Villarreal vs Huesca: La Liga Season Opener Match Preview

It’s only been a few weeks, but it’s nonetheless wonderful to have La Liga back. It’s the best league in the world and there’s just no substitute for it. This week we get the privilege of not just getting our season started but also in welcoming Huesca back to the top flight. You can see our conversation with Huesca ‘friend of the club’ Luca Lorenzo here.

Our opponents

Huesca are a fun club from a relatively small town, just like us. They have a really cool tradition of customizing their captain’s armband for every away trip to honor the city they are playing in and then gifting that armband to their opponents afterward to keep an eye on that.

Andres Fernandez will probably be starting for them in goal, and while I hope he has a wonderful year overall, I’m hoping he is still getting used to his new back line in week one. Expect them to come out in something similar to a 442 and attack us. Oddly, this match could come down to whoever gets caught out on the break.

Villarreal

I very adamantly write off preseason results. They don’t matter. Which in our case is a good thing. We have two very beatable opponents in our first two matches of the season, and it will be important to get started off with wins. Here’s what I expect Unai Emery to do with his first competitive XI:

lineupbuilder.com

I’ve been surprised by Emery sticking with the 442 in preseason but I guess that is what he thinks our personnel fits. He could start either Iborra or Coquelin in the pivot with Parejo, that’s six in one, half dozen in the other and I’m really not sure about the left wing. I know he played with Kubo as part of the top two (making it more of a 4141) but I expect he’ll try to get both of our bigger name strikers and Kubo all in the lineup for an opponent we should be able to attack. Eventually, I’d like to see Kubo on the left and Chukwueze on the right, but we’ll see how it goes.

Prediction

Huesca is extremely likable but we should beat this team. 3-1 win.