A strong second season in Valencia saw Roberto Lazaró lead Los Che to 4th place and Champions League football for the final campaign at their legendary La Mestalla home. But Lazaró was keen to impress a sense of realism at the club, especially given how far clear the big three remained.
Some dodgy off-field activities saw the new board cash in on Lazaró’s strong financial performance, which had delivered an annual profit of £124m. They announced they’d “paid off part of the outstanding club debts,” leaving the club with £105m of its original £263m debt.
The homegrown rebuild continued as centre back Cenk Ozkacar and midfielder André Almeida went to Saudi for £9 and £18m, left back Esquerdinha joined Juventus for £10m and winger Diego López, who refused to sign a new contract, went to Saudi for £7m in January. They saw off a derisory Man City bid for Javi Guerra, who’s now a world-class midfielder and proved himself a legend by declaring he wasn’t interested in leaving, while goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardachvili announced he wanted to join a better club and was promised he could for £80m.
Lazaró continued his Ibero-American focus, bringing in a few additions led by diminutive winger Mateo Aguiar for up to £6.5m from Defensa y Justicia, who swiftly went to Liverpool for £12m in January! A few more youngsters were promoted, including homegrown attacker Fernando Torró, centre back Iker Córdoba and exciting 18-year-old Portuguese midfielder Dinis Telehovschi, who signed for £3.6m from Benfica in January. Mahtal then snapped up attacking midfielder Franco Mastantuono for £5m from River and 6ft 4in striker Thierry Henry for £6m from Sao Paulo in January, but the latter suffered a damaged spine “lifting weights” in April.
Final Season At Mestalla
Valencia are now joint-6th favourite to win LaLiga at 50/1 alongside Villarreal and Sevilla. Real Madrid, who haven’t won the league yet in this save, remain 5/6 favourites ahead of holders Barcelona (3/1), Atlético (9/1), Sociedad (20/1) and Bilbao (33/1).
Lazaró took charge of his 100th match at Valencia as they began his third season at the location of last season’s Europa League Final defeat. And they exorcised those final demons as Guerra’s brace and a screamer by holding midfielder Matheus Ferreira secured a 3-0 win at Bilbao. Guerra began the season in stunning form, equalling last season’s goal tally (6) in the first 7 games, of which Valencia won all 7 including a 1-0 victory at home to Barca, and scoring his first goal for Spain in November.
That streak ended with a 1-0 loss at Real, but Torró’s first senior goal – the first by an academy graduate produced during this save – opened the scoring in a 2-0 win over Sevilla. A massive injury crisis struck in October, but they battled through to sit 3rd in LaLiga well behind the relentless Real and Barca, who’d lost three between them and scored 56 and 59 respectively in 19 games. The improving Torró nicked late equalisers at home to Real Madrid and Celta. And 17-year-old Marco, the academy striker Mahtal was most excited about, was fast-tracked into the first team by another injury crisis and rescued a point at Sociedad, heading home his senior goal 89 minutes into his league debut.
Valencia had an opportunity to split the big three this season, but a 2-1 loss at Atlético, for which their best 3 goalies were all obviously all injured, put that at risk. Winger Fran Pérez nicked a point at home to Betis but a disappointing final-day defeat at Las Palmas dropped them back to 4th behind Atlético. They finished with 76, 3 fewer than last season, points after 22 wins, 10 draws and 6 defeats, scoring 65 and conceding 31 (1 and 5 fewer than last season). Real won their first title of this save, racking up 100 points and 114 goals and finished 24 points ahead of Valencia.
Tough Champions League Challenge
Valencia got a really tricky draw in the Champions League, of which Lazaró thought they might win 2 out of 8 if they were lucky. And he wasn’t far off as they lost at Spurs, Leverkusen and Man City and at home to Napoli, but Telehovschi nicked a 1-0 at Marseille, striker Gabriel Silva nicked a 1-1 at home to Bayern, Silva and winger Marc Jurado downed PSV 2-0 and Silva bagged a hat trick as they thrashed Sevilla 5-0. And that secured qualification for the playoff round in 19th place. However, they got Liverpool in the playoffs so the run ended there, but they did really well to earn a 1-1 in the home leg before only losing 2-1 at Anfield with Torró scoring a late consolation.
Valencia Homegrown Players Update
Lazaró was pleased with his 3rd season in Valencia, mainly as they closed the gap to 3rd and didn’t disgrace themselves in Europe. Their key player this season was probably Guerra with 10 goals and 9 assists, while Silva top-scored with 19 goals and the likes of Telehovschi (8 goals and 8 assists) and Pérez (5 goals and 12 assists) also impressed.
20 players homegrown at the club played for the first team this season, contributing a combined 263 league games with 30 goals and 98 cup games with just 3 goals.
Valencia Mestalla had a good season, finishing 3rd in Segunda Federación Grupo III, only 3 points behind winners Espanyol B, led by Hugo De Mateo’s 13 goals and Cristhian Loor’s 15 clean sheets. The U19s went one better, again winning their División de Honor Juvenil Grupo, then defeating Tenerife and Sevilla to reach the Final, where they gained revenge on Barcelona with a 3-0 victory with goals by Torró and Marco. The stars of the youth side were winger Rubén Torrella (16 goals and 14 assists), Marco (27 goals), Torró (20 goals and 10 assists), winger Alberto Kilamba (16 goals and 13 assists) and midfielder Lawrence Amoah (8 goals and 13 assists). And the key youth players’ stats are below:
Lazaró’s Ibero-American transfer policy was rewarded by Silva winning NxGn 2026 ahead of Lamine Yamal, with Telehovschi in 21st and centre back Joao Fonseca in 30th. And the homegrown mission was boosted by a good intake led by two exciting talents in midfielder Alberto Arroyo, striker Carlos Seligrat and defensive midfielder Julio.
Things were still looking good at Valencia, the only problem was that Real, Barcelona and Atlético were ridiculously good. However, there was no doubt that Lazaró had an army of exciting youngsters coming through to attempt to challenge the big three over the next few years.
And they would have a brand new stadium to continue that progression in the 2026/27 season. But could Lazaró bring success in the new era of Valencia? Join us next Wednesday to find out!
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