Why Villarreal are starting to get that sinking feeling again | Sid Lowe

The Yellow Submarine are one of only six clubs whose salary limit is over €100m: they’re too good to go down. As in 2012

Sergio Asenjo just sat there shaking his head. The goalkeeper who has suffered four cruciate knee ligament tears – three in his right knee, one in his left – was in no hurry to get up this time. “I want them to see what’s at stake in our eyes,” Villarreal’s new manager Luis García Plaza had said before the game against Huesca and they could certainly see it in Asenjo’s eyes now that it was all over. Slowly, he stood, went to the end where maybe 100 fans gathered stunned, silently handed over his shirt and turned to walk away, beaten at the last. This was supposed to be a new beginning, but it had ended like that.

Asenjo saved a penalty and nine other shots on Sunday evening. On a personal level, it had been the best game of his career, he admitted – a career cut short whenever he was on the verge of a Spain call. He was “simply spectacular”, one report said after a match with “three penalties, one red card and a great keeper”. He’d saved from Gonzalo Melero, Moi Gómez, Cucho Hernández, Pablo Insua and Jorge Pulido, and kept on saving all the way to the final minute. That time, though, the ball came back out and Samuele Longo scored, the ball rebounding in off him. It was the 94th minute and Huesca had made it 2-2 against Villarreal. Which might not sound that bad, but as Villarreal’s manager admitted, the situation is “jodida”.

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