VILLARREAL FC, THE THIRD CANDIDATE (This article is available in English and Español)

The Spanish teams have only 9 more league´s games to finish the Championship and Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have a new competitor, Villarreal FC, in order to be the Spanish Champion.
Villarreal has options to be the champions thanks to a spate of very good results in recent matches, because Villarreal has only lost one game(against Real Madrid,3-2)in the last 11 games played in the Spanish league, and now there is only a difference of 6 points between Villarreal and Real Madrid-the leather- and only 2 points with FC Barcelona-the second in the standing-, so it does not seem unreasonable to think that the team of Manuel Pellegrini(the coach) is a strong candidate to win the Spanish championship.

Perhaps, these good results of Fernando Roig (the owner)´s team due to various factors that have provided solidity to the "yellow submarine":

On the one hand, the change of the goalkeeper. Villarreal during some years has not had a good goalkeeper –Sebastian Viera (11 games with the Uruguayan National Team) and Barbosa do not transmit security -, and finally Pellegrini has found the player who fulfils with the requirements of sobriety and safety needed to be a good goalkeeper, we refer to Diego Lopez, who, after being Iker Casillas´subsitute in Real Madrid during several seasons, decided to change the team in order to have any options to show in the first division all the qualities that he had shown during many season in the Real Madrid B. The truth is that he is taking advantage of this opportunity-he sounds as future goalkeeper of AC Milan, although maybe the best thing, that he can do, is to stay in Villarreal more seasons in order to consolidate in the first division, to play Champions League and after to sign with a “giant”-,and to show it we can check the results of the team with Diego Lopez as the goalkeeper, since he has played 12 spanish liga´s game and Villarreal has only lost 1 game , receiving only 9 goals. So, excellent numbers of the team with Diego López, especially if we compare these results with the numbers of the other Villarreal´s goalkeeper, Sebastian Viera, because this goalkeeper played 19 games, with 6 defeats and with 27 goals received.

But besides the Diego López´s effect, we should also bear in mind in order to understand these good results, the recovery of the excellent Argentinian central defender Gonzalo Rodríguez (5 games with the Argentinian National Team), who, after several months being injured, has been recovered and he has returned in an high level, and the numbers, as Diego López´s case, show it, because since Gonzalo has returned to the team, Villarreal has not lost any game in the Spanish league and it only has received 6 goals in 11 games.
Therefore it seems essential to understand the good results of the ”yellow submarine”, the presence in the squad of these 2 players who have joined a fairly balanced defensive line with players, as the young Uruguayan central defender Diego Godín- player who is playing very well, being indisputable in the squad -or the experimental Pascal Cygan-this year he has improved his level, and even he passes the ball correctly-or the player of the Argentinian National Team Fabricio Fuentes, who will be injured until the end of the season. Moreover, these good central defenders have the help of experimental right and left backs as Joan Capdevila (15 games with the Spanish national team) on the left and as Javi Venta, Josemi (European champion with Liverpool) or Ángel (4 games with the Spanish national team) on the right.

So, it is a very good defensive line and it plays with an high level as the rest of the team´s lines, since Villarreal FC has a very complete squad, thus the coach has many good options to choose tranquillity, since the team does not depend on the inspiration of a single player, as in the Juan Roman Riquelme´s period, when the only real solution for the coach was the play of this brilliant midfielder.Examples of this high level we can see in players like the promising midfielder Bruno, the experimental Marcos Senna or technical and skilled offensive midfielders Cani, Robert Pires, "Matigol" Fernandez or Santi Cazorla, who returned to Villarreal after an formidable season at the Recreativo Huelva-or the strikers as the opportunist Danish Jon Dahl Tommasson-51 goals in 97 games with Denmark,- as the fast Turkish Nihat Kahveci, the worker Mexican Guille Franco and the skillful Italian "Pepe" Rossi, who is one of the sensations of the Spanish league.

Is it enough to win the league?

The truth is that it's complicated to say that a priori Villarreal can win the league, but if we analyse the schedule and the level of the play of the teams, it does not seem so difficult that it can win the title, since the “yellow submarine” is playing very well and it will have not too complicated games, except one game at home against Atletico Madrid and 2 as visitor (in Seville and Almeria). On the other hand, we can not say the same thing about FC Barcelona (this team is always with polemics, injuries and with a very poor results as visitor, since FC Barcelona has only won 4 games during this season and it also has Champions League´s game) and Real Madrid (we know the theory about Bernd Schuster, whose teams play horrible during the second half of the season and besides it has a complicate schedule with games against teams like Sevilla FC and FC Barcelona at home and Real Zaragoza, Osasuna and Rácing Santander as visitor). So anything is possible at the end of this league and here, in Saqueneutral, we will explain it.

Cheers,

J&F