Villarreal tried everything against Barcelona – except moving the game to Miami | La Liga

Marcelino García Toral came bounding down the steps like an excited schoolboy when the bell goes. He flew past the substitutes and staff, skidded left, and sprinted up the line all wide-eyed and excited, shaking his fists and beaming. He had gone 15 or 20 metres, maybe 25 when he realised – just a fraction later than everyone else – that something had gone wrong again. So Villarreal’s manager put the brakes on and his head down, and turned back towards the bench feeling almost as silly as this was getting. This, he already suspected, was going to be one of those days.

They had been playing 16 minutes and the goal Villarreal had scored, the goal Jules Koundé scored for them, wasn’t a goal at all. Just as the chance they made after 80 seconds wasn’t, Nicolas Pépé putting wide from a yard out. Just as Ayoze Pérez’s opportunity on six minutes wasn’t a goal, Tajon Buchanan’s effort on 13 wasn’t, and Raphinha’s on nine minutes was. One moment – a dash, a tumble and a penalty and from nowhere Villarreal trailed Barcelona as two of La Liga’s best teams met on the Mediterranean, not in Miami. Barcelona beat Villarreal 2-0.

Marcelino sat back down, but soon he was on his feet again. Buchanan put another wide on 24 minutes. Pépé ran clear, the move ending with an Albert Moleiro shot on 32. Three minutes later Buchanan was in again but the ball hit Joan García, hit Buchanan, bounced back towards the line and didn’t hit the net. Somehow, no one really knew how, it had squeezed past the far post instead. Marcelino now put his head in his hands. The next time, he just stood there, arms wide, looking into space, barely able to believe it. A bit before the break Villarreal were broken, a man down after Renato Veiga was sent off for going through Lamine Yamal.

“Just when the game was so nice, such a lovely spectacle,” Marcelino said afterwards, which might not be the most convincing reason not to give a red, but you could understand how he felt, maybe even feel the same way. Down to 10 men, the game was done; an enjoyable one, on edge, had come to an early end. Whistled for the terrible crime of being taken out, early in the second half Lamine Yamal scored a smart toe poke with a hint of Ronaldinho about it, the finish more futsal than full size, and celebrated by whistling back. There was an appeal for a penalty – Marcelino claimed Barça’s García took down Rafa Marín while also admitting “other opinions” are available – but no more goals. Villarreal’s challenge had lasted 38 minutes.

It had been short but it had been some challenge. Which is the way it was supposed to be, if not where it was supposed to be. This was first against third, and if Villarreal’s manager has kept saying that they couldn’t win the league lately, that was because people kept asking if they could. Although he insisted the actual championship was out of their reach, the winter championship – an honorary, trophy-less title “given” to the team that’s top at half way – still wasn’t. Barcelona had won seven in a row, Villarreal six. They hadn’t been beaten at home; the run in fact stretched into last season, all the way back to March.

In short, this was exactly the kind of game you would take to the States if you wanted to promote La Liga and exactly the kind of scenario that supported the argument that you shouldn’t: how could you take a home game off one team competing for the league and give it to another? In the end, the league’s president Javier Tebas was beaten by his own blustering bullishness, victim of his very Tebasness. With plans incomplete, the players he had refused to listen to stood up to be heard and with Real Madrid manoeuvring against them, Tebas had failed for a fourth time to take La Liga to the US. Never mind Crockett and Tubbs, the Hard Rock Stadium and flying to Florida, Barcelona instead caught a plane 250km south to Castellón, installing themselves in a hotel opposite the station and travelling 10km up to Vila-real where instead of Miami’s pastel pinks it was all yellow – even the father Christmas sitting outside the ground.

To start with, most of the attacks were too. The game began at 4.15pm local time, 10.15pm eastern standard; by 4.17pm at the ceramic stadium, Villarreal had already had their first chance. The chances kept coming too, racking up half a dozen of them by the time Veiga was sent off: 38 really good minutes in which Barcelona struggled to get out and Villarreal repeatedly got through, robbing and running relentlessly – even after Raphinha scored the penalty and then smashed an outrageous shot off the bar.

“We saw a really great Villarreal, an enormous Villarreal,” Marcelino said afterwards. He also said that Vega’s red could have been orange and suggested Raphinha’s penalty was a bit soft. But he knew this was an opportunity lost. “To beat Barcelona, you have to take your chances,” Marcelino offered.

Usually, they do just that. With athleticism and assuredness, Villarreal have the best shot conversion rate in La Liga. Pérez had scored two from two shots on target and Buchanan had five goals from an xG of less than one. But against Barça, it was different. “At half-time we should have been a goal up, or two. Apart from the penalty and the shot against the bar they didn’t do anything, and we had infinite chances,” captain Dani Parejo insisted. Marcelino said: “In the first 15 or 20 minutes, we did enough to be in the lead and by more than one goal, but this is football. They score a goal. And their second goal comes after five rebounds. Even with 10 men, we competed with dignity. We made their goalkeeper their best player. What more can I ask for? Nothing really. I am very satisfied, but it’s a pity.”

With nine players missing, Villarreal had shown why some might see them as candidates, completing what their coach rightly called an “extraordinary” 2025 in which, with 75, only Madrid and Barcelona collected more points. A club where there is a stability, financially and institutionally, and relatively little pressure, they have a manager who has been successful everywhere with a clear idea and structure, a team of transitions that don’t always need much of the ball to do damage. They also have the strongest squad of all the “other” clubs in Spain, greater resources than the rest: a fast, efficient side. Yet, it is tempting to conclude, perhaps they also showed why they might not be. They don’t have a Lamine, a Raphinha – described in El Periódico as the Pantocrator – nor a Garcia. There was something familiar, possibly even predictable about this, even while it unfolded as it did.

They had tried everything, except move to Miami. Maybe they should have done: Villarreal have won three or their last four at Barcelona but none at home against them since 2007. There is also a certain logic about their results, at least in La Liga (how bad Villarreal have been in Europe baffles and hints wider concerns about the level domestically). They have beaten the rest but their three defeats have come against Atlético Madrid, Real Madrid, and now Barcelona, like there is still some ceiling there, something that separates them still.

“They counter fast and we have to manage that better, but I always had the feeling we were a little bit better,” Frenkie de Jong said. That might have been pushing it but Barcelona found a way through again, taking them to eight consecutive wins since the clasico, putting them four points clear at the top and making them winter champions. That may not mean much but isn’t quite as empty as the Fifa Peace Prize: they will be top at half way, having played everyone, winning at Villarreal, where no one else had in 14 league matches, not since Madrid were there in March.

“Villarreal are a fantastic team and I’m very happy about these three points: you can see that my team is a little tired but the mentality and the attitude is unbelievable. Now we rest and celebrate Christmas with our families which is important too,” Hansi Flick said, offering a‘Feliz Navidad’ before heading off for a mercifully short flight home.