IT IS TIME....for the Villarreal USA 2019-20 prediction contest!!!!

The last friendly of the pre-season is over, optimism reigns ahead of the new season, which can mean only one thing. IT IS TIME FOR OUR ANNUAL PREDICTION CONTEST!!!!!

The rules:

One entry per person; you can change your answers up until the deadline but not after that.

The deadline to enter is AUGUST 17, 10AM Pacific time (that is two hours before our match against Granada, for those of you unsure about time zones—like me).

The prizes are again, money towards your purchase at the club shop, either online or in Vila-real. Last season we did €100, €60 and €40, as I recall. Also, if you don’t already have one, you get a Villarreal USA scarf!!

Every year I try to get more of a spread in the results, and every year we manage to bunch together, usually—unfortunately—not doing very well. I’ll try again this time, but when it comes down to actually tallying the results, the decision of the judge (me) is final.

You are eligible to win again if you have won before. Do remember to give your answer to the tiebreaker!!!! Good luck. Note that all questions refer to league results only unless otherwise specified; I will use WhoScored as the final arbiter of things like yellow cards awarded and the like.

(1) our traditional question.....where will Villarreal finish in the league this season?

(2) and with how many points?

(3) Who will win La Liga?

(4) Will Villarreal qualify for Europe?

(5) Who will lead Villarreal in goals scored?

(6) Who will lead Villarreal in yellow cards? (the “Battling Jaume Costa” category)

(7) How many goals will Villarreal score (including own goals by the other team)?

(8) How many yellow cards will Villarreal receive?

(9) Who will lead Villarreal in assists?

(10) To the nearest 100 minutes, how many minutes will Alberto Moreno play?

(11) Will Bruno return to action this season?

(12) Supposedly, 43 points guarantees survival in La Liga—at least, that’s generally been true, and that’s been when the front office has celebrated survival. There are 38 jornadas in La Liga—after which one can Sr. Roig open the cava and celebrate another year of la permanencia?

(13) Speaking of cava, Allen always opens a bottle of bubbly if we defeat Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, or Barcelona. So....how many bottles of cava will he get to open this season after those matches?

(14) We have four matches against fellow Valencian Community clubs—two vs. Levante, two versus Valencia CF. How many points will we get from those four games? (you don’t need to specify how many against whom, just the total)

(15) And, we have TEN matches against Basque clubs—Eibar, Athletic Club, Real Sociedad, Alavés, and Osasuna. How many points will we get from these? (again, total will be fine).

(16) Who will finish higher in the league....Villarreal, Betis, Espanyol, or Real Sociedad?

(17) How many of the newly promoted teams will stay up this season?

(18) Which three teams will be relegated?

(19) Who will lead Villarreal in player rating on WhoScored? (minimum 1000 minutes played)

(20) And finally, will Villarreal B make the promotion playoffs?

TIEBREAKER—Villarreal’s team rating on Whoscored (6.72 a year ago, if that helps).

You can enter via the comment thread below (if you don’t mind everyone else seeing what you said—that’s kinda fun actually), if you want to send an email to groguet01@gmail.com with your picks that is OK too, just put “prediction contest” in the subject line. (Anyone reading this on facebook, that’s what you should do—don’t use the comment section in FB).

Endavant Villarreal, i bona sort!!! (I hope that’s how one says ‘good luck’ in Valencian).