Villarreal News September 9: Women win first match, more

Villarreal’s women’s side kicked off their season under new coach Sara Montforte with a 1-0 victory over Fundación Albacete. With eight new players this season, Sara’s squad hopes to make a push for promotion from their current regional league to the national division.

Daniele Bonera returned to practice, having received his medical discharge last week, which is good news. Bruno Soriano continues his recovery and is hopeful of being available in the next couple of weeks as well; he played in a friendly scrimmage against the B team last week.

International news: Carlos Bacca played most of the friendly against Venezuela for Colombia, assisting on the winning goal (score was 2-1). He’ll be in the squad to play Argentina on Wednesday in New York. Ramiro Funes Mori will be in that Argentina squad; he started and played over an hour in a friendly win over Guatemala (3-0). Karl Toko Ekambi, meanwhile, played for Cameroun in a 1-1 draw against the Comoro Islands; disappointing result given it was a qualifier for the net African Cup of Nations.

Meanwhile, Pablo Fornals and Alfonso Pedraza were part of the Spanish under-21 team that defeated Albania, 3-0, in a UEFA under-21 championship qualifier. They play Northern Ireland in Albacete on Tuesday in another one.

Denis Cheryshev is in the news, being investigated for medical treatment prior to the World Cup. His father gave an interview to the press during the competition where he referred to some sort of plasma injection to help his rehabilitation, though as a layman it wasn’t clear he really understood what he was talking about (he called it “growth hormone”, as I recall).

Sid Lowe talks with one of his favorite subjects, Santi Cazorla.

And with Villarreal signing 34 year-old Manuel Iturra, we have become the Primera club with the oldest average age among them all. (When we do well, we’re ‘ most experienced’; when we don’t, we’re ‘oldest’).

Castellón host Villarreal B today and Villarreal C play at Eldense.

Endavant!!!