Football Season Guide

The 2020/21 campaign was a historic one for Villarreal, who won their first ever major trophy by lifting the Europa League at the end of the year, defeating Manchester United on penalties. That also brought qualification for the Champions League, even though they could only manage seventh in the final league standings. This, then, is a club with a feel good atmosphere at the moment. Unai Emery’s first season was a success as he installed a winning mentality. His man management was probably more important than his tactics, especially as he chopped and changed his system several times throughout the season. Looking to avoid resting on their laurels, Villarreal have had a good transfer window so far and have signed a new striker in the form of Boulaye Dia, as well as pinching experienced centre-back Aïssa Mandi from Real Betis and making Juan Foyth’s loan stay a permanent one. Any players who departed were expendable. This is a really good team. Their main weakness last year was that they couldn’t always close out matches in which they went ahead, drawing 13 times in 38 games. They were very hard to beat, though, losing just 10 league matches. To have won a trophy in the first year of the Emery project was impressive. Now, in his second year, they might be even stronger.