Villarreal

Ground: Estadio El Madrigal

Visits: 1

Date: 31st December 2015

Match: Villarreal - Valencia 1-0 (Primera División)

Attendance: 18 526

The only fixture in Spain on Thursday, New Year´s Eve, was Villarreal vs Valencia at 16.00. Villarreal play at Estadio El Madrigal in Vila-real, a town situated around 60 km north of Valencia. From Valencia-Nord it takes around 70 minutes with the C6-(local) train to reach Vila-real. Witch exception of the city derby against Levante this is the nearest away game of the season for Valencia and I was hoping for a decent away following. I slept late before making my way to Xativa metro station, Xativa is only 150 metres or so from Valencia-Nord train station. At 11.55 my train departed and 13.05 I arrived in Vila-real. Vila-real can be described as a suburb to Castellon and has a population of just over 50 000. In 1998 Villarreal reached the Primera División for the first time but were relegated straight back to Segunda División. In 2000 the club were back in Primera División and with exception of the 2012/13 season Villarreal have played in the Spanish top division. From the train station it takes around 20 minutes to walk to Estadio El Madrigal and once at the ground I could notice quite a few away fans but also a decent number from the police. Estadio El Madrigal is tucked-in with the neighbouring houses and some of the apartments behind the south stand were very close to the ground. Estadio El Madrigal is quite an interesting ground with a total capacity of 25 500. No running tracks and the stand behind the goal to my right in a way reminded me about Råsunda. The top tier, Visitantes, of this stand is the away section and is behind both plexiglass and net.

You would imagine Estadio El Madrigal would be full for this game but that was not the case. The official visitors section, behind glass and net, costed 35 Euros but in the other stands it was 60,70 or 120 Euros. Sounds like (NOT) reasonable pricing for this game. In total 18 500 turned up and around 400 of those supported the away team. Valencia nowadays have both the Neville brothers in their coaching staff but that didn´t help today. Valencia actually had most of the really good chances but failed to score from those. As was the case yesterday there would be one goal in the game. Like yesterday it was from a free-kick, in the 64th minute Bruno scored a magnificent goal to make it 1-0. Three valuable points for Villarreal who are now 4th in the table. Valencia on the other hand are down to 10th. My train back to Valencia departed Vila-real train station at 19.00 and around 20.45 I was back at my hotel. After my last meal of 2015 I rested in my room before falling asleep. In total I have been to 66 games, of which 56 have been at new grounds, in 2015 which is a new record for me. I doubt I will ever beat that record though. My first game of 2016 will be on Saturday when I visit Estadio Vicente Calderón for Atlético Madrid vs Levante.

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