Advertise on podcast: Villarreal USA: for Villarreal CF fans

Allen is joined by Sidarth to discuss Villarreal's needs in the transfer market--specifically, what we might try to do to give Geronimo Rulli some competition as goalkeeper. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Allen and Sidarth get together to talk about the victory over Bayern (of course) and look ahead a bit to Liverpool. After the break, we get into how various ex-Villarreal players and coaches are doing now, the B team, Villarreal Feminina.... Enjoy and Endavant Villarreal! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen is joined by Sidarth to discuss Villarreal's first qualification for the Champions League quarterfinals since 2009, when Villarreal USA was a Word Press blog and Sid was one of the writers. (I hadn't found them yet!). Our 2009 team had some nice names in it, but two (Giuseppe Rossi and Diego Godín) were young, not what they would become later--Marcos Senna and Joan Capdevila were at the top of their game, and we had some good team players of which the best was Gonzalo and Cani, probably Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three goals in the last 20 minutes dispatched a frustrated Juventus--Allen and Jamie discuss what turned out to be a perfect night in Turin. And what will Unai Emery plan for our quarterfinal matchup against Bayern Munich? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So we have an official changing of the guard to announce. Zach is handing over the VUSA site manager job to Jamie Kemble this week. Zach will still be around, look for his byline on articles and definitely he'll still be tweeting from the VUSA account, blue check and all. Jamie brings a lot of football writing experience, he's actually living in Spain so can see our matches in person most of the time. Plus, he's young and energetic. All good. Of course we talk Yeremy Pino. How could we not? And there's praise for Unai Emery, and also for maybe the best under-the-radar signing of all time, Etienne Capoue. And Sergio Asenjo's contract expires at the end of this year--what will Villarreal do there? What moves might we see in the summer? After the break (Jamie had to go at that point) Zach and I discuss this season in La Liga. Could be you have to finish 5th to get into the Europa League, 6th only gets you the Conference League. A juicy battle for Europe over the last three months of the season. (not to mention a second leg match against Juventus). Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen and Zach catch up with Villarreal news--mostly looking ahead to the Juventus match on Tuesday but also we cover the planned redevelopment of Villarreal's stadium this summer and the news about Sr. Llaneza. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen is joined by Robin and Zach. We talk about recent Villarreal performances first and who has really impressed us....then we move into a discussion of Geronimo Rulli and his strengths and weaknesses, possible reinforcements in winter (a brief discussion of Cedric Bakambu) and how we're feeling about the remainder of the season. Endavant! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen and Sid chat about Villarreal's first half of the season, and the current La Liga standings. Which teams ahead of us look likely to falter? Which look strong? (we recorded this before last weekend's matches btw) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen has returned, managed to see a bit of Villarreal's matches but Robin and Julian have seen more, and we're all concerned. So we talk about tactics, squad composition, squad selection, formations, all that stuff. How can Villarreal get out of this funk? In the best social media tradition, we give Unai Emery our advice. We want to win!!! And at the end we give our predictions for the Valencia and Young Boys matches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Allen welcomes Jamie Kemble to the podcast for the first time. Robin joins us as well. Jamie introduces himself, and then we discuss the draw against Atleti (I mean, we had to, right?), and then we analyze Villarreal's transfer window and how best to use all the players we have. And we have questions. For instance, Paco Alcácer.....is he going to return to scoring form on the pitch? We're amazed we've kept three left backs--which one might end up being the odd man out in January? With all these wing-type players we have, do we play a 4-4-2, or a 4-3-3 in attack? How do we get Gerard untracked? And finally, Robin asks Jamie and me for our favorite Villarreal players and then tells us what that says about us. Well, he got me right, that's for sure! Enjoy. I will be on a hiatus for a few weeks so not sure if we'll have any new podcasts until I get back. Meanwhile, ENDAVANT VILLARREAL, let's get some wins ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every week, Villarreal USA is featuring the predictions of an expected goals-based model developed by Mitchel Green and adapted by Charlie Tuley for La Liga. Today Charlie joins me and Zach Hicks for an explanation of how the model works. We also discuss how we should interpret the predictions, what sort of tweaks could one make to the model to (perhaps) improve it, etc. and of course also understand what its limitations are. Zach and I really enjoyed this discussion and I'm sure we'll have Charlie back on another podcast in a couple of months to discuss a lot of these issues with the benefit of more matches behind us (and hopefully Villarreal will be winning rather than drawing every match!!!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices