VfB Stuttgart vs Valencia CF Match Preview

Tomorrow is the third match of the pre-season and the final one in Germany. The first two ended in disappointment, the first in 2-1 loss and the second 0-0, in what should have been very easy games against second and third division German teams. Tomorrow's game is against VfB Stuttgart, a first division German team that finished 14th in the table last season. However, compared to the previous two teams, it is a big step-up. This is also the last game before the Guinness ICC tournament which will start on the 27th of July against AC Milan at the Mestalla. Therefore, we must show improvement now or we won't stand a change against the bigger clubs in that tournament.

The coach will have had two games to work with, observe and fix up the team so far. The main problem right now is the finishing and hopefully we will see a huge improvement tomorrow. Last game we noticed a different style of play that is more positive and attacking. Hopefully we will see more of that or even an improved version of it.

This game WILL be televised so you can catch it on a stream online. The kick-off time is 15:00 GMT. I encourage everyone to watch this game to observe the new style of play and the new players in action.

AMUNT VALENCIA!!!!

Salvo trying to get rid of Pablo Piatti?

Valencia CF president is supposedly flying to Germany today and one of his primary objectives would be to convince Pablo Piatti to accept Ukrainian team Metalist offer. Pablo Piatti doesn't want to go to Ukraine and would like to be able to continue in Spain or in England, both options are out of the question right now as most Spanish teams are broke and English ones don't generally want small players in their ranks.

The Ukrainian team are said to be offering about 5 million euros for Pablo Piatti, quite lower than the 7.5 million Valencia CF paid for him to bring him from Almeria. Since his arrival he hasn't justified his price tag, but on the other hand the club did overpay for him.

I've always liked his play, its not amazing, but its fast and offensive and I think he's suffered due to the slow play of the midfield. I also think he could be best utilized as a second striker way more effectively where can can score goals, rather than on the wings.

I don't know, I think 5 million is a bit too little to sell him for, especially since we don't really have replacements. I mean who will replace Feghouli when he is injured and we all know Piatti plays best on the right side.

Valencia's Striker Problem

After the departure of Nelson Valdez and the squandering of goal opportunities in the second pre-season friendly against SV Waldhof Mannheim, Valencia are in the market for a new striker. The decision has been agreed upon by the Valencia management, sporting director and the coach. Valencia are looking for a low cost yet high profile striker to replace Valdez and compete with Soldado.

So you may ask what about Jonas and Alcacer? As for Jonas, one source recently indicated a return to Brazilian league to give him a better chance of making the squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Sao Paulo is rumoured to have made a bid for him and the club is willing to sell for the right amount. As for Alcacer, the coach expressed that he has a lot of faith in him and his abilities.

Lastly and most importantly, Soldado. With Liverpool striker Luis Suarez heavily rumored to leave, Liverpool will most likely move for Soldado. After the money, they would have more than enough money to meet his termination clause of 30 million euros. In addition, Tottenham's targets for the striker position are rapidly being taken by other teams which may force them to pay the 30 million euros. After that, the decision is Soldado's.

So what are the options? Most likely right now is 22 year-old Ruben Rochina of Blackburn Rovers (England). Doesn't exactly meet the criteria of "high-profile" as he has only 7 goals in 41 appearances for Blackburn. He is however "low-cost" with a price tag of 1.5 million euros, born in Valencia and was part of Valencia's youth system before being sold to Barcelona's youth system.

Here are some strikes we were linked to at one point or another in 2013. Expect hearing more of these players if Soldado is sold.

Name                   Club                                       Age              Price                                 Goals
Ilombe Mboyo        Gent (Belgium)                         26                5 million euros                  36 in 77 games
Philipp Hosiner      Austria Wien (Austria)               24                3.5 million euros               32 in 36 games
Sergio Garcia        Espanyol (Spain)                      30                3.5 million euros               15 in 73 games
Maxi Lopez           U.C Sampadoria (Italy)              29                5 million euros                  4 in 17 games
Kevin Gameiro       PSG (France)                          26                10 million euros                 19 in 59 games


So what do you guys think? Who should be sold/kept? Who should be bought if Soldado leaves? Do you agree with the decision to buy a new striker? Who would you like to see at the club?

AMUNT VALENCIA!!!!

Open commentary

Well former Valencia CF player Raul Albiol has signed with Napoli and was seen yesterday taking the medical exam after which he will become a Napoli player. Of course he will work under Rafael Benitez former Valencia CF coach and he is familiar with Raul Albiol's qualities.

Things didn't work out for him in Real Madrid and apart from the first season under Pellegrino, he didn't have good season, being 3rd and even 4th choice at Real Madrid in the past 2 seasons, so this move is obvious and possibly even one year late for him.

He is still a quality defender, though very slow and prone to mistakes in the air, but I'm sure he'd fit nicely at Napoli, plus Valencia CF is set to get about 400k euros from the transfer as well.

Now coming to Valencia CF, we played another disappointing preseason match against another German minnow team and this time we drew. There were some positives from it and that is that in the first half we played fast and exciting football with quite a bit chances and Viera and Parejo are showing great play.

Also we lack our main striker Roberto Soldado who surely would have put at least one of the chances in the back of the net and he is right now our best and star player. I'm also hopeful that Ever Banega can finally live up to his talent and be a rock in midfield, else we may need to sell him at the end of the season or even in the winter transfer market to be able to recoup some money on him.

I'm glad that we didn't loose someone important like Mathieu or Rami or obviously Soldado, but the transfer window is still young, so lets hope there won't be any surprises, especially after the team missed out on few potential signings.

As the preseason is progressing now I really can't gage much from the games and training sessions, especially since there is no streamed or televised matches so far and there hasn't been much of the competition either, so the first real test will be in two days against VFB Stuttgart and we'll see how we'll do there. Hopefully there will be a stream and the match will be played in a reasonable time when I can watch it.

SV Waldhof Mannheim 0-0 Valencia CF Match Report

Valencia's second pre-season friendly ends in a disappointing draw.The first half had Valenci dominating in the number of opportunities, but they were all disappointingly, not taken.  Despite the coach substituting almost everyone at half-time, the end-result was the same. There were many terrible misses and wasted chances, the most notable being Jonas's when he blasts his shot high and wide despite having lots of room to shoot in the box.

In terms of the defense, there were 2 or 3 errors that resulted in some 1 on 1 opportunities for Mannheim but all were taken care of by either keeper or by a defender's quick response.

As mentioned earlier, Mannheim is of the third division in Germany and we really should've won at least 4-0 judging by the chances we had. On the positive, I like the new style of play which is notably different in being more attacking. You can watch the highlights below as provided by VCF Play, Valencia CF's official channel.

SV Waldhof Mannheim (0): Knodler, Muller, Geige, Huckle, Weimer, Zeric, Islamoglo, Dautaj, Ozturk, Franzin, Szimayer

Valencia CF (0): Alves, Periera, R.Costa, Mathieu, Cissokho, Fede, Parejo, Viera, Fuego, Piatti, Alcacer.

Substitutions: Guatia, Barragan, Rami, V.Ruiz, S.Ruiz, Feghouli, Romeu, Banega, Jonas, Michel

1st Half Highlights

2nd Half Highlights

AMUNT VALENCIA!!!!

From Liverpool with love?

Spanish Clubs are busy selling players day and night this transfer window. Some clubs like Sevilla are doing Overtime, thanks to their financial problem. La liga players are bought like a mango of summer season, Cheap but Tasty.
We have sold two players till now but we hope to sell more this summer( to balance the account ).

There is a report in English media that Liverpool have agreed terms with young Valencia sensation Pedro Chirivella. But Liverpool and Los Che are yet to agree on transfer fee. Merseyside club are willing to offer as much as £2M but Valencia want £3.6M which is also his release clause. However, if no deal is reached, then tribunal will set the final fee.

The young Midfielder rejected move to Barca few years ago, though Barca and Valencia had agreed over transfer fee.

The 17 year old is said to have agreed 4 year deal with liverpool, who will make around £260,000 a year which is unlikely to be matched by Valencia.

He is a vesatile player who can play as a Midfield Pivot, Creative Midfielder and Attacking Midfielder though he prefers deeper role.
He is tipped for the big thing and seen as a future star in Valencia. He has actively featured for Spain in U15, U 16, U 17 level.

There is also a report linking Liverpool with Valencia goal machine Roberto Soldado. Liverpool legend Jan Molby urges Liverpool to sign Valencia star R. Soldado. The legend believes that Soldado would be an ideal replacement for their wantaway striker Luis Suaraz. Suaraz's future is uncertain at Anfield as he has expressed his desire to leave club publicly. So Molby believes R. Soldado, who is a proven goal scorer could be a Marquee signing Liverpool fans are looking for this summer.

Valencia CF fixtures 2013-14

Valencia CF fixtures for 2013/14 are up on the fixtures page obviously and as you can see a new blog design as you all wanted, hopefully you like it, but if not I can always revert to the previous design. 

I'm working on the players pages right now as well and I'm expecting to have 10 players done within a week with the new players page. 

You may have also noticed the blog has two more writers Pawan and Gundam and consider this their official introduction since I've completely forgotten to do one before. 

Hopefully between 3 writers we can offload the workload and have the blog saturated with content and features and editorials about Valencia CF.

Also how do you like Valencia's transfers so far and what do you think about the next season? Do you like the transfers, do you hate them, do you think we are strong enough to challenge for the Champions League? I'm obviously going to be doing one of the prediction articles as usual later on and laying out my predictions about who is going to win the Spanish Primera title and where Valencia CF is going to finish.

I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments.