Alavés vs Villarreal: Why the battle before possession could decide Mendizorroza clash

Deportivo Alavés have attempted 340 fewer passes than Villarreal across the opening two rounds of LaLiga.

They have taken eight more shots.

That contrast may explain Friday night at Mendizorroza better than the league table.

Villarreal are attempting to construct a new positional identity under Iñigo Pérez: press higher, keep the team connected, establish possession closer to the opposition goal and control what happens when the ball is lost.

Quique Sánchez Flores is building something different at Alavés.

His team can play. They can sustain possession. They can change shape. But their most dangerous football does not require them to dominate the ball for long periods. Alavés want to shorten the distance between recovery and attack, turn matches into contests for territory and second balls, and force opponents to make decisions before their structure is ready.

This is therefore not simply a meeting between a direct team and a possession team.

It is a contest over who determines when football is allowed to become organised.

Alavés want to decide the game before Villarreal can organise it.

Villarreal must survive that game before they can impose their own.

The numbers reveal two very different routes to goal

After two matches, both sides remain unbeaten.

Alavés have four points, four goals scored and only one conceded. Villarreal have drawn twice, scored four and conceded four.

But the more revealing numbers sit beneath the results.

Villarreal have accumulated 1,034 passes across their opening two league matches. Alavés have made 694.

Yet Alavés have produced 27 shots to Villarreal’s 19.

It is an early-season sample and should not be treated as a definitive profile, but the contrast already illustrates the difference in attacking economy.

Villarreal want possession to create the conditions for the attack.

Alavés are often willing to attack before those conditions look perfect.

A duel won.

A forward receiving directly.

A second ball collected by a midfielder.

A runner attacking the space behind an advancing full-back.

Those moments do not require ten passes of preparation.

And against an Iñigo Pérez side attempting to hold its defensive line high and compress the pitch around possession, that directness can become particularly valuable.

Mendizorroza is part of the tactic

Pérez’s description of the challenge was revealing.

Before Villarreal can impose their football, he believes his team must first match the emotional and environmental intensity of Mendizorroza.

That is more than a reference to atmosphere.

It describes a tactical problem.

Alavés are comfortable turning possession into a physical event. Long passes create aerial duels. Aerial duels create second balls. Second balls destroy predetermined positions.

The game becomes less about where players were supposed to stand and more about who reacts first.

For Villarreal, that can be dangerous.

Pérez wants a team with defined distances around the ball because those distances help Villarreal press after losing possession. But if the first action bypasses the press entirely — a direct pass into a striker, a flick, a loose ball collected 25 metres further up the pitch — the positional advantage can disappear immediately.

Suddenly Villarreal are not counter-pressing.

They are turning and running.

That is the version of the match Alavés should want.

Not because Villarreal are incapable of defending transition, but because every transition delays the moment when their superior volume of possession can begin to control the stadium.

The first battle is in the air; the second is underneath it

Alavés’ forwards are central to this mechanism.

Toni Martínez provides a penalty-box reference. Lucas Boyé can protect possession with contact and connect play underneath pressure. Mariano Díaz has changed both of Alavés’ first two league matches from the bench and enters Friday having scored in each.

Who starts alongside Toni may alter the details.

The structural purpose remains similar.

Alavés need their front line to make Villarreal’s centre-backs defend forward passes rather than simply circulate possession around them.

The first contact does not even need to be won cleanly.

Sometimes the objective of a direct ball is not possession.

It is location.

If the ball drops around Antonio Blanco, Pablo Ibáñez or the third central midfielder rather than around Villarreal’s attacking players, Alavés have already moved the next action into a more favourable zone.

That is why the midfield numbers matter.

Villarreal have frequently used Santi Comesaña and Pape Gueye as the central pair in their 4-4-2 base structure. Alavés can place three natural midfielders around the second-ball zone.

If the home side consistently turn long passes into 3v2 contests underneath their forwards, they can attack Villarreal’s defence without ever needing to solve the first pressure through conventional build-up.

For Pérez, therefore, defending the first ball is only half the task.

Villarreal must own the rebound.

Antonio Blanco can control a game without controlling possession

Blanco is particularly important because his influence can connect Alavés’ two personalities.

He gives them the option of playing after the duel.

That distinction matters.

A purely direct side becomes predictable once the opponent begins winning first contacts. Alavés can instead use the direct pass to create a new phase and then allow Blanco to organise what happens next.

If Villarreal’s midfield has moved towards the initial duel, Blanco can receive the loose ball with the opposition structure already compressed.

Now the next pass becomes dangerous.

It can travel wide before Villarreal reset.

It can find a forward who has spun away from contact.

It can switch the point of attack towards a full-back caught high on the opposite side.

The irony is that Villarreal know Blanco’s qualities particularly well after showing interest in him during the transfer window.

Friday offers a different kind of evaluation.

Not whether he could play in Iñigo Pérez’s midfield, but whether he can prevent that midfield from controlling the match.

The space Villarreal leave in order to attack

Villarreal’s ambition produces its own risk.

Pérez does not want his side defending close to Luiz Júnior for prolonged periods. The logic is to push the defensive line higher, keep distances compact and recover possession quickly enough to sustain attacks.

When it works, Alavés can become trapped.

Their back line receives possession under pressure.

Their midfield is forced backwards.

The forwards become isolated.

Villarreal recover the ball and another attack begins before Alavés have escaped the previous one.

But a high line is not inherently defensive control.

It is a wager on controlling the ball before the opponent can attack the space behind it.

Alavés have several ways of testing that wager.

A forward can pin Juan Foyth or Renato Veiga and create a channel for the second striker.

A direct pass towards the flank can force a full-back to turn.

A midfield runner can attack the gap created when one Villarreal defender steps aggressively into the duel.

This is why Alavés do not need to defeat Villarreal’s press beautifully.

Sometimes the best pass against a pressing team is the one that removes the press from the action.

Villarreal’s first two games have already shown the cost of instability

The Yellow Submarine have demonstrated impressive resilience.

They recovered from 2-0 down at Racing Santander to draw 2-2, scoring twice before half-time.

They then earned another 2-2 draw away to Atlético Madrid.

Four goals and two difficult away points represent a respectable beginning to a new coaching cycle.

But the game states matter.

Villarreal have already spent significant periods reacting to matches rather than dictating them.

At El Sardinero, Racing’s early momentum pushed them two goals behind before Pape Gueye and Nicolas Pépé transformed the contest in a rapid burst.

Against Atlético, Villarreal again had to navigate a volatile match rather than simply impose positional control.

Mendizorroza is a particularly dangerous venue in which to allow another unstable opening.

Villarreal have won only three of their 14 LaLiga visits there and have not taken three points from the stadium since the 2019/20 season.

History does not determine tactics.

But it reinforces the central challenge.

If Villarreal spend the first 20 minutes merely trying to survive Alavés’ rhythm, they may never obtain the quiet game Pérez wants.

Moleiro and Pépé can punish the back five

Alavés cannot simply turn the contest into chaos without accepting risk themselves.

Their defensive structure is flexible.

Sánchez Flores has used a back five as the starting reference while retaining the capacity to move towards a 4-4-2 depending on the game state.

That flexibility can help against Villarreal because the visitors attack through different heights.

But every extra defender added to the last line removes a player from somewhere else.

If Alavés settle too deeply into a 5-3-2, Villarreal can begin creating the match they want.

Pépé can receive high and wide before moving inside.

Alberto Moleiro can operate between the outside midfielder and outside centre-back.

Carlos Romero can advance from the left.

Georges Mikautadze and Ayoze Pérez can manipulate the three centre-backs through opposite movements — one threatening depth, the other leaving the line to connect.

That last detail is particularly important.

Pérez has challenged Mikautadze to become more involved in creation rather than living permanently on the final defensive line.

Against Alavés, dropping away from the centre-backs could be more damaging than simply running behind them.

If one defender follows him, a gap appears.

If nobody follows, Villarreal gain a free receiver between midfield and defence.

And if Blanco drops deeper to protect that zone, Alavés lose one of the players they need to contest second balls higher up the pitch.

Villarreal’s route to control therefore begins by forcing Alavés backwards one decision at a time.

The winger-to-full-back relationship can stretch Alavés apart

Pérez’s 4-4-2 is not necessarily a flat attacking structure.

The relationship between winger and full-back can transform the geometry.

If Pépé moves inside and Mouriño advances outside him, the Alavés wing-back must decide whether to protect width or the half-space.

If the outside centre-back steps towards Pépé, Villarreal can attack the channel behind him.

If the midfield slides across to cover, the far side becomes available for a switch.

This is where the high passing volume begins to matter.

Alavés want individual actions to determine the next phase.

Villarreal want enough circulation to force a collective defensive movement.

One pass rarely breaks a back five.

Five or six consecutive passes from side to side can alter the distances within it.

The purpose is not sterile possession.

It is to move Alavés until one defender arrives late.

That is when Pépé, Moleiro or Mikautadze can attack.

The tactical value of Nathan Saliba

New signing Nathan Saliba adds another possibility for Pérez.

He does not need to start to influence the game.

If Villarreal require greater control of second balls, fresh midfield athleticism becomes valuable. If Comesaña or Gueye are being dragged into too many individual contests, Saliba offers another profile capable of increasing coverage through the centre.

His arrival also matters over a season in which Villarreal will combine LaLiga with Champions League football, but Mendizorroza could offer an immediate demonstration of why midfield volume was considered necessary.

This is unlikely to be a match in which the central players can operate only as passers.

They will have to run backwards.

Compete.

Recover.

Then play.

That order is important.

At Mendizorroza, technique may only become relevant after contact.

Quique’s bench has already become a weapon

Alavés’ first two matches have also revealed something about Sánchez Flores.

He has changed games with substitutions.

Against Getafe, the match remained scoreless deep into the second half before Alavés exploded late.

Against Rayo, Mariano entered after the hour and scored the equaliser in the 84th minute.

This gives the home side a useful tactical advantage.

Quique does not necessarily need his starting XI to solve the entire game.

He can use the first hour to create physical damage.

Force Villarreal’s defenders into duels.

Make Comesaña and Gueye cover repeated second balls.

Make the full-backs sprint backwards.

Then change the profile of the attack.

Mariano is particularly suited to that scenario because his first two league appearances have already shown how quickly he can influence broken matches.

The longer the contest remains level, the more relevant the benches become.

And that may favour Alavés more than conventional squad comparisons suggest.

They do not need to have the stronger bench overall.

They need the substitute whose skill set best matches the game after 60 minutes.

The game inside the game

There are therefore two matches hidden inside Friday night.

The first belongs to Alavés.

Direct attacks.

Aerial contacts.

Second balls.

Fast restarts.

Crowd involvement.

Wing-backs arriving before Villarreal settle.

The second belongs to Villarreal.

Longer possessions.

A higher defensive line.

Repeated switches.

Moleiro and Pépé receiving around the sides of midfield.

Mikautadze moving between rather than merely beyond defenders.

The decisive question is not which style is theoretically superior.

It is which team can force the other to spend more minutes playing the wrong match.

If Villarreal control the first pass and second ball, they can push Alavés backwards and turn Mendizorroza into a positional exercise.

If Alavés consistently bypass the pressure and attack the space behind Villarreal’s structure, possession becomes almost irrelevant.

That explains the opening numbers.

1,034 passes against 694.

Nineteen shots against 27.

Villarreal have performed far more actions designed to organise the game.

Alavés have reached the action that ends an attack more often.

That tension should define Friday.

Verdict

Villarreal have the technical quality to win at Mendizorroza.

Their attacking line contains more players capable of deciding a match independently, and their possession structure should improve as Pérez’s ideas become more established.

But this is an awkward moment to face Alavés.

Quique Sánchez Flores already has a team comfortable moving between structures, physically competitive through the centre and increasingly confident that matches can be changed from the bench.

More importantly, Alavés have a tactical route directly towards one of the questions Villarreal are still learning to answer.

Can Pérez’s side maintain a high, aggressive structure when the opponent refuses to play through it?

If Villarreal win the first contacts, dominate the second balls and prevent Blanco from controlling the next pass, their superior circulation should eventually push Alavés into a deeper block.

Then the match starts to belong to them.

If they cannot, every attempt to compress the pitch risks becoming another invitation for Alavés to attack the space behind it.

Villarreal want the ball.

Alavés want the moment before possession becomes meaningful.

At Mendizorroza, that moment may be enough.

Sarvuno prediction: Deportivo Alavés 1-1 Villarreal.