Villarreal (B?)—Maccabi Tel Aviv PREVIEW

Villarreal host Maccabi Tel Aviv in a COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS last round match in the Europa League Group Stage. The Yellow Submarine have already sewn up first place in the group, and Maccabi are going to finish last. So with a home tie against Barcelona coming up on Sunday, here is Villarreal’s team call, complete with shirt numbers in many cases.

Keepers: Asenjo and Barbosa.

Defenders: Adrián Marín, Rukavina, Pau (#30), Genís (#38), Pepe Castaño (#50).

Midfielders: P. Fornals, M. Trigueros, Soriano, Ramiro (#26), Raba (#28), Chuca (#33), Pedrito (#37), Morlanes (#40), Lozano (#51).

Strikers: Mario González (#27), Darío Poveda (#34)

Obviously the interesting question will be who starts in goal, because the other should feature against Barca. Marín and Ruka will start, I’m pretty sure, and two of Fornals/Trig/Soriano, but otherwise, it’ll be B team players.

Maccabi Tel Aviv: The visitors won’t take this match too seriously either, because at the moment they are only 5th in the Israeli top flight with the season almost half completed. Their next match in the league isn’t until Monday, but then they have a cup match on Wednesday....so I expect to see some players feature who haven’t much.

Personally, I am hoping we see Aaron Schoenfeld in action tomorrow. The Knoxville native and East Tennessee State star hasn’t seen much action for Maccabi since joining them. As a native Tennessean, it would be really great for Aaron to get what I am sure would be the first goal scored by a Volunteer State native against Villarreal. But I digress....

Maccabi’s fate was sealed with a dire performance on Astana’s artificial turf, where they were defeated 4-0. In that match, Maccabi came out in a 4-5-1 but hardly threatened Astana’s goal. In the Slavia Prague away match, Maccabi played a 3-4-3 and at least were more competitive, so probably Cruyff will try that.

Prediction: I can confidently predict that Villarreal fans will be more interested in getting through this match without any injuries than the result. Beyond that, I’ll say Villarreal 1 (Poveda) — Maccabi 1 (Schoenfeld). How’s that?