Marked for Iván Blanco
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Nov 2026
A derby to forget for Villarreal
Beaten 1‑3 by Valencia in the one fixture where losing is not allowed. The football was bad enough; the week ahead will be worse.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Villarreal may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market30 Nov 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Nicolas Pépé falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Marcos Sánchez left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Pau Navarro gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pau Navarro is on it.
Market30 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Sergi Cardona’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Getafe have kept their man, and Villarreal go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match22 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Sergi Cardona at his very best
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Villarreal.
Market24 Aug 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Villarreal can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Alberto Moleiro ran the middle of the pitch — 7.30
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.30, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Iván Blanco commits to Villarreal for another 3 years.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Villarreal asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $35.4M — a club that wants Vinícius Júnior enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jesús Isijara gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jesús Isijara has just signed for Villarreal, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Renato Veiga commits to Villarreal for another 5 years.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
1 academy graduates step up at Villarreal
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Renato Veiga and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ismael Castro has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 25443. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Villarreal are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Villarreal asked and Como said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Barcelona for Alberto Moleiro was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Santi Comesaña and Villarreal agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Renato Veiga in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Villarreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pape Guèye, and the manager let it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Iván Blanco has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nicolás Montes has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Tomás Rubio has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Santi Comesaña knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Villarreal, and both men came out saying it was fine.