It wasn´t very hard that someone at Villarreal vs Valencia would score against his old team, as there were several players who have worn both jerseys. However, the winning goal was scored by probably the most iconic player on the field, Dani Parejo, current Villarreal´s midfielder and ex Valencia´s captain for the last nine years. He was forced to leave this summer and today he stole three teams for his current club at the Valencia derby with his goal. Medicine for Valencia´s property (Peter Lim).
Two opposite projects:
Nowadays the only thing that these two clubs share are the community where they live. While the Yellow Submarine have been doing things well for the last few years and, therefore, created a winning and ambitious team, the squad from the capital coudn´t be doing thins worse. Moreover, Villarreal are benefiting from Valencia´s crisis.
And all this gets reflected on the pitch. Villarreal moved the ball around the first half an hour and made Valencia chase shadows. They scored the first goal thanks to a penalty taken by Alcácer (who also played for Valencia) after a great assist by Chukwueze. The first ex of the afternoon.
Guedes´ goal boosted Valencia:
The equalizer by Guedes before halftime gave wings to the bat and tightened the game up more than it seemed to at the start. if it looked like after the first 30 minutes Villarreal would score several goals, Guedes´equalizer gave them some confidence back. The Portuguese received a pass from a corner kick and he took a tough shot from right outside the box that surprised Asenjo.
Emery´s squad decided to put Iborra as the 5th midfielder and Parejo and Trigueros in front of him, making a triangle, as they were aware of the fact that Javi Gracia´s team always falls back on a effective 4-4-2 defensively that makes things tough for the opponents to attack (he can´t do much more). Chukwueze and Moi Gómez made diagonal runs that allowed full backs Mario Gaspar and Alfonso Pedraza to go up constantly, and so Valencia´s full backs and wingers did not know who to mark. This way, Parejo and Trigueros haad more time to think and send passes.
It had to be Parejo:
Despite Villarreal´s domain, they struggled to get the three points. Valencia could only attack through Guedes´runs or Maxi Gómez winning some 50/50 balls that Carlos Soler would take to build plays, but not much more. They didn´t finish.
Twenty minutes before the final whistle, Kubo connected with Parejo outside the box with his heel, and he took aa perfect shot that went in after touching the crossbar. A goal not against Valencia, for which he apologized, but against Peter Lim´s non sense´management. Villarreal won the derby thanks to this and Parejo had his own revenge against an ownership that will get way more lessons in the future.
