Valencia CF’s team of young, predominantly homegrown talents continued to exceed expectations as they split LaLiga’s “big three” for the first time in Roberto Lazaró’s fourth season at the club. But Lazaró was looking for some of his hot prospects to step up in the next couple of campaigns.
Lazaró’s first batch Ibero-American signings became homegrown at the club in the summer of 2027, including striker Gabriel Silva, winger Alberto Kilamba, who’s been labelled the next Ricardo Quaresma, midfielders Dinis Telehovschi and Matheus Ferreira and centre back Joao Fonseca. No new signings joined in the summer as Lazaró didn’t feel anyone he’d been scouting was any better than the homegrown players coming through the ranks. He also slightly tweaked his approach to a more traditional 4-3-3 to move Franco Mastantuono higher up the pitch.
Season 5 At Valencia
The bookies fancy Valencia to finish 6th at 50/1 to win LaLiga alongside Athletic Bilbao and Villarreal. Barcelona are Evens favourites followed by Real Madrid (2/1), Atlético (17/2), Real Sociedad (20/1) and Sevilla (33/1).
Valencia began Lazaró’s 5th season in charge with captain, club icon and star player Javi Guerra’s powerful 20-yard strike nicking a 1-0 win over Celta. Kilamba and Guerra edged a 2-1 win at Osasuna and Mastantuono edged another 1-0 home win over Villarreal. That provided the platform for a strong start, including Guerra scoring twice in a 4-0 thumping of Sevilla to send them top as the only unbeaten side after 15 games. And they headed into the new year still unbeaten with a 0-0 at home to Real, who they now haven’t beaten in 10 matches since their first meeting of the save, on New Year’s Eve.
Reinforcements arrived in January as Lazaró brought in exciting winger Fabián Salsano for £8m from River, midfielder Clemente for £8.75m from Fluminense and, on deadline day, left back David Fernandez Vinitzky for up to £12.5m from Boca. He also handed a big new contract to Guerra, who’s now taking home £235k per week until 2032.
The unbeaten start ended in the first game of 2028 with a 3-1 loss at Sociedad. They bounced back by thrashing Osasuna 5-0 led by a much-needed Silva brace but lost 2-0 at Barcelona. However, Guerra scored a hat trick inside 23 minutes to inspire a 3-1 win at home to Atlético at the end of March and a 2-0 win at Elche moved them 4 points behind Barca, who had a game in hand, 13 clear of Atlético and 14 clear of Real, who had 2 games in hand, with 6 games remaining.
Any outside hopes of the title were ended by a 0-0 at Sevilla while Barca nicked a 2-1 at Valladolid. But the following week, a crushing 8-0 win over struggling Granada, led by Silva’s hat trick and 4 Guerra assists, secured another high during Lazaró’s reign by confirming them as runners-up.
Valencia finished 2nd, setting new club records of 94 points and 29 wins, surpassing the previous records of 83 and 26 set back in 1996. They only lost twice (at Barca and Real), drew 7, scored 83 and only conceded 23, only bettered by Barca’s ridiculous 14. Guerra set a new LaLiga record of 17 assists, got the most MOTM awards with 10 and had the second-best average rating of 7.60, only behind Ansu Fati’s 7.66. While Márcio Antonio’s 20 clean sheets was only bettered by ter Stegen’s 23.
Champions League
Valencia’s 3rd Champions League campaign began by getting dominated at AC Milan and losing 2-0. Silva ended his slow start to the season with both goals in a 2-1 win over Stuttgart before another 2-1 win over Ajax and winger Claudio Avella, striker Thierry Henry and Silva earned an impressive 3-0 at home to a strong Napoli. Telehovschi nicked a 1-0 at home to Benfica and a rotated side was thumped 5-0 at Arsenal to finish 17th. Valencia cruised past Braga 6-2 in the playoff round but got holders PSG in the last 16 and followed up a solid 0-0 at home with a narrow 2-1 defeat in Paris. The dominant Barca also won the Champions League, beating PSG 2-1 in the final.
Valencia’s Homegrown Players Update
Guerra was undoubtedly the star man again with a ridiculous 18 goals and 20 assists in all competitions. Silva scored 16, Telehovschi got 11 goals and 10 assists and midfielder Adriano and Kilamba scored 10 each. But there was still plenty of room for improvement aside from Guerra.
Valencia had 16 players homegrown at the club play league matches, contributing a massive new record high of 405 games with 62 goals. A few more players contributed in the cups, playing a total of 136 games with 15 goals.
Valencia Mestalla had another good season, finishing 2nd to Castilla in Primera Federación Grupo II (Spanish 3rd tier) before posting to Depor in the playoff semi finals. The U19s won their División de Honor Juvenil group but disappointingly lost to Lugo in the quarter finals.
The latest youth intake served up a few players to get excited about led by Valencia-born 5-star potential winger Sergio along with Guinean goalkeeper Mohamed Fofana, winger Luis Prieto and centre midfielder Isidre Juvanteny, who’s apparently a Valencia supporter despite being born north of Barcelona.
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