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Graham Hunter
Both of the previous times that Villarreal coach Marcelino García Toral qualified a LaLiga club for the supposed “nirvana” of the UEFA Champions League, his reward for lucrative success was to be brutally sacked.
You would like to think that this time will be different and that the “Yellow Submarine,” whose thrilling win at champions Barcelona on Sunday guaranteed that they will be dining five-star at Europe’s top table in September, won’t fire their coach like they did in 2016 when he placed them fourth. But they weren’t the only heinous ones.
The 59-year-old Asturian was in charge at Valencia in 2019 when he not only won them the Copa del Rey (again bloodying Barcelona’s nose) but also placed them fourth — after which his bosses, led by the notorious Peter Lim, fired him because he had insisted on ignoring their orders to concentrate on finishing fourth instead of using resources, time, intensity and attention on winning the Cup. The other part of his “sackable offense” was asking Valencia’s bosses to strengthen the squad so that Los Che could be competitive for a competition in which they had been beaten finalists twice already this century.
The answer was angry faces, blunt dismissal and a ‘we know better’ attitude from a club which has, from that point forward, been fighting off embarrassment, fan fury and potential relegation instead of lifting silverware and heading to the monied mansions of the Champions League elite.
The reasons Villarreal sacked him nearly a decade ago had to do with indications that he had treated training and match preparation too lightly before the final game of that season, which they lost to the club that Marcelino loves and has always supported, Sporting Gijón, and who saved themselves from relegation thanks to their final-day 2-0 win.
In retrospect, everyone made mistakes: Marcelino for allowing the training atmosphere and team choices to look relaxed, Marcelino’s wife for a post on social media which made him look deliberately culpable, and Villarreal’s hierarchy for not finding a way to reprimand him and correct his thinking without actually sacking him. But it’s this very ‘as you sew, so shall you reap’ part of Marcelino’s story which is the most intriguing and satisfying.
Just in case you are unaware, Villarreal are a club in a tiny Spanish coastal community (population 50,000) and punch dramatically above their weight. They are owned by a family of billionaires, the Roigs, who consistently show immense smarts when they choose who will run the club and play in those luminous yellow shirts. On the “Yellow Submarine” theme, the Beatles also sang about how “money can’t buy me love,” but it most certainly, if used brilliantly, can buy you success.
If you fancy attending a LaLiga match next season and the ticket demand and pricing of El Clásico is too much for you, then pick one of the two fixtures between Villarreal and Barcelona. The past eight Liga games between the two clubs have yielded a grand total of 36 goals. That’s a stick-on, guaranteed 4.5 goals per match average. And just in the interests of scientific rigor, the previous eight league fixtures between the two produced a comparatively miserly 33 goals. That’s a total of 69 goals in the past 16 matches. Start contacting your travel agent.
Barça deserve all the praise they’ve been receiving (including from me) for being the most exciting team in LaLiga this season, with their matches producing a total of 138 goals with one round of matches left in the campaign. But who is that with the next-highest total? Not Real Madrid with their squad of superstars, but Villarreal, who have scored or conceded 116 league goals so far. (For the record Kylian Mbappé & Co. are third here, with 114).
Like you, I’m sure, I am hopelessly in love with Spanish football. However, I expect its grand protagonists — clubs, coaches, presidents, players — to earn your and my respect. Which is what Villarreal have done since the end of last season … indeed, since November 2023.
After they sacked Marcelino in 2016, they hired and fired seven different coaches, only one of whom, Unai Emery, could really be called successful. That’s a lot of poorly invested time, resources and fan faith. However, by the autumn of 2023, I was consistently advocating on LaLiga TV that Villarreal should eat humble pie, swallow a bit of pride with it and go back to Marcelino because he was the obvious guy to put them back in the Spanish and European elite. The club waited until he quit Marseille that November before doing so but, since then, Villarreal have been on the up-and-up.
Now they stand on the verge of a season which, at minimum, will earn them an extra €80 million, and even more if they can progress through the new league phase of the Champions League’s expanded format. That’s big moolah for almost any club, but it’s humongous for Villarreal.
Where the respect grows and blossoms is that the club took a long, shrewd look at this season and understood that the smart thing to do was invest big. To gamble on the fact that — without any European midweek matches during 2024-25 to tire and distract them — even a young project which should really take time to bed in might yield Champions League qualification. They took a long run-up at this triumph but when they leapt, it was Bob Beamon hang time they achieved. Now they, and their fans, can dream of more stellar nights against Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Marseille, Napoli, Arsenal, Internazionale and FC Porto (all of whom these plucky “little guys” have either beaten or drawn with in UEFA competition).
They took an educated punt on a group of players ranging from 19 to 23 years old, mostly on long contracts: Logan Costa, Luiz Júnior, Etta Eyong, Thierno Barry and Willy Kambwala. In the summer and winter transfer markets, they either permanently signed or took on loan another clutch of “made men” — experienced, talented but on the fringe at clubs like Inter, Paris Saint-Germain, Trabzonspor and Marseille, such as Juan Bernat, Nicolas Pépé, Ayoze Pérez (who has scored 19 goals this season) and the Canada international Tajon Buchanan, whose winner against Barcelona on Sunday guaranteed his team at least a fifth-placed finish, and with it Champions League football.
Villarreal spent around €64m but took in well over €74m, with Alexander Sørloth to Atlético Madrid and Filip Jørgensen to Chelsea commanding the biggest fees. Making a successful push for Champions League qualification while also turning a net profit in the transfer market is a notable achievement all of its own.
It has been an exercise in going back to basics, making peace with an old friend and then listening to his ambitious plans — but, unlike Valencia, then backing them. The results have been glorious, accelerated and very, very lucrative. Now all Marcelino needs to do is make it from here until September without being sacked.
