Midweek round up

Ok, this is a day late again. Sorry :S

Anyway, my thoughts on the game last night. Erm...Valencia played well. They scored a very early goal thanks to a defensive error from Sevilla. Sadly, the goalscorer hobbled off just 10 minutes later. I'm kind of pissed off about it really. He knew his hamstring wasn't quite right because he felt it in the last game and asked to be subbed off, but still felt he was fit for the Copa game, and well...look how that turned out. Then again, I can understand it in a way. Every footballer wants to play every minute of every game, it's built into them. *sigh* Somebody please ban hamstrings?

Anyway, that seemed to make Valencia lose momentum. Yes, Joaquin andVicente were owning the wings, but not much was happening in terms of goals scored. Big thumbs up to Guaita, who was in for Renan and doing rather well for himself. He made some good saves, and he was pretty much solid at the back, which was a big relief. I don't remember the last time I was this worried over a goalkeeper missing from a team, and Renan is a pretty big part of the reason Valencia are currently top 4 in La Liga. Naturally, I was nervous about how the defence were going to cope with a relatively young and inexperienced goalkeeper behind them, but for the first 45 mintues, he was flawless.

The second half started well for Sevilla, Diego Capel came on for them and seemed to turn it around a little. Within 5 minutes of the restart, Sevilla were level, much to their delight and my disgust. Speaking of disgust...that referee! AARGH! He had me wanting to rip my hair out for the most part, he was just appalling. The number of bad decisions that have gone against Valencia in recent times makes me start to question whether the referees actually all have something against the team or whether they're actually just that incompetant. Or maybe they have it in their heads that I must die of cardiac arrest from screaming abuse for five minutes straight without stopping to breathe. At any rate, the second Sevilla goal had to be the worst piece of officiating I have EVER seen, and believe me, I have seen some bad referees in my time. The goalscorer was clearly about 350 miles offside when he got the ball, yet somehow the goal stood. Still, lets not dwell on that, eh?

Valencia are not a team to admit defeat, and they equalised after 83 minutes played. As much as I love Vicente, I have to admit that he was a little quiet in the second half, nowhere near as influential as he was in the last leg against Racing. Mata replaced him and created the second, then scored the third. Turnaround complete, they will take a 3-2 lead into the second leg in Sevilla next Wednesday.