The lowdown on Valencia CF
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Sunday brings a game at home to Valencia, kicking off at 9pm CET. Let's take a closer look at a side that's not having the best of seasons so far.
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.
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 2023/24, and the season before they ended 16th having come dangerously close to being relegated for only the second time ever.
Sadly for them, this season is going even worse. They have only won two games in the league, and none at all away from home, and are currently second from bottom in the table, just one point above Real Valladolid. However, in the last two games things were looking up, even though they failed to win either. They were on the verge of beating Real Madrid only to concede two late goals in a dramatic final few minutes, and were also winning away to Sevilla but conceded an equaliser deep into injury time.
They are still alive in the Copa del Rey, although it has to be said that the draw has been extremely kind to them and they have yet to face any top flight teams thus far. That's changing in the quarter finals when they will, of course, be up against FC Barcelona! So, we''l meet again very, very soon...
Head to head
Valencia are typically one of the bigger teams in Spain, but Barça have a consistently strong record against then in recent years. In fact, they have only lost three of the last 35 meetings in the league.
The sides met at Mestalla in the first game of the season, and although Hugo Duro put Valencia ahead, a second half brace from Robert Lewandowski turned the game around. The Pole had scored a hat-trick in a 4-2 win the season before, and in total has an impressive six goals from his three meetings to date with Los Che.
LAST FIVE MEETINGS
17/08/24 (LIGA) Valencia 1-2 Barça
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
The players
Most international caps
Stole Dimitrievski (North Macedonia, 76), José Gayà (Spain, 22); Giorgi Mamardashvili (Georgia, 21), Mouctar Diakhaby (Guinea, 14), Umar Sadiq (Nigeria, 12), Cenk Özkacar
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.
The boss
Carlos Corberán replaced the dismissed Rubén Baraja at the helm of the Valencia squad in December. A goalkeeper who never played at the top level and retired when he was just 23, he instead went into coaching. His life took some odd routes, and via Saudi Arabia and Cyprus he ended up assisting Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds United. In England he also had jobs with Huddersfield and West Bromwich Albion, and he was also in Greece at Olympiacos, his current post being his first senior coaching job back in his home country.
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