Villarreal vs Eibar: La Liga FINALE Preview.

We’ve seen the rumors. Santi Cazorla and Al Sadd. I think most Villarreal fans are sort of assuming that the magician won’t be back next season.

If you are like me, this has sort of snuck up on you. I’ve known he is probably leaving but I have not really put together that if he’s leaving that means that Sunday is probably the last time we will see him in a Villarreal shirt. Ever. I don’t think I’m ready for that and I’m really bothered that it will be in front of an empty Madrigal

Our opponents

It will be interesting to see how motivated Eibar is for this match. Eibar is in 13th. They (I think) could drop as low as 16th, and there is some tv money at play in that difference but Eibar ultimately just want to stay in La Liga.

The oddities of the virus break mean that Eibar is without the man who was their most dangerous player this season, Fabian Orellana. He will be signing with Valladolid and when his contract expired he didn’t want to put his next move at risk. I hate it for Eibar, but I’m glad they had an Orellana fueled run to survival before it happened.

As you’ll remember we took a ghoulish 2-1 loss to Eibar on October 31st, 2019 to a 95th minute Orellana winner.

Villarreal

Calleja clearly set out a team against Real Madrid with a focus on winning this game. Sitting Albiol, not starting Santi and Iborra, we basically mailed in the first half because we didn’t want to lose our CB to suspension and didn’t wanna play the old guys a bunch of minutes. Despite all that preparation and effort, we have already backed into a Europa League place anyway. I expect our lineup to look like this:

If Paco’s back healthy maybe he starts here? Hopefully Fer and Baena get a bunch of second half minutes (frankly, Quintilla should get some too). Just looking for a spirited performance, giving Santi the best sendoff we can, and enjoying him while we can.

A reminder that Bruno and Zambo’s situations are also uncertain, but hopefully they are both back next year.