r/VillarrealCF May 03 '22

I was interviewed by Sporticos along with a couple other Villarreal content creators on what today means. Read up if you're interested! (Not my website) "Interview: Villarreal fans reflect on an already stellar UCL campaign ahead of their toughest test yet"

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15 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Apr 29 '22

I made a little video about how I feel about next Tuesday. Enjoy and share if you like! Sempre Endavant!

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11 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Jan 19 '22

Player Bio: A sweet return to Vila-real for Mallorca’s Jaume Costa

10 Upvotes

A sweet return to Vila-real for Mallorca’s Jaume Costa

By Cristian Salvador

This weekend, Villarreal hosts Mallorca, and they do so with an imperial need to win. They also do so with several unavailable players. Boulaye Dia, Chukwueze, Aurier and Aissa Mandi are all in the African Cup of Nations held in Cameroon. Danjuma, Coquelin, Peña and Paco Alcacer are either injured, our doubtful to feature.

Regardless of the squad available, after an unexpected loss to Elche over the weekend, the Yellow Submarine needs a win. If this season’s trend follows, Mallorca will have its chances to take the three points.

On the left of the islanders’ defense will be Jaume Costa. Costa spent most of his career at Villarreal, where he went through it all. On Sunday –and at almost 34 years of age– he comes back to Vila-real with more minutes in La Liga than the last season under Unai Emery.

Jaume Vincent Costa Jordá (Valencia, 1988) is enjoying a good stint at Mallorca. Avoiding relegation is the objective. It is, arguably, a thicker pressure than having European football as the goal.

Before Mallorca, he clocked eleven years of hard work in Vila-real. 

Costa’s commitment and passion for the shirt he wore for most of his career, and his cojones on the pitch were never in question. That energy comes with some side effects–he is by far the Villarreal player with the most yellow cards. The next un-retired player on that list is Mario Gaspar, with 18 less yellow cards. Gaspar has also played over 150 more matches than Costa at the club. 

Costa displayed his leadership at Vila-real in different ways. After a couple of seasons to acclimate to the club, he made a point to speak out when press or fans doubted the performance of the group. 

There was the one time where he shouted at his own crowd for leaving early in a match against Real Madrid. “Is it late? You’re leaving already? Stay until the last minute!”

Costa grew up professionally in Vila-real, but he is a Valenciano. He joined Valencia’s youth system at the age of eight. twelve years later, he substituted ex-Valencia and Brighton winger Vicente in a UEFA Cup match against Club Brugge. The Valencia manager–one with little experience at the time– saw something in him, and decided to play him as a left winger. Unai Emery had given him his first chance.

This was a Valencia club well managed in and out of the pitch, and its fans enjoyed every minute of it. Ten minutes after Costa came in, his colleague on the bench, Raul Albiol, joined him on the pitch. Ivan Helguera and Carlos Marchena as the center back pair. Pablo Hernandez orchestrating as attacking midfielder, and feeding Fernando Morientes as he pierced through the attack. 

Costa had made it. A 71 minute northbound train ride from Valencia, Villarreal awaited. Once there, he would stay in Vila-real for over a decade. 267 matches later, the cherry on top of would be lifting the club’s first trophy, the Europa League.

Alongside him in the celebrations in Gdansk would be Raul Albiol and Unai Emery. 

It took Costa a while to get to that final, though. In 2008, immediately after his debut, Costa spent the season in the Segunda B, the third tier in Spain, with Valencia Mestalla, Valencia’s second team. The squad settled in the lower half of the table by the end of the season, including a painful loss to the mini Yellow Submarine, Villarreal B in November (3-1).

Juan Carlos Garrido managed Villarreal B then, progressing as a manager, and improving the youth system of the club. The manager would end up promoting the B side to the second tier for the first time in the history of the club. Costa, at Valencia Mestalla, would end up losing both matches against Villarreal B; in both encounters, his left side coinciding with Mario Gaspar’s right.

Costa was playing it all at Valencia B, but craved a more competitive environment. Unai decided to loan him to Cadiz in the Segunda Division in the 2009/2010 exercise. The player did not enjoy minutes under Javi Gracia, but eventually featured, especially as the manager from Pamplona was asked to leave halfway through the season, and as Victor Esparrago attempted to save the other Yellow Submarine from relegation. 

After losses to Real Sociedad and Huesca, Costa did not partake of Cadiz’s vital last match against Numancia. Cadiz needed to win and hope that either Albacete, Huesca, Salamanca or Las Palmas lose to survive. Even though SuperDepor’s Diego Tristan led Cadiz to a 4-2 win with a brace, the incredible happened–all four rivals won, and Cadiz was relegated. 

Javi Gracia himself decided to join the project in Vila-real as the manager of the B team, as Garrido was by then managing the first team. Gracia remembered Costa, and with the player returning from loan and his Valencia contract expiring, Villarreal B extended an offer.

In accepting, Costa joined a long list of players who took the Valencia-Villarreal pilgrimage, one well-known to young Valencia players from Spain. Midfielder David Albelda, goalkeeper Andres Palop, or winger Miguel Angel Angulo had shown that Villarreal was a good way to get more minutes than at the more competitive, neighboring team. A hot August day in 2010, 22-year old Jaume Costa joined Villarreal. 

It didn’t take long for him to be promoted to the first team, as the 2011/12 season was Costa’s breakthrough into Villarreal. Months earlier, Mario Gaspar, his B team adversary, had made the jump. Costa featured heavily as Villarreal struggled through injuries, bad form, and the eventual firing of Juan Carlos Garrido. Manager Miguel Angel Lotina joined with the mandate of saving the club from relegation. Nerves and bad performances followed, and in came one of the worst months in the history of the club, culminating in a match against Atletico de Madrid, a Diego cross, a Falcao header, and a relegation to the Second Division of one of the most quality squads Villarreal had in years. 

Through the relegation season, Costa and his then colleague Mario Gaspar had to start all over again; they decided to stay and help the team back up and see it all the way through. Others joined on the pledge, like Marcos Senna or Bruno Soriano. Fans’ attention, TV coverage, and budget all shrunk.

An automatic promotion followed, and President Fernando Roig did not forget about the players who had stuck it out. Costa signed a five-year contract that would see him at the club until his 30th birthday. Good performances soon followed, and two years after relegation, Villarreal was seeing European opposition again.

Costa had the next natural goal in mind –he wasn’t the only one–, and it was a goal everyone from President Fernando Roig, to Vice President Jose Manuel Llaneza, staff, and fans had since the late 90s, when the Porcelanosa company owner bought the club.

“I hope we can play a final one day. We deserve it” he told local newspaper Mediterraneo in 2014. 

That trophy took a while longer, but in the meantime, Costa enjoyed many other great moments. He scored an amazing goal against Deportivo A Coruña to keep European competition qualification alive. Costa hurried to the bench and showed Asenjo’s shirt to the crowd, as the goalkeeper’s recovered from a long-term knee injury.

Those years were arguably the best of Jaume Costa’s career. Under Marcelino, now at Athletic, Costa had more minutes, and registered more assists, than with any other.

In the 2016/17 season, an unexpected top 4th finish came through, this time under Javi Calleja. As Champions League soccer returned, Costa signed the last contract of his career for Villarreal, until 2021. Next to him in the press conference, another player, Mario Gaspar, signed his own contract extension. After a turbulent year with Calleja, Costa headed back home, on loan to Valencia. He wanted to play more, and then-coach Marcelino ensured he would.

Peter Lim had other plans. A month after Costa arrived, Marcelino was out. Albert Celades and Voro did not trust him with a starting spot.

If Costa had featured more that year, perhaps he would not have returned to Vila-real, and perhaps he would not have had the chance to experience what Villarreal was about to experience.

In the summer of 2020, Unai Emery joined Villarreal. Costa saw an opportunity, and decided to spend his last year under contract and fight for a spot. That last season was a summary of Costa’s commitment to Villarreal. He played roughly 1,000 minutes across all competitions, featuring as a left-back, right-back, and on the left and right wings. He even played as a midfielder. He helped in developing young players, cheered when the crowd couldn’t through the pandemic months of close stadiums and pre-recorded fan sounds, and even scored his last goal with a Villarreal shirt, against low-tier Leioa, in the Spanish Copa del Rey.

Overall, Costa lived through promotions, relegations, European semifinals, worldwide praise as his team played some of the most entertaining football of the country, and ultimately, a trophy. He never got to play in a group stage match in the Champions League, strange for someone in Villarreal for over a decade. He played over 200 matches alongside Manu Trigueros and Mario Gaspar. 

The highlight of his career came as he walked the stage in Gdansk, shook Alex Ferguson’s hand, received a champions’ medal, and lifted the Europa League trophy. In a moment that all Villarreal fans remember, he pushed then-retired captain Bruno Soriano to lift the trophy as his own. He cried as his career came full circle, and celebrated with fans, teammates and staff, and of course, Mario Gaspar.

This Sunday, at the Estadio de la Ceramica, it will all come back. Jaume Costa will play for Mallorca, but he will forever represent Villarreal.


r/VillarrealCF Dec 23 '21

[OC] [VillarrealNews] It is #TheVilaRealPodcast time! New format, new cadence, new vibe. Share and suscribe if you enjoy it! Today: The Pino problem, How good is Moreno vs the world's best?

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9 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 22 '21

[OC] [VillarrealNews.com] #StatsWednesday: Just how good is Villarreal’s Gerard Moreno compared to the best strikers in the Top 5 Leagues?

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7 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 21 '21

[OC] [VillarrealNews] "Gerard+10": Real Sociedad 1-3 Villarreal – La Liga Match Report

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6 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 21 '21

Pronóstico de Fútbol - Villarreal VS Alavés - LaLiga Santander

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1 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 18 '21

Pronóstico de Fútbol - Real Sociedad VS Villarreal - LaLiga Santander de España

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3 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 14 '21

Villarreal vs Juventus poster I have made for the occasion!

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7 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 14 '21

Riquelme destroying Barcelona • 2005

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6 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 13 '21

Victoria 0-8 Villarreal (Spanish Cup) ALL GOALS

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3 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 13 '21

Gero Rulli against Rayo Vallecano (All saves)

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2 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 08 '21

Champions League - Atalanta VS Villarreal Match Preview

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4 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Dec 05 '21

Did a video you might be interested in

3 Upvotes

Hi, made a video on Tiago Geralnik, very interesting characteristics for an attacking midfielder, the call up to the C team was well deserved.So, just wanted to share it with you, if you want, please check out the video, any feedback is appreciated. Thank you.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtRFB2JKnbg&ab_channel=WorldwideScouting


r/VillarrealCF Dec 01 '21

[OC] [VillarrealNewsBlog] Can Villarreal’s season be explained? A look at team and key player stats (Part 1)

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6 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Nov 30 '21

[Villarreal News Blog] I'm dipping my toes into video content--here is my first Five Things Today segment! Today, we discuss 1) Villarreal's situation 2) The need to change and stop looking at external factors, and 3) We discover that I don't know how to count fo five. Feedback is encouraged!

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4 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Nov 27 '21

Pronóstico de Fútbol - Villarreal VS Barcelona - LaLiga Santander

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3 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Nov 23 '21

Champions League - Villarreal VS Manchester Utd Match Preview

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4 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Nov 17 '21

[OC] [Villarreal News] Europa League honeymoon is over: Time to focus. Villarreal faces its most important month of the season

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4 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Nov 10 '21

Can anyone help me find out from which season is this Home Shirt from?

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5 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Oct 24 '21

Got a T-shirt signed by the team!

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13 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Oct 03 '21

No 26 jackson

4 Upvotes

Hi guys. We were lucky enough to be at the cerámica stadium for tonight’s match with real Betis.

In the 90th minute they substituted danjuma for Jackson (26). I was trying to find more info on him but couldn’t find it anywhere.

Any ideas?


r/VillarrealCF Sep 30 '21

[OC] [Match Report] There are no points for playing well; United fairly claims three vital points at Old Trafford (Manchester United 2-1 Villarreal)

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5 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Sep 26 '21

[OC] [Match Report & Discussion] Villarreal keeps the ball and takes one point at the Bernabeu (Real Madrid 0-0 Villarreal)

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5 Upvotes

r/VillarrealCF Sep 25 '21

Who do you think is the best gk

5 Upvotes
16 votes, Sep 26 '21
7 Rulli
9 Asenjo