Villarreal preseason: staying close to home

Villarreal USA keeps hoping we’ll get a visit from Villarreal CF to the USA one of these days, but not this summer. Preseason plans are still being worked out but what we do know is Villarreal will begin practices on July 10 in Vila-real before heading to El Saler, south of Valencia, where they will stay at a resort-type hotel there and train from July 16 to 21.

The Submarine want to play seven preseason matches: the dates proposed are July 15, 22, 26, 30 and August 2, 6 and 12.

Of these, the only confirmed one at present is July 30: Villarreal will play Levante in Alcoy, at Alcoyano’s ground, El Collao.

My guess is the August 2 and 6 matches might be in the UK (we’ve tended to want to warm up against then-Championship sides like Brighton and Derby), but that’s just a guess. I would expect the remaining friendlies to be in eastern Spain—Girona maybe as they are newly promoted? Or Zaragoza, whom we tend to play in preseason from time to time?

We will update the preseason schedule as more fixtures are arranged.