelona, and that is because the club must, I repeat must stop selling players to Real and Barcelona, young players as well as senior team players. Its not allowable the weakening of Valencia to strengthen Real and Barcelona more and more. Last players who went to these clubs were Joel and two cadets which Barcelona "stole" from us. Okay, when we look at Joel he wasn't that important player for Valencia, but is surely a huge potential, and he went to Real Madrid C team and its a big question is if he is ever going to reach Castille and not to mention the A team.
Albiol, Villa and Alba would surely have been the backbone of the club if they stayed, if we add in here Silva and Mata, who went to England, and current players we get one respectable team who would give any team huge problems no matter where its played."

Now first of all Valencia CF hasn't really lost any key players to Real Madrid or Barelona, in fact quite the contrary as Valencia CF has gained quite a bit of players from Real Madird and to a lesser degree Barcelona. If we do a basic count we have Alba coming from Barcelona youth team, Mata coming from Real Madrid youth team, Parejo, Soldado, Canales and even Gago just recently coming from Real Madrid and/or at some point in their career. So whether directly or indirectly I'd say Valencia CF has actually benefited more, than they have lost in this regard.

It goes beyond saying of course that youth talent should be protected, but this has more to do with a stupid Spanish rule that kids bellow 16 years old can't sign professional contracts and less to do with Valencia CF or any other team. If teams are to protect their youth players the Spanish government needs to get rid of this ridiculous rule.

The bigger picture here though is that Valencia CF was in a situation where it had to sell in order to survive. If you need to blame someone its going to be previous Valencia CF presidents, but even more than that the Spanish football rush, where teams didn't care about their finances, until they found themselves bankrupt and fighting to survive. Thing is the sales of David Villa and David Silva as bad as they seemed, did bring in 70 million euros to Valencia CF coffers and actually strengthened the team. I know it sounds strange, but I actually explained it in the preseason report from 2010/11 season and if you search it you can read about it. I wrote then that by having these big names leave, the team feels more like a team, rather than a collection of individuals and this is especially the case when the team is not winning any silverware, the stars become liabilities and start to become reckless and egoistical.

The sale of Mata brought in another 30 million euros, so for only 3 players Valencia CF racked up 100 million euros and saved the club from financial disaster, while at the same time keeping the strength level of the team intact, or at least quite equal with smart new purchases of cheap yet talented and skillful players.

But even bigger than that is the "stars" label. David Villa and David Silva were certainly stars, but either way they were only known in Spain and within the football world ranks, a casual follower of football, or even a strong follower from England or France didn't know about Villa and Silva, so they were stars, but "small" stars for a lack of better term.
Most stars are actually created in bigger clubs when they start playing there, before that even if they were considered stars it was only those who are ardent followers and read up on an array of news from different leagues.

This was actually the case with Villa and Silva as even though they were stars in their own right, they were not boosting global sales, they were not boosting the image of the club, they were not boosting support numbers. In fact I remember the day when Villa signed for Barcelona and read about it on soccernet, goal and few other sites of those kind and half and more of the people in the comments have never heard of David Villa before, some have heard, but only from the World Cup and didn't even know for which club he played. So not only did these stars not bring in anything to Valencia CF is terms of passage, but the fact that they were playing for us at a time where we weren't winning any trophy's was actually rather detrimental.

In fact the sales of Villa to Barcelona and Silva to Manchester City and then later Mata to Chelsea boosted the numbers of visitors to my blog tremendously and before that I've written every day about them and no where even close have the blog visits been.

So I'd say not only were the sales of our star players needed, they were absolutely necessary for the survival of the club and the consequential third consecutive third place finishes. Having said that I do agree that in the future Valencia CF needs to be more careful with its finances and I have high beliefs as long as Manuel Llorente and Braulio Vasquez stay we will be just fine in that regard. Furthermore due to our sales of star players in the past, we are now is a position to be able to not sell our new currents or rising star players and this was demonstrated by the rejection of the 30 million bid from Tottenham for Soldado.