Deportivo stuns dominant Villarreal with late comeback at Estadio de la Ceramica

Villarreal went up 2-1 in the 75th minute thanks to an own goal and seemed to have the match under control. Eight minutes later, they were losing 2-3. Deportivo de La Coruna walked away from the Estadio de la Ceramica with a comeback completed in the closing stretch, a gut punch for a Villarreal side that dominated for nearly the entire match but ended up with nothing to show for it.

The hosts could not have asked for a better start. In the 18th minute, Nicolas Pepe finished with his left foot from inside the box to make it 1-0, after an assist from Ayoze Perez on a well-executed counterattack. Villarreal controlled the ball and created chances (Alex Freeman, Ayoze Perez and Alberto Moleiro all came close to a second goal), and everything pointed to the match following that script. But Deportivo, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang generating danger, found the equalizer right before halftime: Luismi Cruz, assisted by Aubameyang, made it 1-1 in the 42nd minute, a psychological blow right when Villarreal seemed to have everything under control.

Madness in the final stretch

In the second half, Villarreal again took charge of the game, with Nicolas Pepe pressing time and again and Georges Mikautadze and Tajon Buchanan adding fresh legs off the bench. The reward came in the 75th minute, when an own goal by Adama Traore, confirmed after a VAR review, put Villarreal ahead 2-1. With the lead restored, the match looked all but decided.

It wasn't. Deportivo responded with an energy Villarreal could not contain. In the 78th minute, Zakaria Eddahchouri, once again assisted by Aubameyang, finished low by the left post to make it 2-2. And just as the match seemed headed for a draw, Aubameyang himself stepped up: in the 87th minute he struck with his right foot from inside the box to complete the 2-3 final score. In barely twelve minutes, Deportivo flipped a result that had seemed lost and took all three points from the Estadio de la Ceramica.

Dominance that wasn't enough

The numbers make clear who dictated the play. Villarreal controlled possession and racked up shots and corners, but could not translate that superiority into a favorable result.

The xG calculated after the fact from the match's shots also favors Villarreal, at 1.87 versus 1.165 for Deportivo, a gap that confirms the hosts' greater offensive volume, though in this case the visitors' efficiency in the right moments ended up outweighing overall dominance.

The contrast with the preview projections is striking. Our model gave Villarreal a 63% chance of winning, against just 14% for Deportivo, and estimated expected goals of 2.10 for the hosts versus 0.92 for the visitors. The outcome was the exact opposite of what that projection suggested: the team with fewer chances on paper took the match in the final minutes.

What the result leaves behind

For Deportivo de La Coruna, the win comes at a good point in their LaLiga form, while for Villarreal the blow is a tough one: they dominated with authority, went ahead twice, and still could not hold on to the result. The 6-point gap between the two sides in the standings sums up the current distance between the two projects well, a distance that this match, far from narrowing, ended up widening.