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Villarreal’s second team got back on the winning track with a 1-0 win over Nastic Tarragona on Sunday. Key point of the match was a ridiculous challenge by a Nastic player on Our Baena less than 20 minutes in, sending the home side down to ten men.
Collardo scored shortly after and though we had plenty of chances to add to that scoreline, that’s the way it ended up, with Tarragona somehow managing a chance right at the end that didn’t go in.
Highlights are here.
Villarreal are mid-table (10th) on 23 points, just 4 away from the playoff places, but injuries, especially in attack, are making it difficult for us. We have scored 16 times (14th in the league) and allowed 17 goals (joint 10th). Next week we host Ejea, currently 13th.
Nastic, incidentally, is where Ike Uche played from 2016-19, though I don’t believe he has a club these days. (He’s now 35, so may have hung up his cleats). And Uche was one of 30+ players cleared today of wrongdoing in the Zaragoza-Levante match of 2009-10 that was allegedly fixed; Tebas’s show-trial came to nothing except some small sentences for club bosses for falsifying documents.
And it’s where Jony Pereira now is—Jony started this game but was substituted as a result of the red card. (He’s now 32, and I have to assume he has lost some of that great speed he had).
Villarreal C were inactive this weekend—they return to action Wednesday with a home match against Paterna. They are currently third in the table. And the Villarreal women’s first team drew 0-0 with Levante’s B team (their first team is one of the top teams in Spain). We’re currently fourth and haven’t lost in our last four, but Sunday will be a big test away to the group leaders, Santa Teresa.
Villarreal’s goalkeeper who shut out Levante B (and took some bumps in the process; highlights are here) was Paula Antolí, who began playing in the Villarreal cantera 15 years ago and made her first-team debut in this match.
Enjoy the day!