Villarreal are a Spanish soccer team with a small catchment area and one of the oldest stadiums in LaLiga, yet the team based in the 50,577 population town have largely overachieved when compared to their small size.
Winners of the Europa League as recently as the 2020-21 season, with no less than 16 first-team players having passed through their youth academy, Villarreal have only spent one season outside the top half of the LaLiga table since 2013.
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Despite some significant setbacks, such as the surprise relegation in the 2011-12 season following a fourth-place finish the season before, the club has maintained a consistent philosophy around stability (their chairman Fernando Roig has been in his position for 27 years), a strong youth setup, and adaptability, using these ideals to regularly compete for a place in European competitions.
Speaking to international media, chief executive Fernando Roig and director of football Miguel Ángel Tena were both keen to stress the importance of their academy and their long-term vision.
Overachievement
Competing with European giants Real Madrid and Barcelona domestically, it might leave spectators wondering exactly how a team from a town with 50,000 people manages to be so competitive in Spain’s top-tier league in the country’s top sport, and what magic formula the club may have stumbled on, but Roig is quick to dispel this.
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By GlobalData“There is no magic formula,” he says. “It's just hard work, common sense, and having a clear idea of stability. That is also important because not many Spanish clubs have the same stability as we do.
“And it is key to be very hard working, no one is a magician here. We didn't hire Ted Lasso yet to make a big change in the club, so it's just hard-working and having a clear idea of what your aims are.”
To add to the club’s limitations, its 23,008 capacity Estadio de la Cerámica appears to have reached full development, with no more space for expansion.
To put this into perspective, Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu has a capacity of 78,297, and Barcelona’s Camp Nou, which is currently being redeveloped, is expected to have a capacity of 105,000 when finished, which is more than double Villarreal’s population.
Roig said: “If you remember Highbury (Arsenal’s previous stadium), we are similar because we are in between many buildings just in the middle of the town. So it's difficult.
“No, we are not changing the stadium because we made many changes, so we are not doing anything new since last year.”
Given that the club are arguably punching above their weight already, at the time of writing sitting only 10 points behind Real Madrid and their 3.277 million population city, and 11 behind Atlético Madrid and league leaders Barcelona (1.628 million population), it begs the question as to where the ceiling is for the Castellón club. Could they one day surpass their giant competitors?
Tena admits: “No, for us, that would be an unreal dream. Right now, we like to go for goals we can attain. The first goal for the club is to be in the first division for another year as a matter of survival for the club and provide stability for future seasons after that.”
Last season, the club finished in a respectable but ultimately slightly disappointing eighth place in the league, missing out on European soccer, and they crashed out of the Copa del Rey cup competition in the round of 32 stage, their weakest efforts in both competitions since their 14th-place finish in the 2018-19 season, and their round of 32 exit in the 2021-22 season, itself the shortest run they had had in the competition since the 2012-13 campaign.
However, Tena believes that the current team has more than enough quality to return to where the club normally sits.
“We're an ambitious club,” he states. “We believe that with the squad we have, we can get into Europe. We like to play most seasons being in Europe, and this gives our club recognition in general.”
Roig adds: “We want to play Europe every year, we need to be there to be a big club in Spain. I say Europe, but once in a while, we like playing in the Champions League. We've played it three times, and out of the three times, twice we've reached the semi-finals.”
However, for the 2024-25 season, the club is happy to focus on domestic competitions.
Tena says: “And there's also the Copa del Rey in Spain. And since we're not in Europe this year, we're going to try to make the most of the squad we have to try to get as far as we can in the cup competition.”
Long term objectives
In terms of the club’s objectives, beyond on-field goals in the Copa del Rey and Europe, the club also want to target fan markets outside of Spain.
When asked about the attempted LaLiga match between Villarreal and Atletico Madrid in Miami, USA, in 2019, which was rejected by a Spanish court, Roig explained that while the situation was ultimately out of the club’s control, and firmly in LaLiga’s, the club are still interested in the concept.
“We want to do that, we were willing to do it because we need to make La Liga bigger,” Roig stresses. “If we play in other countries, we become more important in more markets.”
Roig believes these initiatives are key to closing the gap to the financially superior English Premier League.
As he explains: “We are a country with less population, so we have to grow in other countries. So we will accept playing in the US, but it's not our decision. It's more a decision between the league and the federation.”
