A poker that tastes like the abyss. And perhaps also out of habit: after the defeat in Vigo, Valencia sank back into the relegation zone. The big risks taken in past seasons were not enough to reverse the trend. And today the glorious club that in such a distant time challenged the leadership of Barça and Real is in an agonizing downward spiral. “These numbers are dangerous,” admits Carlos Corberán, the young coach who took over midway through last season and saved the team from disaster. But now the music has changed for him too, and around the Mestalla it’s really hard to see who can keep the flame lit.
He was talking about numbers, Corberán. Only one win in the last ten games, 16 points in the standings, third from last place and the worst away defense in the entire Liga (22 goals conceded). However it ends – the halfway point is one match away, Pepelu and his teammates will not be able to go beyond 19 -, Valencia has lined up another disastrous first round. And it is emblematic that the four worst ever in the club’s history – 20 points with Javi Garcia in 2020/21, 20 with Gennaro Gattuso in 2022/23, 13 with Ruben Baraja in 2024/25 – date back to the last six seasons. The crisis is not from today, nor from a year ago. But it represents an inexorable structural collapse that the club has slowly been facing since the pandemic.
It is no coincidence that the fans protest. They protest loudly, gathered en masse near the Mestalla, against the owners responsible for the collapse: the other night, after the 4-1 defeat by Celta Vigo, around 8,000 showed up. The group of entrepreneurs headed by Peter Lim, a Singaporean tycoon, is in the crosshairs. Despite the promises of the summer, the squad has not been strengthened: the jewel in the crown, market value in hand, is still Javi Guerra – an interesting 22-year-old midfielder, raised at home and called upon to shoulder such a complicated situation. And Lucas Beltran, freshly arriving from a Fiorentina no less in crisis, is not enough to restore the team’s balance.
The management now begins to blame Corberán, who nevertheless continues to enjoy a certain amount of trust with Lim. The next matches will be decisive, and there are those who continue to dangerously bet that in one way or another – as happened in previous disappointing years – Valencia will manage to get away with it this time too. But by playing with fire you end up getting burned. The budget that will be used on the repair market will in any case be modest, above all the motivations of a technically limited group will count. And at the moment his morale is low. At the Mestalla the boos rain down, it is said that it is difficult to do worse than this. Indeed, only the Segunda would be worse. A bogeyman that is now too usual for a club like this.
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