New Villarreal manager Jose Molina has faced many battles in his eventful life but the latest chapter starts afresh in a new year and a new beginning when hostilities resume in La Liga.
Jose Molina, pictured here playing for Deportivo, had an illustrious playing career. (Getty Images)
On Sunday, Molina will take his position on the bench as a manager of a top-flight club for the first time, looking to upset high flying Valencia - the city of his birth - and kickstart the Yellow Submarine's faltering season. The title chase may well be a two-horse race between Barcelona and Real Madrid, but there are still plenty of furlongs to go for the rest of the thoroughbreds and also-rans, no more so than in the local derby at El Madrigal where the stakes could not be higher.
The story of this Villarreal team is one of despair and disappointment. Even before the season began they lost one of their main men, Santi Cazorla, to free-spending Malaga CF. The omens were not good. Even though they retained players of the caliber of Carlos Marchena, Giuseppe Rossi and Cristian Zapata, they sank down the table week after week. When former manager Juan Carlos Garrido got the boot just before last Christmas, he left the team languishing in 17th place, out of the relegation zone only thanks to goal difference.
Garrido had been appointed to replace Ernesto Valverde who was unable to keep the team in the upper section of the table in February 2010. He did well for a while, leading the team to a decent seventh place that season and finishing fourth the next year. In Europe he also found relative success. In 2010, he reached the semi-finals of the Europa League and then, this season, powered through to the Champions League group stages with a convincing win against Odense BK, before things started to go spectacularly wrong.
After failing to take a single point from what was, admittedly, the toughest Champions League group, Garrido eventually hit rock bottom when Villarreal lost 2-0 at home to lowly Club Deportivo Mirandes in the Copa del Rey and he was fired the following day.
Juan Carlos Garrido was fired after a dismal first half of the campaign. (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
With Jose Molina things could and should change for the better. To add spice to what it is without doubt the match of the weekend, the new gaffer’s face is familiar to both teams. Molina, a product of Valencia’s youth system and a former goalkeeper with the likes of Villarreal, Atletico Madrid, Deportivo La Coruna, and Levante, knows just how high the stakes are in every derby against Valencia. This is a man who knows Villarreal CF inside out having played for them before and having managed both their C and B teams over the past two seasons.
Molina, a former Spain international with nine caps to his name, is a man whose will cannot be questioned. In 2002 when he was at the peak of his career he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and forced to hang up his boots for the rest of the season in order to undergo treatment. Ultimately, he beat the disease and got back to playing on a regular basis again, until he finally retired in 2007.
Make no mistake - the task he faces is daunting. Villarreal has just announced a loss of 16 million euros and budget cuts of around 24 million for next year. Even though he may benefit from coming into the frame just as the transfer window opens, he may not have the funds to rebuild his squad and more likely will have to do with the players he has already available. A recall for Nigeria striker Ikechukwu Uche, currently on loan at Granada, may be the full extent of Molina’s rebuilding. Additionally Marcos Senna, César Sánchez and Ángel López are all in the last six months of their contracts and could leave sooner rather than later.
The signs, however, are good. Molina is a very popular coach, and he has already received the full backing of Villarreal captain Senna. In his career as a manager in the second and third tiers of Spanish football, he has enjoyed some success, performing almost a miracle when he kept Villarreal B in the second division against all the odds after taking over Javi Gracia last May. His deep knowledge of the team’s reserves and academy will also be a plus, no doubt.
In his first press conference as Villarreal manager he sounded positive and enthusiastic: “I’m very excited and this is a great opportunity. We will work as hard as possible, with a humble attitude and at the same time with a great ambition, to demonstrate that we are a good team. I’m relishing getting started."
That the man is full of confidence is quite clear. He even speculated about qualifying for European competition next season, despite tough fixtures against Atletico, Barcelona and Sevilla looming over the horizon. His approach is simple; he is aware that the situation is “complicated” but he is also decidedly “optimistic” about the future.
Enthusiasm aside, Molina needs his senior players to step up from now until the end of the season. The likes of Nilmar, Marchena, Senna and Diego López have to perform at a higher level week in and week out. Rossi’s season-ending injury is undoubtedly a major setback, but it is also an opportunity for others like Uche, or perhaps Villarreal B's young and prolific forward Airam López, to show what they can do at a higher level.
Villarreal has a reputation for producing quality players that have played a role in each of their recent European campaigns, including their historic 2005-06 season when they lost to Arsenal in the semifinals of the Champions League. Ultimately, Molina may be forced to turn to his young guns, like Musacchio, Catala, and Joan Oriol, who have already played a number of games for the first time this season.
One thing is clear, to stop the Yellow Submarine sinking even further, Molina will have to bring out the best of the team he has inherited. Most of this same squad were playing Champions League football only a couple of months ago. The quality is there, it just needs to be conjured. The match against Valencia will serve as a first measure of how closer or farther are Molina and his players are from getting past the winning post again.
