It was a cold night in South‐West Barcelona and the match kicked off at 9:00. We arrived at about 8 and found the ticket office. Managed to get tickets for 40€ so was fairly pleased about that. We got to our seats and realised the place wasn´t gonna fill up so we moved to behind the goal. Attendance in the end was 25,400.
The match was billed as the fight for a Champions League place, albeit only 20 games into the season. Pre‐match, Villarreal were sitting 3rd with 42 points, a position they have occupied since the 9th game of the season. Below them Valencia with 40 and Espanyol with 37. So for Villarreal there was real chance to pull away from the two teams behind them and for Espanyol an opportunity to recoup some much needed points.
The debate whether La Liga is better the Premiership is a long running one but one thing for sure is that the two leagues are very different. One difference is the technical ability of the players, in Spain it is far superior to that of the players in the Prem. Would 10th place Stoke beat 10th Getafe? Possibly and probably if they used their pace, strength and height effectively. But who would be the better passers, who would retain the ball better and keep possession? The technical ability I saw in the game, and warm‐up definitely impressed me.
A common exercise in both England and Spain is to form a triangle with three players and another one man playing the ´pig in the middle role´ and playing a one touch excerise. Now imagine this exercise with headers. Can you imagine Rory Delap, Andy Wilkinson and Abdoulaye Faye completing more than 10 headers on several occasions. Probably not, but the Villarreal lads did it with ease.
Two Villarreal players Borja Valero, (formerly of WBA) and Santi Cazorla stood out from the very start. 10 minutes in Borja Valero performed a perfect ´Maradona´turn in 86´ against England before his wonder goal on the edge of his own box which I couldn´t imagine happening in England very often. Fellow midfielder Santi Cazorla had a cracking game and seemingly has the ability to turn on a sixpence #cliche. Just before half time he picked the ball up in his own half and ignored activity on his right hand side, he switched the ball to his left foot and played a fantastic pass over the top for Rossi who finished fantastically.
It was Rossi´s 12th league goal of the season, only Pedro, Villa, Messi and Ronaldo sit higher than him in the Pichichi standings. He is looking very good this season and Villarreal have done well to keep him there. He has recently signed a new contract which has shunned some of the big clubs in Europe, most recently Spurs on transfer deadline day.
I am a huge fan of Spanish football but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I remember a game in 2005 between Real Madrid and Barcelona where Ronaldinho was fantastic and received a standing ovation from some Madristas at the Bernabéu. This is such an honourable thing to do and was keen to see some of this from the game but I got the opposite. The visiting keeper is always the first one out to train and in England (unless you are Robert Green) you will receive a smattering of applause from the home fans. Every player was whistled from start to finish. I expected some sort of reaction to the fantastic goal from Rossi but there was none, just silence. When Villarreal got the ball again the ear deafening whistles returned. To see grown men whistling at a bad tackle from an opposition player is understandable but to do it for 90 minutes is tiring and to me, somewhat immature. It shows a lack of respect and complete ignorance and disregard of ability.
In the 20th minute a foul by Valero, the whistles were at their loudest but a few moments later they suddenly turned into rapturous applause. It took me a few moments to realise why but then I did. It was by then the 21st minute and it was a homage to Dani Jarque, the former Espanyol player who tragically died in a heart attack in 2009. He wore the number 21 shirt and Espanyol fans dedicate a minutes applause to him every match. This was very nice to see and such a added a warm feeling to the game.
I´m sure if away fans had been invented in Spain they would have joined in. Mind you, the town of Villarreal has about 50,000 people in so maybe we are expecting a bit too much.
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