Looking ahead: Villarreal

By: Steve | August 30th, 2007

Hala Madrid! It does feel a bit uncomfortable writing about football after the tragic passing of Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta, but you guys come here for football news, and as they say, the show must go on.

But if Puerta’s passing does have a silver lining, it’s that the coincidence of 2 other players befallen from similar circumstances, Chaswe Nsofwa of Israeli side Hapoel Beersheba and 16-year-old Anton Reid of Walsall, along with the heart attack and thankful recovery of Leicester City’s Clive Clarke, may prompt more in-depth heart-related testing of players, to stop these kind of instances from occurring. It is rare to hear about players suffering heart problems and dying as a result - but 3 in 10 days? That’s just crazy.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by calling for mandatory testing of all players, and some sort of standards on training, like NOT doing it when temperatures approach 40°C like they were when Nsofwa collapsed. Players need to play, not die.

Anyways, so Los Merengues travel to Villarreal this weekend, who are coming off an impressive dismantling of what was supposed to be a competitive Valencia squad. Instead, David Villa and Joaquin got sent off, and Villarreal cruised to a 3-0 win, at the Mestalla no less, despite the loss of star striker Diego Forlan.

Here’s a glimpse of Villarreal’s win:

Real’s win last weekend over Atletico was encouraging, but they’ll have to be better against the yellow submarine that is Villarreal. Leftback Gabriel Heinze should get the start, but fellow late signing Arjen Robben will probably be ruled out until he is match fit. I wouldn’t expect much to change, except Metzelder starting alongside Pepe with Cannavaro injured. Raul may get another run out, but I think rolling the dice with Baptista here wouldn’t be a bad idea. We’ll see.

So, I think I was the only one who prognosticated the correct score last week, even though I picked the wrong scorers… no worries, in the end, it’s the final score that matters! So this week I’m going with a 2-2 draw, with Guti and van Nistelrooy scoring for Los Blancos, and Matias Fernandez and Pires answering for Villarreal.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Sky Sports says that they will be carrying the match on Sunday at 8pm on Sky Sports 2. I haven’t heard anything about a resolution between Mediapro and Sogecable, the Spanish media groups whose bickering caused last week’s miss, so we’ll have to wait and see if a liveblog will be possible.