By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-03-21 12:16:37 | Updated at 2025-03-21 22:01:02
9 hours ago
Years of decline had left Valencia staring into the abyss. Now, thanks to a managerial change and a quiet tactical evolution, they’re showing signs of life. And maybe a future.
By any reasonable measure, Valencia CF should be one of Spain’s great football clubs. They have all the ingredients – the history, a fervent fanbase, a stadium that feels less like a venue and more like the home of a powerful institution. And yet, for a city that prides itself on being home to the City of Arts and Sciences, the club itself has been in a state of arrested development for years with no progress on the field.
This season looked like it would resemble something far worse than just a lack of progress. Not merely the logical next step in a decade-long decline, but a full-blown reckoning. Valencia are stuck in a relegation battle that they haven’t experienced in years; they have 28 points from 28 games. At just one point per game, it’s their lowest return in over a decade. The numbers aren’t ambiguous.
They’ve long operated as a selling club, moving on players like David Villa, Juan Mata, David Silva and Rodrigo; a near-constant outflow of talent that Valencia have turned into profit and other teams have turned into success.
But now, that churn has gone into overdrive – Ferran Torres, Gonçalo Guedes, Yunus Musah and Giorgi Mamardashvili have all been sold in recent years. The business model remains the same: sell, replace, repeat. The problem is, when you keep subtracting, eventually you run out of things to take away.
Dani Parejo, who held Valencia’s midfield together for the best part of a decade, put it bluntly: “Right now, they are where they are, but one year, if they keep going like this, they will be relegated.”
They have flirted with relegation before, but this season has felt like a full commitment. By the time the club got around to sacking Rubén Baraja in December, they had taken just 12 points from a possible 54 and were sitting second from bottom. If not for Real Valladolid’s particularly miserable return to the top flight, they’d have been dead last.
Spain’s Relegation Race
Only four teams have changed managers this season, which, by the standards of Spanish football, feels almost quaint.
The relegation battle is usually a whirlwind of panic decisions and short-term fixes but, as of 21 March, most clubs have held their nerve. Compare that to last season, when eight clubs made changes, including Almería and Villarreal cycling through multiple managers. The year before that, nine clubs swapped out their coaches mid-season, and in 2021-22, half of La Liga’s 20 teams hit the reset button at least once.
This season, though, the managerial merry-go-round has only been operating in first gear. Valladolid and Las Palmas made their moves early but Alavés and Valencia waited until December, clinging to the idea that things might turn around on their own.
Valladolid, in particular, are sinking fast, having picked up just 16 points from 28 matches. At 0.57 points per game, they are approaching the territory of historically doomed teams like Granada in 2016-17, who finished with 0.53 per game. That’s the lowest points-per-game ratio in the last decade. Paco Jémez, Lucas Alcaraz and *checks notes* Tony Adams all got a chance to save them that year to no avail.
Las Palmas, too, are circling that historically doomed drain. Their xG difference per game sits at -0.93; only this year’s Valladolid (-0.95) and that Granada side (-1.1) have poorer numbers on record. They currently sit in 19th place.
Then there’s the final relegation spot, the one that will define the season for clubs on the margins. Leganés (currently in 18th) and Las Palmas face a brutal five-game stretch, with the first and second-toughest schedules according to Opta’s Power Rankings. Alavés, themselves in fear of the drop, are next and Valladolid after them.
Valencia can take some heart from the fact their remaining schedule is the ninth-easiest. There’s further good news if you look at the underlying data, too. By expected points, they should be sitting comfortably in 13th with 34.7 points.
In fact, isolate expected points since Carlos Corberán took over and Valencia’s numbers improve even more, with the new manager lifting them to 10th in expected points per game (1.47).
Aside from the data now looking on them more favourably, Valencia just look better and more dynamic. The football makes more sense. And that, more than anything, should be enough to keep them up for another year. Because at this stage, survival is the goal — staying in place while the ground shifts beneath them.
Carlos Corberán’s Quiet Transformation
Carlos Corberán hasn’t torn down Baraja’s Valencia so much as he’s quietly rearranged it, swapping out parts and adjusting structures. The changes have been subtle but they have had the desired effect. The core is still there, but the system around it is different, and suddenly, players who looked adrift in Baraja’s final weeks are starting to look like themselves again.
Baraja’s rigid 4-4-2 was effective last season – Valencia finished ninth with one of the league’s strongest xG differentials. It was built on the back of not giving up chances, defending well and then attacking fast. It wasn’t exactly expansive, but it was enough.
Then came this season: four losses in their first five, a lone draw, and a slow drift toward the bottom of the table as Valencia bumped up against the limitations of his 4-4-2. While a switch to a 4-2-3-1 earned brief respite – including a win over Girona at Mestalla – it wasn’t enough to save the project. Corberán has picked up the pieces with a clearer sense of purpose.
Under the Spaniard, Valencia have become more deliberate in possession. They average more build-up attacks – moves that contain 10+ passes and end in the opposition’s box (up from 1.1 to 1.4) – and more 10+ pass sequences in general (up from 6.6 to 7.9). They have far greater control over tempo and territory.
The goal that put them ahead against Girona last weekend? A 21-pass sequence, finished by Diego López at the back post. Before that, their longest passing sequence leading to a goal this season was just 11 passes.
They haven’t been reinvented. But they’ve been rejuvenated. And that alone is a significant upgrade.
The Valencian Renaissance
Corberán has built his midfield around a double pivot that now looks undroppable. Everything runs through Javi Guerra and Enzo Barrenechea, and under his management, both are playing their best football of the season.
Barrenechea, on loan from Aston Villa, has gone from rotational option to one of the most effective defensive midfielders in La Liga. Under Baraja, he logged 726 minutes across 12 games without ever fully clicking. Under Corberán, he’s played more minutes (770) in fewer games (9) and has quietly put together an under-the-radar breakout season. With more recoveries, tackles, duels and interceptions, his nine ball recoveries per 90 rank him in La Liga’s top 10 for midfielders (min. 500 minutes played) since Corberán took over.
Beside him, Javi Guerra finally looks like the player Valencia believed he could be. A failed move to Atlético Madrid last summer seemed to derail his form, but now he’s the team’s central axis.
Since January, only Rodrigo De Paul has completed more progressive carries of 10+ metres among La Liga midfielders (min. 500 minutes). Under Corberán, he leads the team in open-play attacking sequence involvements.
With just one look at him striding forward in his box-to-box role, you can tell he has his verve back.
For Valencia, this is good news on multiple fronts. On the pitch, it means stability. Off it, it means the next batch of young talent is showing the kind of form that puts them on scouting reports at bigger clubs.
Diego López, for example, is having a spectacular season. Six goals and four assists in the league, and a goal in each of his last three games has put Europe’s big teams on notice.
Then there’s César Tárrega. The 22-year-old centre-back, now part of Spain’s Under-21s setup, has quietly impressed in Corberán’s back three — not just defensively, but as a distributor capable of breaking lines.
If Valencia aren’t climbing the table, their next generation is at least making them harder to ignore.
What Comes Next?
Corberán has done everything that could reasonably be expected of him and maybe more. He’s taken a team spiralling toward relegation and, in a short time, made them functional and competitive. But Valencia need more than just a temporary fix. Survival, in its current state, isn’t a triumph. It’s a stay of execution.
And they’re not out of danger yet. According to the Opta supercomputer, they still have roughly an 18% chance of finding themselves inside the bottom three at the end of the season.
The club made an effort in January, dipping into the market to shore up a squad that was visibly running on fumes. They signed Umar Sadiq, Max Aarons and Iván Jaime but only Sadiq has played any meaningful part. It’s not nearly enough to restore the club to the stature Valencia should command. More investment is needed along with more ambition and a better plan.
Maybe that’s a conversation for another day, another season, another owner. Right now, the only thing that matters is survival. And to make that happen, they’ll need more of what they’ve shown under Corberán – more fight, more clarity and above all else, more results.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You can also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
