Really says it all doesn’t it! A team from a town of 50,000 people which had never before won a major title beat the Premier League giants from the second largest city in England. Think Hickory vs South Bend Central. A team whose total budget is less than Man U pays Paul Pogba holds the Cup. The 7th place team in La Liga, which wouldn’t even have qualified for the Europa League next year except for this win, holds the Cup. The victory will put them into next year’s Champions League.
Villareal didn’t even make it to the Spanish first division for the first time until 1998. They made it to the Third Division for the first time in the 1960s. Prior to that, they had played in Regional Leagues. They bounced around between the Second and Third Divisions for more than 30 years. They were relegated to the Second Division in 2012.
They were a fun team to watch the last few years, playing total attacking football. They actually are less fun to watch now with Unai Emery as manager, but his success is hard to argue.
To me, Villareal was just a stop on the express train between Barcelona and Valencia — the first stop in the Valencian Community. But, now this victory symbolizes everything that was wrong with the proposed Super League. This match never could have happened if that league had come to fruition. This match symbolized everything that European soccer potentially offers. Though it doesn’t happen often, the small fry does sometimes make it into an important match with a great white whale. And, today, David slew Goliath.