By Charly & Brownie
August 10 2005

Everton received Villarreal at Goodison Park in what was one of the most important matches in the history of both teams. The Spanish team won 2 – 1 and now must keep that advantage next match in order to advance to the next round and make it to the Champions League. Goodison was literally rocking, and the Scousers maintained a good noise
throughout the game, even when Villarreal scored the boys in Blue didn't stay quiet for long. Although the 'Yellow Submarine' fans were relatively quiet, they could just about be heard when the Blue percent went almost silent as Everton conceded a goal.

The match started to see Everton try to take the game right away. With full court heavy pressure and their well known physical style, they made it hard for Villarreal to keep the ball. The Spanish team looked very inaccurate during the first thirty minutes, especially when trying to make the transition from defense to attack, as if they were playing their first match in two months. But they found their rhythm soon enough to be able to get four or five complete passes in a row, and thus found two nice goals by Figueroa and Josico.

Everton looked the better side for most of the first half, and didn’t deserve to be the losing side. They found the drawing goal when Beattie cashed in a mistake by Villarreal’s central defense after a long cross. Their physical game lead to many fouls and only Arteta looked good on the ball, holding it up and distributing it nicely all around midfield. Everton possessed the ball a bit more thanks to their pressure.

Both teams defended with a four man line, but Everton used their full backs, Hibbert and Pistone, a bit more in attack, reaching Neville’s line. The former Manchester United was the main defensive midfielder, as the other central midfielders, Davies and Arteta, were more concerned about pressing and having the ball so they played more attacking. These two would go as far back as Neville when defending, and up to the hole when attacking. Cahill and Kilbane played as left and right winger, in defense they would collaborate with pressing in the middle, and whenever the ball wasn’t played through their flanks in attack, they would get into the box next to Beattie and became a real threat that way. All pressing and marking was in zone and there were no real duels between a yellow attacker and a blue defender.

Villarreal constantly changed from diamond 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 and vice versa. Josico, who had a great match, was the main defensive midfielder, Sorín played in left midfield, Riquelme was the playmaker and Figueroa the striker. Senna and Forlán were the ones changing positions. In defence, Senna covered the right side of the pitch, ahead of Javi Venta, and Forlán stayed as a striker. In attack, Senna would go to central midfield and Forlán would pull back up to the right wing far away from the box, in order to face Pistone and Kilbane in a one-on-one which didn’t succeed.

In the second half, Everton started all out attack and Villarreal pulled back and decided to wait for counter attacks. The match gained in emotion but lost in beauty, and the score would remain the same. David Moyes looked for more options and people up front with Duncan Ferguson, Marcus Bent and Jamie McFadden, but that increase in numbers meant that spaces would be occupied, so it became harder for the Blues to create any chances other than crosses, corner and free kicks. Manuel Pellegrini answered back by sending on to the field the newest signing, former Juventus Alessio Tacchinardi, Juan Peña and Guayre, who was left as the only striker. Villarreal ended playing a clearly defensive 4-2-3-1, while Everton ended up defending with three players and all the rest trying to create danger somehow.

But Villarreal didn’t pull back entirely, since when they managed to win back the ball, they would try to keep it in midfield and pass it around, as Everton’s players got tired a long match of constantly pressing and possession was safer. In the end, Everton fought hard all the match and didn’t exactly deserved to lose, but they paid their lack of technique and quality, which forced them to create real danger only through aerial attacks. Villarreal got better as the minutes went by and tried to play the ball to the ground. This was hard to do because of Everton constantly pressing and thus match didn’t come out as a nice show, but it certainly was emotive enough to watch.

The match saw the debut of three players:

Phil Neville - he looked good - demanding, neat, possibly Everton's best player on the night, he worked hard in the middle of the park, clearing things up,and stayed disciplined throughout. To give Cahill and Davies oppurtunities to get up, and help the lone-striker Beattie.

Mariano Barbosa - The young Argentine's debut for Villarreal, and in the early stages looked a bit nervous and shaky, but in the second half he had settled down a bit more, although he flapped at a couple of opportunities, which is understandable, considering it was his debut. He couldn't really have done much to prevent Beattie's goal, and I think he will be fairly pleased with his performance.

Alessio Tacchinardi - The long-serving Juventus midfielder came on for the last 20 minutes, he didn't really have much of an impact on the game, should of buried an easy chance on the 91st minute.

The Goals

On 27 minutes Figueroa cooly slotted the ball into the bottom left hand side of Nigel Martyn's goal, he latched on to a lovely through ball from midfielder Marco Senna.

shortly after James Beattie equalized with a well-fought for, but scrappy goal, the defense must be to blame for this one with Quique Álvarez and Gonzalo Rodríguez, not marking Beattie good enough.

Six minutes after that, Josico latched onto a Sorín cross from the right hand wing, and he met it with a spectacular pin-point header leaving Martyn to watch the ball to fly past his left-hand-side.