La Liga team performance: Villarreal will be looking to attack the top five after their cup successes

Those who don’t follow the Spanish La Liga may have been a bit surprised at the end of May. The seventh team in La Liga beat the second team in the Premier League, Villarreal, who beat Manchester United. But the yellow submarine wants more.

Unai Emery is an absolute cup wizard. Fans have even suggested that the Europa League trophy should be called the Unai Emery Trophy. He scored a hat-trick in this competition with Sevilla in 2014-2016, and he took Arsenal to the final in 2019.

After that, he headed to Villarreal, where, incidentally, he knocked out Arsenal in the semi-finals and reached his fourth Europa League triumph. In doing so, he took the Yellow Submarine to the Champions League group stage for the first time since the 2011/12 season. Villarreal will play the millionaire competition for only the fourth time in its history.

However, things were not looking so rosy in the league. Villarreal started the league in style and stayed at the top of the table, but then came a minor results crisis. The team from the east of Spain ended up in seventh place, which guarantees only the Conference League.

Villarreal, however, beat Manchester United in the Europa League final in a heroic performance to leapfrog two places into the Champions League group stage. The winner of the Europa League will be seeded in the first round.

It is extremely important for Villarreal that they have managed to keep their star player Gerard Moreno. The Spanish striker scored 30 goals last season and led his team to a historic trophy. Another stalwart is Pau Torres, who has had an absolutely insane season.

He has played 78 games in the last 365 calendar days and 9 overtimes in the last month and a half. In fact, he was with Spain at both the Euros and the Olympics, and he even experienced extra time in the Super Cup against Chelsea.

The Champions League is a huge event for the city of 50,000, Villarreal. But the Castellón province side has one of the strongest squads in recent years and would like to finish higher. Ahead of Betis and Real Sociedad is certainly within its reach.

Prediction: 5th place

Source: Villarreal CF