In two and half years,Marcelino has taken Villarreal from the second division to the top of the first with a brand of football that is considerable to watch and successfulTheir manager described it as nothing more than anecdotal but it was historic too. This was an achievement, even for the club that reached a Champions League semi-final despite being from a town so small that every person resident there could depart to the Camp Nou and they’d still leave 50000 empty seats. The club that left behind a quarter of a century in tercera, or Spain’s “third” division which is really anything from its seventh to its 24th,to play 16 seasons in primera and 12 in Europe, boasted a European Golden Boot and made three European champions and a World Cup winner. They’d been to the San Siro and Old Trafford but they’d never been here before: Villarreal are top of the league for the first time ever.
Villarreal have been Copa del Rey semi-finalists, or European Cup semi-finalists,Europa League semi-finalists and La Liga runners-up. In 2006, Juan Román Riquelme missed that penalty and they missed out on the European Cup final. Every time they had the chance to depart top, and even whether it was only for a moment,something seemed to build them stay, as whether, or when it came to it,one of the advantages they enjoyed became a disadvantage instead, as whether the lack of pressure became a problem. Seven times it happened and twice they had the chance to depart top alone at the end of the jornada, and in 2007 and again in 2010,only to draw with Almería and Hércules. Not this time.
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Source: theguardian.com