Contrasting summaries from the protagonists in a cracking derby

We’ve all had fun (though Jiwonsi might not admit it) discussing a contentious derby, but I thought everyone might enjoy reading the narratives each team put out after the match.

It’s worth noting that each English report is NOT a simple translation of the Spanish, but is a separate writeup from a native English speaker, probably someone who grew up in the English soccer tradition.

Valencia’s is here. Well written, though the reference to a ‘marginal offside call’ chalking off the Valencia goal near the end of the first half is clearly incorrect—nothing marginal about it.

The failure to mention the Villarreal misses at goal in the 75-85 minute mark (Soriano, Cheryshev) is unfortunate. Comparing it to the Spanish and Valencian accounts on the same site, this one is a much less exciting description of the match (I am pretty sure the same person wrote the Spanish and Valencian and one is just a translation of the other)—that writer madefrequent reference to the Mestalla crowd cheering the team on and wrote “I wanted to turn the scoreboard (i.e. for a Valencia goal)” and “it was a fanstastic fight against a rival that could barely withstand the black-and-white push” which is a pretty good description, actually.

Villarreal’s description (both the English and Valencian versions) manages to omit the potential handball incident entirely, but does manage to convey some of the ebb-and-flow of the second half while emphasizing Villarreal’s chances. I can’t help feeling though that a sentence like “with two minutes left in the half, Valencia screamed vociferously for a handball against Trigueros, but nothing was given” would have been a good addition to what was otherwise a fine writeup.

Villarreal’s Spanish and Valencian versions are similar enough to the English that I suspect the English and Valencian were a translation of the Spanish. Interestingly, Villarreal’s writeup conveys more excitement about the result, but is fairly dispassionate in describing the match itself.

Valencia sports paper Superdeporte leads with a quote from Marcelino (!) to the effect that the “no goal against Barca (he’s referring to the Messi legitimate goal that was waved off against Valencia) seems to have cost us”. Well, Marce is a good Spaniard, willing to go for a conspiracy theory to explain things!! If that isn’t enough, the paper also reminds us that the same referee blew a handball call in a match in February. in fairness, while the paper includes quotes from Valencia players complaining about our goal being offside, they do include a match report that correctly states while it was very close, it was not offside.

At any rate, Villarreal players and staff return December 29 to begin preparations for a trip to Leganes (Copa del Rey, January 4), and our first home match of the new year against Deportivo (January 7). Remember that we play Real Madrid the following week, and that marks the end of the first half of the schedule; in the second half, we will have 11 home matches compared to 8 away.

Enjoy the holidays!!