The lowdown on Valencia CF

A brand new league season gets under way this Saturday and FC Barcelona open their campaign with a trip to Valencia on Saturday at 9.30pm CEST. Here’s our lowdown on the club they call Los Che.

Where are they from?

Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, the fifth largest port in the Mediterranean and the capital of the region of the same name, where many people speak Valencian, a sister-language of Catalan. Its huge historic centre is crammed with buildings to admire, and it’s also the home of Spain’s most famous dish, paella, and of the spectacular fallas festival in March.

History

The club was founded in 1919, but was not among the original members of La Liga in 1928. Valencia started in the second division, but won promotion three years later and have stayed there ever since apart one season, 1986/87, when they dropped down to the second.

Valencia is the third-most supported football club in Spain, but they have generally played a supporting role to Barça and Real Madrid in La Liga. However, they have won the title six times, most recently in 2004, and in 2019 beat Barça to claim an eighth Copa del Rey trophy.

They’ve also won all of the big continental trophies apart from the Champions League, in which they were beaten finalists twice in a row in 2000 and 2001.

The stadium

The 55,000 capacity Mestalla takes its name from a canal that used to run alongside the field. For several years it was known instead as the Luis Casanova after one of the club’s most esteemed presidents, but in 1994 the man himself asked for it to take back its former name.

Built in 1923, it is the oldest of the twenty La Liga grounds, but its days are numbered. Work on a new stadium began in 2007 but the process has been interrupted by financial difficulties and it’s still unclear when the venue will be complete.

Form guide

Since qualifying for the Champions League in 2019, Valencia fans are currently enduring one of the poorest spells in the club's history. In the last five seasons they have not managed to finish any higher than ninth, which is where they finished in 2013/14, and the season before they ended 16th having come dangerously close to being relegated for only the second time ever.

Having failed to win any of their first five preseason games, losing to Alavés, PSV Eindhoven and Leeds United, and drawing 0-0 with neighbouring Castellón and Levante, they finally got a win, 3-2, over Eintracht Frankfurt in the 'Orange Trophy' their equivalent of the Gamper, last weekend.

Head to head

Valencia has a surprisingly poor recent record against the Catalans. They have only won three of the last 34 league meetings, and only one of those was at Mestalla.

The 1-1 draw at Mestalla earlier this season, when Hugo Guillamón cancelled out Barça's lead through João Felix, ended a run of five straight blaugrana victories against Valencia, but Barça were back on top when they met at the Estadi Olimpic, with Fermín Lopez opening the scoring and Robert Lewandowski contributing a hat-trick to a 4-2 win. 

LAST FIVE MEETINGS
29/04/24 (LIGA) Barça 4-2 Valencia
16/12/23 (LIGA) Valencia 1-1 Barça
05/03/23 (LIGA) Barça 1-0 Valencia
29/10/22 (LIGA) Valencia 0-1 Barça
20/02/22 (LIGA) Valencia 1-4 Barça

The players

Most international caps
Stole Dimitrievski (North Macedonia, 70), José Gayà (Spain, 22); Giorgi Mamardashvili (Georgia, 21), Mouctar Diakhaby (Guinea, 14), Cenk Özkacar (Turkey, 9)

Barça connections
Midfielder Sergi Canós and forwards Diego López and Rafa Mir (the latter on loan from Sevilla) all spent part of their development years in the FC Barcelona youth system.

Squad changes
The loan periods of Ukrainian Roman Yaremchuk and Moroccan Selim Amallah have ended and both have returned to their parent clubs. In the other direction, Swiss defender Eray Cömert and Spanish midfielder Samu Castillejo have returned from Nantes and Sassuolo respectively. In addition to Rafa Mir, Valencia have also loaned in the services of Dani Gómez from city rivals Levante, and have acquired North Macedonia's goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski on a free from Rayo Vallecano.

The boss

Rubén Baraja replaced the dismissed Gennaro Gattuso at the helm of the Valencia in February of last year. A veteran of 263 appearances for Valencia, as well as 43 caps for Spain, he is a revered figure at Mestalla, who since retiring had gained coaching experience in charge of Elche, Rayo Vallecano, Sporting Gijón, Tenerife and Zaragoza.