Villarreal News: May 30 2017

Villarreal’s Juvenil A squad defeated Barcelona’s squad 3-0 in the first leg of their Copa del Rey quarterfinal (that’s right, they play two-legged eliminations all through this thing too). Video highlights here.

And CD Roda are attempting to make it out of the Regional Preferente and into the Tercera División for the first time. They lost the first leg of their playoff to Ribarroja 1-0 but will be hoping to turn that result round in the return leg. Roda are not part of Villarreal, but we collaborate with them on their youth teams, of which there are nearly three dozen.

Daniele Bonera has been speaking this weekend of his wish to stay one more year with Villarreal, though he admits he has an offer to return to Italy. Bonera will meet with Villarreal officials tomorrow and will learn whether he’ll be offered another one-year deal.

And news of Martin Caceres. Still only 30 and a Uruguay national team regular, Caceres has been released by Southampton. He can play either center back position, y’know. He never actually played competitively for Villarreal; we signed him for €900,000 from Defensor Sporting, we loaned him to Recreativo Huelva for the 2007-08 season (collecting a €150,000 loan fee!), and then on July 1st 2008 Barcelona bought him for €16.5 million!

I doubt Villarreal will be interested in taking a flier on him, as Celtic and Leicester are apparently pursuing him. But he has La Liga experience with Recre, Barca and Sevilla, so.....