Wonderkid Factory | Part 4 | A Gayá-Less New Era

After 103 years at their historic home, Valencia Club de Fútbol bid farewell to La Mestalla as they ushered in a new era at the 55,000-capacity Nuevo Mestalla – to absolutely massive fanfare…

However, the move occurred without their captain as Saudi side Al-Ahli came offered £60m for 31-year-old José Gayá. The left back departs after 14 years and 367 league games for the club, only 92 short of the all-time record, and as a Valencia icon. But realistically, Lazaró couldn’t refuse a new club-record deal of £60m under any circumstances. A few weeks later, Gayá was followed out the exit door by Giorgi Mamardachvili, who refused to sign a new deal and went to Saudi for £25m. Then in January, another contract rebel Fran Pérez forced a move to Dortmund for £25m.

Mamardachvili was replaced by paying £7.5m for 18-year-old Flamengo keeper Márcio Antonio, who was joined by a mass of fellow Ibero-Americans. The pick of them was pacey Argentinian attacker Claudio Avella for £6m from River, along with Colombian winger Daniel Vargas for £2m from Millonarios, striker Adriano for £5.5m from Fluminense, centre back Sidney Umpeca for £4.8m from Sporting, left back Angelo Cavaleiro for £2m from Porto and, perhaps most intriguingly, 6ft 5in striker Paulo Sérgio for just £10k from Sao Paulo.

The big sales leave Hugo Guillamón as Valencia’s oldest player at the ripe old age of 26 and the squad now has an average age of 20. Jesús Vázquez was the obvious replacement for Gayá but has been disappointing in the last few seasons, so Lazaró took the bold move of retraining attacker Fernando Torró as a left back. And Lazaró stuck with the 4-5-1 approach he’d used for the last two seasons.

Nuevo Mestalla Era Begins At Valencia

Valencia are joint-5th favourites for LaLiga at 50/1 alongside Sevilla, Athletic and Villarreal. Real Madrid are Evens favourites followed by Barcelona, Atlético and Sociedad (9/4, 9/1 and 20/1). Lazaró was expecting a bit of a drop-off given the loss of two key players but he was very excited about some of his young stars stepping up to fulfil their potential.

The new-look Valencia began life without Gayá with a tricky trip to Barcelona and Antonio had a great debut, keeping them out until Fati’s 85th-minute winner. The first match at Nuevo Mestalla saw Mallorca come to town and somehow not sell out… because that’s realistic. The stadium’s first goalscorer was right back Cristhian Mosquera, who powered home a header from a corner after 37 minutes. His attacking teammates missed chances before winger Marc Jurado doubled the lead 10 minutes from time.

The season generally began pretty well, bar losing 2-0 loss and 1-0 at Real, inspired by Antonio’s impressive start and new captain Javi Guerra, who surpassed the club record for most MOTM awards (6) in November. While a breakout performance from winger Alberto Kilamba saw him score once and create two for Gabriel Silva in a 5-0 crushing of local rivals Levante.

Valencia took that good form into 2027 as Silva and midfielder Dinis Telehovschi earned an excellent 2-1 win over Barca, which lifted them into 2nd at the end of January – albeit 10 points behind Real. They continued to perform above all expectations, including Guerra’s first-half brace leading a 4-0 home win over Atlético. But they again suffered a tricky conclusion to the season to unsurprisingly drop behind Barca and level with Atlético with 2 games remaining. Valencia relied on an own goal to win 1-0 at home to Alavés but thrashed local rivals Granada 4-0 away to seal 3rd place for the first time in Lazaró’s reign, based on results against Atlético.

Valencia finished on 83 points after 26 wins, 5 draws and 7 defeats, scoring 70 and conceding just 28. Guerra was the joint-best player in the league with a 7.66 average rating, tied with Rodrygo, and set a new LaLiga record of 11 MOTM awards, while Antonio’s 19 clean sheets was the 3rd most in LaLiga. Amd Guerra wn the Jugador del ano and Máximo goleador Espanol award.

2nd Season In The Champions League

Valencia got a slightly less difficult set of fixtures, which was still pretty challenging. But they began well with centre back Yarek Gasiorowski earning a 1-1 at Dortmund before Silva scored the only goal as Vargas broke his leg at home to Sparta Praha and Fran Pérez and Guerra secured a 2-0 win at Crvena Zvezda. A defeat at Man UFC followed, but they beat RB Salzburg 2-0 and, against all the odds, the midfield pairing of Franco Mastantuono and Guerra earned a 2-2 at home to Man City. Closing victories over Kobenhavn and Fenerbahce saw them finish in 11th, tied on points with City in 6th – which confirms that this format is utterly ridiculous.

Valencia took on Newcastle in the playoff round and earned an impressive 0-0 in England, thanks to Antonio’s 7 saves, then thumped them 4-1 at home through Kilamba, Silva, Guerra’s superb 25-yarder and Jurado’s brilliant solo goal. Their reward was another clash with Liverpool, who narrowly beat them 3-2 last season. A late Guillámon goal nicked another impressive 1-1 at home before a 3-1 away defeat.

Valencia Homegrown Players Update

Homegrown hero Guerra was the clear best player at the club, racking up 22 goals and 14 assists in 50 games. Pushing him close(ish) was Silva with 20 goals while Kilamba impressed with 7 goals and 5 assists and Vazquez got 9 assists, and the rest of the goals were shared around.

This season, 13 homegrown players have represented Valencia, led by the outstanding Guerra. They’ve played a combined 264 league games with 34 goals (1 and 4 more than last season) and 100 cup games with 7 goals (2 and 4 more than last season).

Valencia Mestalla strolled to the Segunda Federación Grupo IV title, only losing twice all season led by Hugo De Mateo’s 16 goals. While the U19s dropped to 2nd in their league but won Copa del Rey Juvenil led by impressive performances from striker Carlos Seligrat (43 goals in 47 games), attacker Paulo Sérgio (22 goals and 11 assists) and goalkeeper Gabi Garrido (23 clean sheets).

Gabriel Silva made it back-to-back NxGn wins ahead of Lamine Yamal and Telehovschi. Kilamba came in 8th with Márcio Antonio 23rd, Mastantuono 32nd, Adriano 34th and Vargas 37th. However, they got a pretty disappointing youth intake led by striker Roberto Romano, alongside fellow Italian 6ft 7in centre back Sabato Luisi and Valencia-born winger Juan Francisco Ayuso.

There were still real signs of positivity at Valencia as they recorded their best finish of Lazaró’s reign despite losing two of their best senior players. But Lazaró was looking for some of his younger stars to step up in the next season.

Could they close the gap on Real and Barca in season 5? Join us next Friday to find out!