La Liga Lowdown, Jornada 8: Villarreal – A Real Alternative?

Villarreal’s victory over Atlético Madrid at the weekend saw them move up to second place in La Liga, just one point behind leaders Real Madrid. Not so long ago Atlético themselves were being considered ‘alternatives’ to the usual top two after a good start, but a few bad results and the subsequent drop down to eigth in the league has dampened early optimism.

The new ‘alternatives’ for many seems to be Villarreal. Nicknamed the Yellow Submarine, they’re looking a real team this season under former ‘B’ team coach Juan Carlos Garrido, playing attractive football whilst getting results. The question remains whether they have the ability to keep it up and go all the way, as in recent times they’ve always fallen short eventually. Had they beaten Hércules a few weeks ago, they would’ve sat proudly at the top of La Liga for the first time in their history. But they didn’t, they drew.

The loss of key players like Diego Godín, Joseba Llorente, and Ariel Ibagaza just to name a few doesn’t seem to have affected Villarreal too much. Garrido’s solution to the loss of Godín, one of the best centre-backs in the league, was to bring in Carlos Marchena. And the re-shaping of the defence continued as 20-year-old Mateo Musacchio stepped up seamlessly from the ‘B’ team to form a solid partnership with the ex-Valencia man.

Their basic set-up hasn’t changed that much in recent years, still playing a similar variation of 4-4-2 that was favoured by past managers such as Manuel Pellegrini. The key similarity being that the ‘wide’ players aren’t really wingers; they’re attacking midfielders. For example, we had Robert Pires and Ariel Ibagaza who both played these roles when they were at the club. In today’s squad, these roles are given to another two excellent, technically astute, ball-playing midfielders: Santi Cazorla and Borja Valero. Cazorla’s form has already earned him a recall to the Spanish national team after missing out on the World Cup (although partly because of injury problems last season).

It’s also no coincidence that Garrido’s team are second highest goal scorers in the league with a striking due consisting of Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar, La Liga’s most on-song pairing. Both have managed five goals each this season and were early leaders of the Pichichi race until Cristiano Ronaldo came along.

The 2-0 win over Atlético at El Madrigal on Saturday was another good performance, but wasn’t without controversy. Atlético had a goal disallowed in the second minute after Sergio Agüero was adjudged to have been offside. Then on the stroke of half-time, Atléti had their appeals for a fairly clear looking penalty turned down by referee Ramírez Domínguez, who instead blew his whistle for half-time.

Quique Sánchez Flores was incensed by the decision and ended up getting himself sent to the stands for protesting against the ref’s first-half decisions. According to the ref, Sánchez Flores was sent off for his remarks in the tunnel, where he said: “The penalty is very clear, this is outrageous.”

Villarreal, already a goal up thanks to Cani, were two up shortly after half-time. Another great piece of play by Nilmar (who was outstanding all game), set up Giuseppe Rossi who finished well.

The game went on to finish 2-0. “Today we are very happy and content, we played a great game”, said Garrido. He also didn’t want to focus too much on the refereeing errors from the game, saying that the game was won simply by “a team that was better”.

Lower down the Lowdown:

• Real Madrid racked up another six goals in their 6-1 win over Racing Santander, with Cristiano Ronaldo picking up four. “The King of Europe” according to Marca. Racing were dreadful though; Miguel Ángel Portugal’s 5-4-1 master plan failed miserably as they left oceans of space for the Madrid players to exploit. Mesut Özil and Gonzalo Higuaín got the other two goals. I make that 22 goals in the league so far.
• An absolutely thrilling game took place at the Sánchez Pizjuán where Sevilla beat Athletic Bilbao 4-3. Sevilla were three goals up after an hour, the returning Luís Fabiano getting on the score sheet twice. That was until Fernando Llorente (who else?) scored twice in the space of two minutes to make it 3-2. The madness continued when Sevilla were awarded a penalty and Fredi Kanouté converted for his second goal of the game. 4-2. Igor Gabilondo wrapped up the ‘goalfest’ with a 93rd minute goal. “Crazy”, as Gregorio Manzano put it, is probably an accurate summation.
• Mallorca picked up three points in a brilliant away win at Valencia, with Chori Castro getting both goals. Roberto Soldado did manage to pull one back for Los Che but it wasn’t enough. Ramis and Nunes were colossal at the heart of Mallorca’s defence.
• Real Sociedad won 3-0 on Monday night against a poor Deportivo, goals from Joseba Llorente, Antoine Griezmann and Imanol Agirretxe. And, not only was Griezmann in terrific form, he provided us with this genius celebration.

Results

Villarreal 2-0 Atlético, Valencia 1-2 Mallorca, Zaragoza 0-2 Barcelona, Real Madrid 6-1 Racing, Espanyol 2-1 Levante, Osasuna 3-0 Málaga, Almería 1-1 Hércules, Getafe 3-0 Sporting, Sevilla 4-3 Athletic, Real Sociedad 3-0 Deportivo.

Goal of the Week

Papa Diop (Racing 1-6 Real Madrid)

(photo via greg hefner on Flickr)

Juan Carlos Garrido, Nilmar, Real Madrid, Real Mallorca, Real Sociedad, Sevilla, Spanish Primera Division, Villarreal