The curious case of Villarreal & the current strength of La Liga

With 12 games to go, Villarreal are level on points with Atletico Madrid in LaLiga. They’re firmly on course for a top-four finish for the first time in a decade, and with it the riches of Champions League football for the second year in a row.

On the surface, it has been a fantastic season for the Yellow Submarine, who find themselves in a strong position to establish themselves as the “fourth team” in the Spanish top flight at a time when playing at Europe’s elite level is more lucrative than ever before.

Their counter-attacking style has delivered consistently in LaLiga, and they can happily reflect on some smart summer business, with the likes of Alberto Moleiro, Georges Mikautadze and Santiago Mouriño impressing.

However, it’s impossible to assess Villarreal’s campaign without also considering their dismal showing in the Champions League, as well as a host of poor performances in the big domestic matches.

Abysmal in Europe and failing to land a glove on Spain’s top clubs

The Yellow Submarine finished one place off the bottom in the 36-team UCL league phase. Only a marginally superior goal difference saw them edge out Kazakh side Kairat, who also only collected one point from eight games.

While they were somewhat unfortunate to lose 1-0 at Tottenham on matchday one, and held Juventus to a 2-2 draw a fortnight later, Villarreal’s European campaign quickly fell off the rails. Despite benefitting from the fifth-easiest schedule (according to Opta), Marcelino’s side lost all of their remaining games, with defeats against Pafos, Ajax and FC Copenhagen almost inexplicable in the context of their promising league season.

Villarreal have also found it tough going against the best teams in Spain. Even in poorer recent campaigns, they’ve often been one of the few clubs capable of upsetting LaLiga’s top sides. However, that has not played out this term, with all five of their matches against the “big three” ending in defeats by margins of two or more goals.

A 4-1 loss at Camp Nou against a Lamine Yamal-inspired Barcelona on Saturday was the latest, and by now predictable, failure against one of the big boys.

They also limped to a tame 2-0 home defeat against a deeply flawed Real Madrid side in January, creating just 0.57 xG across the 90 minutes in a fixture they’d lost just once in the eight previous seasons in the Spanish top flight.

Dominant against everyone else

Villarreal’s status in the top four comes by virtue of an almost flawless record against everyone else. They’ve dropped just five points in 18 matches against teams outside the top six.

That’s the best record in the division, and by some margin, with Real Madrid letting 12 points go against clubs ranked seventh or below, while Barcelona have dropped 11 points.

Defensively, Villarreal have been much more assured this season. They now resemble a more typical Marcelino team in that they’re capable of soaking up pressure in most games and striking effectively on the break.

While Ayoze Perez has not hit the heights of last term, and Gerard Moreno has endured another injury-ravaged campaign, attacking depth was key in the first half of the season when there were still European commitments to contend with.

Moleiro has been a major hit on the left flank, with nine goals and four assists in LaLiga, while Mikautadze is only one behind on 12 goal contributions. Nicolas Pepe and Tajon Buchanan have also chipped in with some important strikes, while offering the pace and dynamism that has troubled the weaker teams in transitions all season.

Making sense of a strange season at the Ceramica

“We have to improve,” claimed Marcelino after his team’s latest setback against Barcelona on Saturday.

“There’s a clear pattern with the Champions League matches. We could have picked up more points in the Champions League and also against the big teams, but we’ve made some glaring mistakes.

“I don’t want to dwell on the 3–1 (Yamal’s hat-trick goal) because it really annoys me. To compete against these teams, you simply can’t make those kinds of errors.”

Villarreal’s curious season may also speak volumes about the lack of depth that currently exists in LaLiga. Traditional powerhouses Valencia and Sevilla are now deep in decline, Athletic Club have underperformed, while Real Sociedad were viewed as unlikely relegation candidates before an impressive turnaround under their new boss Pellegrino Matarazzo since the turn of the year.

Early-season surprise package Espanyol remain winless in 2026, but are still seventh in LaLiga, and don’t look like dropping out of the top half, with a cluster of unconvincing sides below them struggling to build any real momentum.

With the possible exception of Claudio Giraldez’s Celta Vigo, genuine success stories are hard to find this season. Even the followers of fifth-placed Real Betis have grown frustrated with much of what they’ve seen, with many turning on their team following a dismal second-half showing in last weekend’s Seville derby.

While still extreme, perhaps Villarreal’s contrasting record is merely a reflection of this current age of football. In an era when even bottom-half Premier League clubs can pluck the top talent away from just about anyone outside of LaLiga’s top three, it doesn’t take quite so much to be the best of the rest in Spain.

It may well be that Athletic come back stronger next season, and Real Sociedad continue rebuilding. However, the overall trend points to a weakening of the chasing pack, with Los Leones also failing to advance from the initial stage in the Champions League.

That poses broader questions about LaLiga’s financial model and what, if anything, can be done to give the second tier of clubs a fighting chance of closing the gap to the top three and competing better on the biggest European stage.

With a sensible transfer policy, one of the best academies in the business, and another UCL cash windfall on the horizon, Villarreal remain the club best placed to bridge that divide, as a puzzling season at the Ceramica nears its conclusion.