Villarreal stuns Valencia with stoppage-time winner, 1-2 at Mestalla

Valencia took the lead at Mestalla, held on for nearly the entire match with a one-man advantage over their opponents, and still ended up losing 1-2 to Villarreal, who scored the decisive goal deep into stoppage time. Once again, the script got complicated for Javier Aguirre's side in the closing minutes.

The match caught fire starting in the 35th minute, when the referee was called to the monitor and awarded a penalty to Valencia. Two minutes later, Pepelu made no mistake, firing with his right foot into the top left corner for the 1-0. Up to that point, Villarreal had been far superior in terms of overall play, with several chances for Pape Gueye that hadn't found the net, but they went into halftime trailing on the scoreboard.

In the second half, the equalizer came through the air: in the 68th minute, Alex Freeman headed home a cross from Sergi Cardona to make it 1-1. The match then entered a tense phase. At the 77-minute mark, VAR intervened again, this time to review a potential red card, and ultimately confirmed the sending off of Pape Gueye for a scuffle a minute later. Villarreal were down to ten men, and it looked like Valencia had the match within reach with a man advantage. But the script twisted again: in the 88th minute, Harvey Elliott picked up a second yellow card, leaving the home side also with ten men.

With both teams level on the field and the match already into stoppage time (seven minutes were added), Villarreal found their reward on a counterattack: Georges Mikautadze finished with his left foot from inside the box, after an assist from Alberto Moleiro, to make it a final 1-2 in the 95th minute.

What the numbers say

Villarreal's dominance was clear in possession and shot volume, though Valencia were more accurate when it came to hitting the target.

In our own expected goals estimate based on the shots taken during the match, Villarreal finished with 1.656 compared to Valencia's 1.189, a gap that fits with the larger number of chances created by the visitors, even though Valencia had more shots on target.

The pre-match projection had been fairly close to how things actually played out: Villarreal were given a 45% chance of winning, Valencia 28%, and a draw 27%, with expected goals of 1.61 for the visitors and 1.23 for the home side. The final result, a narrow one-goal win for the visitors, lines up with what the model saw as the most likely outcome before kickoff.

What the match means in the standings

So far in the competition, Valencia have 6 points from 10 matches played, with 1 win, 3 draws and 6 losses, sitting in 19th place in the standings. Villarreal, meanwhile, have climbed to 12 points from 10 matches, with 3 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses, in 8th place. The gap between the two sides in the table stands at 6 points.

Valencia are left with the feeling of having had the match under control for a long stretch, even converting a penalty in their favor, but Elliott's red card in the 88th minute stripped them of their numerical advantage with just a few minutes left to play, and Villarreal made the most of that final counterattack to take all three points from Mestalla.