Luck had nothing to do with it….>_>.

By: Javier | March 7th, 2009

What a great day for football in Spain. I had to watch the Madrid derby right before the Villarreal game started. Great match for both sides, and a good watch. I wish Atletico took the win though, they easily overpowered Madrid in the game. One point was awarded to each team with a 1-1 tie and Atletico then was only 2 points behind us.

Villarreal vs Espanyol

1st Half

I’m so glad to be seeing Nihat on the pitch. He’s been injured a while ago, and has been slowly been getting to 100$ until today. Right at the start we attack the Espanyol defense. Great runs by Nihat and crosses from Angel (whats he doing up on attack, who cares he’s great at it lol). After taking total control of the game, we score from a great cross. Fuentes was unmarked and had to do almost nothing to head the ball into the back of the net. 1-0 Villarreal and were feeling great. The thing I love about this team is how we can adjust with different players. We can rest Rossi and still be fine in the attack, or rest Senna and be fine in the midfield. We are a great attacking team and know how to play with one and another. Right? Well, I always bash on the defense, and these guys made ONE big mistake today that almost costs us the game. The pass back to Diego from Fuentes was a mess. Diego had no idea it was going to go that high and just reached on over and saved the Risse-like own goal. Such a quality keeper because if you saw the game or replays, he gets a great grab and throws it right over his body. He knew where the ball was at all times and executed it perfectly. The half ends with Villarreal coming out as the dominant team.

2nd Half

This is where we are all happy and Espanyol is pissed off because they are now 2nd to last place. Espanyol of all teams too. This is the team that beat Barca at home and is always above midtable, or so I thought. #9 De la Peña sure hated it, and was nothing but pushing us back to the defense to prevent us from scoring again. Now we didn’t field our best team, we rested a lot of players due to the Champions League game next week, but they had a lot of trouble scoring. Great chances from them, and they all either ended by misleading communication or just God awful strikes. We did screw up though. We caused a legitimate penalty. In our defenders offense, he was pretty much flying for the ball and accidentally nicked the lads boot a bit :-/. Luis Garcia goes up and takes the penalty to only overpower the shot and got denied by the crossbar. What luck. Our mistake has been avoided and we miss the tie game. This not only gives us happiness but just makes Espanyol rage even more. Dangerous tackles were being committed and the ref was blindside for the whole match. Great job there Miguel. Somewhere along side of the 70th minute we see Senna do his little ~~Brazilian~~ Spanish magic. The guys still got it and moves up for the attack. We do get a couple of nice shots at goal, but none were threatening. At least none that we had a touch too. Angel and Capdevilla provided great crosses across the penalty box, but they were never met with a touch to put it in the back of the net. The game ends and we snatch the 3 points without too much disappointment from the coach. I was pretty happy with the result and our strategy for the Champions League. Man of the match, good ol Diego. I love the guy and he’s such an underrated keeper.

La Liga

That win puts us 2 points behind 3rd place Sevilla. With Madrids tie Barca advances its lead from all of us. Right now I’m more focused about a Champions League spot then the title. Sure its still possible, I mean even Barca has its off days..We face Panathinaikos on Tuesday for the Champions League and Atletico Madrid on Sunday. Hell week? I believe so. Possible, of course. Were fantastic.
Vamos Villarreal!!