Category: Match Report

Maybe, just maybe, Valencia might not be heading for a painful and very forgettable end-of-season run after all.

Valencia truly, truly look like a mess now.

After a midweek Italian dismantling at the hands of Atalanta, Los Che received a Basque bombing at the Reale Arena as the nightmare form continued.

Jekyll and Hyde. Batman and the Joker. Heads and Tails. If there has been one recurring theme of Valencia this season it is how they can both be brilliant and despairing at the same time. Albert Celades’s team has been one of wildly undulating fortunes — capable of beating Barcelona 2-0 on home soil one weekend and then crashing out of the Copa Del Rey by losing 1-2 to 10th place Granada on another.

Bruised, battered, beaten. If Los Che were a Roman gladiator, he would have crawled out of the Coliseum Alfonso Perez in a bloody mess.

SO-LER. SO-LER. As the full time whistle sounded, the Mestalla went into delirium as the home fans chanted the No 8’s name. Every Valencia player on the field pumped their fists and gathered for a group hug. Every one in the stadium knew what the result meant: fourth place, at last.

Who needs Messi when you’ve got Maxi? And while Luis Suarez was missing for Barcelona, up stepped his fellow Uruguayan frontman for Valencia. Maxi Gomez ensured a first league win over the Blaugrana at the Mestalla since 2007 with a dominating performance.

Size matters. Maxi Gomez proved this as he comfortably shrugged off Eibar’s 1.72m right-back Alvaro Tejero for the game-winning header. A huge three points against La Liga’s smallest team, who hail from a Basque town of 27,000 – half the Mestalla’s capacity.