TSN is your home for La Liga and two teams looking to bounce back from Champions League disappointment highlight this weekend’s action. First, Canada’s Tajon Buchanan, Tani Oluwaseyi and the rest of Villarreal visit Osasuna on Saturday. Then on Sunday, Real Madrid hosts Rayo Vallecano.
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Osasuna vs. Villarreal, Saturday at 10 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. PT on TSN+
It’s time for Villarreal to focus on the league. The Yellow Submarine’s European adventure ended this past Wednesday with the the final match in the Champions League league phase. Marcelino’s side fell 3-0 to Bayer Leverkusen in Germany. With the loss, Villarreal finished 35th of 36 teams with a single point from the eight matches.
While the Champions League campaign was nothing short of a major disappointment, Villarreal has the opportunity to test their luck in the competition against next season if they maintain their league position where they are currently in fourth place in the La Liga table. A win over Osasuna on Saturday would go a long way to reestablish the team’s credentials after a nervy couple of weeks. But will there be any kind of Champions League hangover?
The biggest news coming out of Wednesday’s match was Marcelino’s unusually blunt criticism for Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey. The 32-year-old Partey is in his first season at the club following a five-year stint with Arnseal. Partey previously played in Spain with Atletico.
While nobody particularly stood out in the loss, Marcelino’s comments after the match seemed like they had been bubbling up for some time and his frustration had finally boiled over. The 32-year-old Partey was lifted at halftime in favour of Georges Mikautadze.
“I think there’s a world of difference between the Thomas we knew at Arsenal and this one,” Marcelino said. “A world of difference. It’s very difficult to play at this pace in today’s football. So, I think it’s been six months now, and that’s enough time for this player to show us what he was or what he’s showing now.”
Based on the manager’s tough talk, it would be a surprise to see Partey feature in the starting XI on Saturday in Pamplona. A player who is most certainly unavailable for the Yellow Submarine is Juan Foyth. The Argentina defender incurred a ruptured Achilles in the team’s 2-0 loss to Real Madrid last weekend. The injury means the 28-year-old Foyth will be unable to help Argentina defend its World Cup at this summer’s 2026 edition in North America.
In the home dugout, Osasuna comes into Saturday’s match on a run of good form. Sitting ninth in the table, Alessio Lisci’s squad has won two straight and has only lost once in its last five league matches. While Osasuna supporters might have dreams of European football next season, they remain closer to the drop than the do the European places.
Lisci says Villarreal offers a stiff test for his side.
“We know we’re facing a team that has only lost to sides playing in Europe this season, and that shows the level of their squad,” Lisci said. “They practically have two teams of a very, very high level, very well coached. That alone shows how difficult tomorrow will be. But we’re in a good moment, we’re prepared. In the first match we competed well, and hopefully tomorrow we can do the same and get a better result.”
That first match came at Le Ceramica in November where Villarreal was a 2-1 winner. Pape Gueye scored the deciding goal in the 85th on an assist from Mississauga, Ont.’s Oluwaseyi. It was the former Minnesota United man’s first goal contribution in just his third match with the club.
Even if Osasuna were to lose again on Saturday, Lisci believes his team has turned a corner this season.
“We’ve changed the dynamic regardless of [Saturday]’s result,” Lisci said on Friday. “But getting three wins in a row and beating Villarreal gives you a huge boost. Above all, it helps you put more distance between yourself and the relegation zone, which is important because it can put you two matches clear and allow you to see things differently. But the focus has to be on playing a good match. If we play well, we’ll be closer to winning.”
Marcelino will unlikely be that accepting of a defeat. Sure, Villarreal still has a seven-point lead on Espanyol for the final Champions League place with a game in hand, but the team finds itself in a rotten run of form. The Yellow Submarine has lost four straight matches and seven of nine across all competitions. During this run, Villarreal has been outscored 19-10.
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Real Madrid vs. Rayo Vallecano, Sunday at 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT on TSN3/5 and TSN+
At the death of Wednesday’s final match of the Champions League league phase at the Bernabeu, Real Madrid surrendered a goal that will be shown on highlight reels for decades to come. In fact, you’ve probably seen the goal a number of times already over the past couple of days. It was that kind of day for Los Blancos.
Real was already going to lose their match with Benfica. They trailed the match 3-2 in stoppage and both Raul Ascencio and Rodrygo had been sent off. But just winning wasn’t good enough for the visitors. As things stood, Benfica would crash out of the Champions League even with the win. They needed another goal to pip Marseille for the final place in the playoff round.
Desperate for that goal, Benfica manager - and former Real boss - Jose Mourinho sent goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin up into the Real area as Fredrik Aursnes’s free kick was likely going to be the final play of the match. Aursnes’s delivery couldn’t have been better. He found an unmarked Trubin to head home and seal a famous win for Benfica, 4-2, to continue with their Champions League journey.
“It’s not the first time a goalkeeper has scored against me,” Real manager Alvaro Arbeloa said. “Obviously, they had to take a risk, we were playing with two players less and we also needed to score a goal to be in the top eight. They took a risk, we took a risk and in the end they won.”
While Real didn’t have the level of desperation that Benfica did, the loss was still a costly one. By failing to pick up a point in the match, Los Blancos missed out on a top-eight place and the bye that comes with it. Real will now be forced into a playoff to reach the Round of 16. Who will Real play in the two-legged tie to be played on Feb. 17 and Feb. 25? Benfica again, of course!
The midweek loss was a setback for Arbeloa, who had seemed to have steadied the ship. After an embarrassing loss to Albacete in the Copa del Rey in his first match in charge following the sacking of Xabi Alonso, Real had won three matches in a row, two in the league and a 6-1 thrashing of Monaco in the Champions League.
In his post-match press conference after the Benfica loss, Arbeloa bristled when asked about his performance as manager over his two weeks in charge.
“I just said it, I don’t know if you heard me,” the World Cup-winning former Spain defender said. “I am responsible for the defeat, just as I was in Albacete. I don’t know if you’ve been to those two press conferences, but I said it and I’ll say it again: I feel totally responsible when things don’t go well and we don’t achieve the objective we had. It’s not that we have been eliminated from the Champions League. We have two games ahead of us and with the objective of going through to the next round, we are going to face it.”
Sputtering Rayo Vallecano could be just the kind of tonic needed by Arbeloa. Inigo Perez’s side comes to the Bernabeu as losers of three straight, including a 3-1 defeat to Osasuna last time out. But Rayo was able to frustrate Real to a scoreless draw in the reverse fixture back in November. While the match might not have the spotlight of an Atletico-Real derby, Rayo-Real is still a Madrid derby and a big one for Rayo supporters.
Expecting Rayo to get a result at the Bernabeu might be too big an ask. The last time the team defeated Real Madrid away was all the way back in 1996. On Jan. 20, Rayo got a brace from Guilherme to defeat Los Blancos by a score of 2-1. Raul found the scoresheet for the home team.
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More La Liga action on TSN
- Levante vs. Atletico, Saturday at 12:15 p.m. ET/9:15 a.m. PT on TSN+
- Elche vs. Barcelona, Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT
- Real Betis vs. Valencia, Sunday at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on TSN4/TSN+
- Athletic vs. Real Sociedad, Sunday at 2:45 p.m. ET/11:45 a.m. PT on TSN+
