Villarreal resisted in Vallecas

Following a trip to Athens where they lost to Panathinaikos less than 72 hours earlier, Castellón’s team appeared in Vallecas ready to dispel the doubts shown at the start of the season, which led to the sacking of Quique Setién for two and a half weeks. before.

for this match José Rojo ‘Pacheta’ presented three changes Compared to the last league match, Villarreal has two in defence. Alberto Moreno was on the left wing, Mandi was in the middle of the defense, and the innovation in the middle of the field was Santi Comesaña, who returned to Vallecas for the first time between 2016 and 2023.

One of these players, Alberto Moreno, was the one who started the game for Villarreal’s first goal. He picked up a ball on the left, piped in from Iván Balliu and curled a cross in behind Aridane, who collected the ball. Alex Baena started the race to the starting line before passing the ball into the heart of the field for Sörloth to score.

Villarreal’s joy lasted barely a minute because after a cross, Unai López received the ball in midfield, looked up and looked for Raúl de Tomás with a long pass that he could not control but collected quicker than the defenders. Kike Pérez, who tops his shot with Vaseline against Filip Jorgensen.

Rayo’s goal gave the Madrid team a boost as they took control of the ball. The left wing, led by Álvaro García, wreaked havoc for most of the first half, but Villarreal managed to take the lead once again. He did so in the 40th minute with a diagonal shot from Gerard Moreno that hit the right post of Dimitrievski’s goal.

In the second half, the game became more balanced, there was no clear dominance.The first mover was Pacheta, who brought Manu Trigueros into the game instead of Gerard Moreno, with whom Villarreal gained consistency.

Francisco Rodríguez also wanted to look for variants and retired Raúl de Tomás and Isi Palazón, who looked rather blurry, and introduced Jorge de Frutos and Sergio Camello into the fray, which gave the Rayo attack more mobility, which began to multiply their approaches. Jorgensen’s goal saw his opponent close in on his second goal in the 73rd minute when Oscar Trejo’s diagonal shot hit the post.

Shortly after, in ’77, Alberto Moreno received the second yellow card and was sent off.It left Villarreal with ten men, forcing Pacheta to re-convert José Luis Morales as a full-back.

Although the yellow-red team was weak in numbers, they did not collapse and managed to score the second goal. One on one with Yeremy Pino, saved by Dimitrievski.

The last minutes were dominated by Rayo, who surrounded Villarreal with continuous attacks.Especially by the Cape Verdean Babe’s group, which left Villarreal’s defense helpless, knowing how to suffer to stop the attacks of the locals.