Alphabet Challenge | Part 29, Club 15 | First Taste Of Spanish Football

Trebor Mahtal wrapped up consecutive Mexican titles as he led a strong Tigres side to Liga MX Apertura in December 2048. That saw him win a major trophy with the 12th letter of the alphabet, moving him close to halfway to completing his Alphabet Challenge.

Upon resigning from Tigres, one big job was vacant, Mahtal applied and was offered an interview on the same day! Four days later, they approached him and Mahtal was heading to Spain for the first time.

Who Are Valencia CF?

However, Mahtal joins a club in a surprisingly strong position. Valencia has £108m in the bank, a transfer budget of £78m and wage budget of £1.9m, of which £300k is spare. It plays at the 55,000-capacity Nuevo Mestalla, which was built in 2025, and has 20 youth recruitment and 18 training and youth facilities and junior coaching. Valencia currently sit 4th in LaLiga, but manager Nelson Motta just quit after a year in charge to join Mahtal’s former club Eintracht Frankfurt. That said, there was an absolute mass of dross at the club, so Mahtal carried out his trademark firesale to bring in £50m for seven players.

The best player at Valencia is Mahtal’s former Dortmund centre back Javier Sierra, along with Irish winger Adam Sullivan, homegrown midfielders Oriel Lobo and Iván, Argentinian striker Bruno Torres, goalkeeper António Lanita, who Mahtal previously sold from Juventus, and 6ft 4in center back Tidjane Sono. They also had a few exciting prospects in midfielder Francisco Guilló and wingers José and José Nguema. Mahtal bolstered the ranks with long-term defensive target Álvaro Ruiz for £10.5m from Atlético and wonderkid winger Romain Combes for £21m rising to £38.5m from debt-ridden AC Milan. He also built the best backroom team in Spain, including former Valencia player Paco Alcácer as his assistant manager.

Mahtal plugged in the 4-3-3 that had worked so well at Tigres with a few tweaks to player roles. Guilló will be given opportunities in midfield with Ruiz retraining to fill a gap at right back.

Mahtal’s First Taste of Spanish Football

Real Madrid and Barcelona have won all bar one LaLiga titles during this save, with Barca winning the last two and Atlético winning it in 2046. Prior to that, Real won the previous six and have won 20 titles in the 25 years of this save. Atlético and Barca currently lead the way on 46 points after 17 games, with favorites Real 5 points back and Valencia, who were predicted to finish 5th, 10 points back in 4th.

Mahtal’s first game came at Girona on 30 December and Torres’ late header rescued a 2-2, before a much tougher away day saw them dismissed 3-0 at Barca. Valencia fans got their first look at Mahtal and walked away thoroughly encouraged as left back Sergio Abrante and winger José Antonio Cano earned a 2-0 win over Sevilla. Mahtal trialled a more defensive approach in another tricky awat day and it nearly worked, only for Atlético to nick a 2-1 win in the final minute. Yet another away game, that’s four in five, saw some improvement as Torres opened the scoring and Combes’ first goal for the club nicked a 2-1 win at Bilbao.

That was backed up by Lobo and Torres securing a 2-1 win at home to Sociedad, which moved Valencia 11 points clear of 5th. The good form continued, including a dominant 3-0 win at home to local rivals Levante, and they wrapped up Champions League qualification with five games remaining.

A strong finish saw Valencia edge close to the top three, eventually finishing 4th with 82 points after 25 wins, 7 draws and 6 defeats, scoring 64 and conceding just 35. They were a huge 21 points clear of Sevilla in 5th but 7 points back from Real, who were 4 points behind champions Atlético, who won the title on the final day. At the other end, Betis, who finished 5th last season, were relegated on the final day. Interestingly, Mahtal’s former Atalanta winger Alberto Mondino, now at Barcelona, was the player of the season with a league-high 15 assists and a 7.63 average rating.

Conference League Opportunity

Valencia had a decent shot at success in the Conference League, in which their toughest opposition would be Aston Villa, Lazio and RB Leipzig. They took on Aberdeen in the round of 16 and dominated them 4-0 away and a rotated team drew 1-1 at home. A potentially tricky quarter final followed against Lazio. Valencia dominated the home leg by 27 shots to six, only to be extremely wasteful other than Torres’ strike just before halftime. They had 27 attempts again in Italy but this time leaked three goals before a late Pedro goal forced extra time. Both sides scored again to go to penalties and Lanita was the hero with two saves to earn a deserved place in the semis.

Waiting for them in the semis were Bulgarian side Levski Sofia, who pulled off a 6-4 aggregate win over Villa courtesy of a shock 5-1 win at home, while Lens faced Leipzig. Winger Romário earned a 2-2 in Bulgaria but Valencia came out flying a home, with Torres having a shot cleared off the line and a goal disallowed before tapping home Sullivan’s cross after 15 minutes. He doubled his tally 8 minutes later with a pinpoint backpost header and Lobo headed in a corner to make it 3-0 before halftime. Torres wrapped up his hat trick late on and, despite some lax defending, Valencia eased into the Final.

That booked Valencia a trip to Amsterdam and the Johan Cruyff ArenA to face Leipzig, who beat Lens 4-2. Mahtal had no injury concerns so he lined up:

Lanita; Ruiz, Sierra, Sano, Diagne; Guilló, Iván, Lobo; Sullivan, Combes; Torres
Subs: Rivas, Ávila, Gureshidze, Pedro, Romário, Delgado, Coca, Jon, Cano, José

Valencia came under plenty of early pressure with Leipzig wasting a host of chances. Both their left winger and left back picked up injuries and Leipzig took a deserved lead, but Valencia swiftly responded through Sullivan. They kept pushing and hit the front through substitute Cano, but got hit by a rapid-fire Leipzig double and painfully but deservedly lost 3-2.

Promising Signs At Valencia

Mahtal was pleased with the early days of his time in Valencia. They pushed Spain’s big three relatively close and reached a European final but just fell short. Their star man had been Torres, who scored 22 in 43, including 8 in 8 in Europe, along with Sullivan (16 goals and 11 assists), Lobo (13 goals and 12 assists), Romário (12 goals) and Cano (7 goals and 11 assists). While Lanita broke Santiago Canizares’ 45-year club record of 20 clean sheets and went on to keep 21.

Valencia also had a promising youth intake led by goalkeeper Alejandro Ochoa. He not only became the youngest-ever Valencia and LaLiga player aged 15 years 332 days, but also kept a clean sheet on his debut in a 1-0 win at Betis.

Could Mahtal strengthen his Valencia side to move closer to Spain’s big three? Join us on Friday to find out!