Valencia Could Save The Season

With five games remaining in the season, Valencia will fight to get the last ticket for the next edition of the Europa League to avoid being out of the European tournaments for the first time since the 1997-98 season.

Unlike at La Liga, Valencia has had a great performance in the Europa League, where they will face Sevilla in the semifinals. Juventus is favorite in the odds to win the title, while the “Ches” appear as less likely, according to SportsBettingDime.com.

The Naranjeros are located in the eighth place in the table with 44 points, seven away from the Real Sociedad, so their participation in European tournaments depends not only on them, they need to win their matches and wait for defeats of the white and blue team.

In the past 15 years, Valencia has won the league twice (2001 and 2003) and the Copa del Rey too (1998 and 2007). They have also been part of the first five places in Spain on 13 occasions.

Their worst season was seven years ago, when they finished in tenth place with only 32 points.

One of the biggest problems of the squad led by Juan Antonio Pizzi has been the lack of goals.

This season they have 46 scores and could end with their worst performance on offense since the 2001-02 season when they got only 51 goals.

Due to debt and economic problems, the team has lost some of their best players and they haven’t been able to hire great figures.

In recent years, the Spanish strikers David Villa and Roberto Soldado left Mestalla after scoring 211 goals.

This season the Brazilian forward Jonas is their leading scorer  with nine goals, followed by Pablo Alcocer with six and Pablo Piatti with four.

Since 1969, only once Valencia’s top scorer in a season has ended with less than 10 goals, Rufete had eight in 2001.

The most expensive singing in team history is Joaquin, when they paid 25 million Euros to the Real Betis in 2006, but now the team has not been able to spend what they need and their higher hires were three years ago when they signed Piatti, Sergio Canales and Victor Ruiz for 7.5 million Euros.

Valencia will have a difficult end of the season as remaining games are against Atletico and Real Madrid, so they must bet to win the Europa League, which would be their first title since 2007.