Valencia CF enjoyed their best season so far under the stewardship of Roberto Lazaró in the 2027/28 campaign. And the manager was delighted to see his approach to blooding youngsters was resulting in plenty of progression.
There was good news off the pitch over the summer too, as the board cleared off more of the club’s debts, leaving it with just £24.5m of original £159m. And they still began the summer with £216m in the bank, which was more than every Spanish club bar Barcelona (£443m) and Real Madrid (£309m). The board put that to use by agreeing to Lazaró’s request to extend La Mestalla, spending £40m to add an extra 6,000 seats to a capacity of 61,729 by the summer of 2029.
Finances were further boosted by selling centre back Joao Fonseca and midfielder Matheus Ferreira to Saudi for £17.5m and £13.25m, striker Thierry Henry to Leeds for £10.5m, wingers Claudio Avella and Marc Jurado to Milan and Espanyol for £7.25m and £1m, wantaway left back Fernando Torró to Brescia for £1.65m and centre back Iker Córdoba to Auxerre for £500k. In their place, Lazaró the likes of striker Marco, midfielders Clemente and Manuel Calvo and centre back Diego Mieres. In other news, former captain José Gayá joined Liverpool for free 2 years after going to Saudi for £60m!
Lazaró also changed up his tactical approach, moving away from the 4-3-3 that he wasn’t a huge fan of. Instead, he moved to a 4-3-1-2 with star man Javi Guerra in behind Gabriel Silva and Fabián Salsano playing as a false nine and exciting midfielder Adriano stepping up as a starter. However, he soon switched to a 4-1-3-2 that dropped Dinis Telehovschi in front of the defence and gave Guerra and the strikers a little more freedom.
Real and Barca Are Just Too Good
Valencia started the season well as Adriano assisted Guerra and a Salsano brace to earn a 3-1 win at Espanyol. Alberto Kilamba earned a deserved 1-0 win at home to Betis. A tough test of the new approach followed as they went to Real Madrid and lost 1-0 to a Vini Jr strike before a more worrying defeat to Sevilla, which forced Lazaró to tweak the formation. And that worked out very nicely as they beat Girona 3-0 then Guerra’s strike downed holders Barca 1-0.
Valencia suffered a few injuries, but hit top gear to thrash Cádiz 8-0 with Salsano and Guerra hat tricks, which took them 3rd in early December. The good form saw big teams circling their players, but they only lost Mastantuono move to Man City for a massive £36m, where he will definitely get ruined. As a reuslt, they suffered a sticky start to 2029 before academy product striker Carlos Seligrat got his first league goal in a 3-0 win over bottom side Espanyol.
Three strikers went on 12-game droughts as Valencia went on a 5-game winless streak, but Silva ended his with a brace to down Athletic 2-1. Their form continued to be a bit all over the place, including defeats at Sociedad and Valladolid either side of the inevitable loss at Barca in April, which set up a battle for 3rd with Sociedad and Atlético going into the final 5 games. Calvo scored his first senior goal in a 2-0 win at Tenerife before Silva’s brace defeated rivals Villarreal by the same scoreline to at least secure 4th place. But late Telehovschi and Fabián Salsano goals nicked a 2-1 final-day win at Atlético to claim a third-successive top 3 finish.
Valencia finished 3rd with 82 points after 26 wins, 4 draws and 8 defeats, scoring 70 and conceding 30 – which was 12 fewer points, 13 fewer scored and 7 more conceded compared to last season. Guerra got a league-high 13 assists and was the 4th-best player in the league with a 7.41 average rating. But Valencia were massively lacking a reliable goalscorer. Real won the title with 99 points followed by Barca on 94, who were 12 points clear of Valencia.
Tough Champions League Clashes
The Champions League began with a dire 0-0 at Atalanta before dominating Midtjylland 4-1 with goals by Kilamba, Cristhian Mosquera and Telehovschi and CSKA-Sofia 3-0 away. But tricky away days at PSG, Napoli and Barca saw them fall to 22nd. They took on RB Leipzig in the playoff round, and a Pino own goal and Adriano’s brace, including a wonderful volleyed 2nd, earned a 3-1 home win before holding them to a 1-0 in Germany. That teed up a final 16 clash with Arsenal and a late Daniel Vargas goal nicked a 2-2 at home before being edged out 4-3 in an epic 2nd leg.
Valencia Homegrown Players Update
Silva top-scored with 16 in 53, which really isn’t good enough if Valencia want to challenge Spain’s big 2. Guerra was the star man again with 15 goals and 14 assists while the improving Fabián Salsano, who won NxGn 2029, scored 13 with 5 assists. But it was clear they needed more goal contributions from their attacking players.
Valencia had 15 homegrown players play in the first team, playing a combined 353 league games with 43 goals (51 and 19 fewer than last season) and 154 cup games with 14 goals. Click the table below to see their stats in full:
The youth teams performed pretty well this season. Reserve side Mestalla was top of Primera Federación Grupo II for most of the season but finished 2nd. However, they progressed to the Final against Sociedad and beat them 3-2 on aggregate to gain promotion to LaLiga 2, which could be huge! While the U19s finished 3rd in División de Honor Juvenil Grupo VII led by Juan Francisco Ayuso’s 23 goals and left back Paulo Monteiro’s 10 goals and 20 assists.
There was more promise with a good intake led by Valencia-born striker Fernando and Nigerian midfielder Ahmed Umar.
So there’s still plenty of potential at Valencia but the battle to take down the big two was looking like a really tough ask. Lazaró was beginning to run out of exciting Ibero-American targets and it felt like their youth prospects’ potential was dwindling. But Lazaró would keep plugging away.
Could Valencia reduce the gap to Real and Barca next season? Join us next Friday to find out!
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