Skip to main content

Player Profile: David Villa

Name: David Villa Sánchez

Nickname: El Guaje (The Kid)

Date of birth: 03/12/1981

Nationality: Spanish

Position: Striker

Number: 7

Background: Born in a small village in northern Spain, Villa suffered a fracture to his femur at a young age. For most this would be a sign to give up on football but after making a full recovery Villa developed his strength in both his legs and thus became ambidextrous. This gave Villa his edge and after a hard struggle he was signed for Sporting de Gijón.

Villa was a huge success scoring 25 goals in two seasons. He had cemented his place in the first team. With the success at Sporting de Gijón, more and more big clubs had started sniffing around the then 22 year old Villa. Villa is well known for being a relentless hard worker and described by his Sporting de Gijón manager, Pepe Acebal, as having an "unrivalled work capacity" he completed his transfer from the Segunda División side to Real Zaragoza.

Spending little time settling into his new side, Villa netted 17 goals in his first season with the club. Villa helped Real Zaragoza to reach the Copa del Rey final and was an integral part of the final itself.

But when Real Zaragoza ran into financial difficulties, Villa was sold for a fee of €12 million to Valencia and was given his chance at one of the big clubs of the league. To date Valencia is the club that Villa has spent the longest period. He stayed with the club for five years and with a scoring record of 108 goals in 166 appearances, became one of the club's most prolific goalscorers.

Helping the club reach the knockout stages of the Champions League, made Villa noticed on the European stage. He started to receive praise from speactators and players alike. One Inter Milan defender quoted as saying "Villa made us look like idiots, all on his own."

Villa went on to have a very successful career at Valencia but with success comes pressure for the club to keep their star man and in the summer of 2010, FC Barcelona splashed out a fee of €40 million to acquire his services.

Villa orignally lined up with Messi and Pedro. With two players of the quality of Messi and Pedro, goals were sure to come for Villa. The goals began to flow just as they had done with his last clubs. For most players the history and drama surrounding an El Clásico is enough to throw them from their game but not for El Guaje. Villa bagged a brace in Barcelona's 5-0 romp at Camp Nou. He finished the season by scoring a 25 yard finesse shot for the third goal in Barcelona's 3-1 Champions League final victory over Manchester United.

Starting where he left off, Villa continued his goal scoring form in the 2011-12 season. His first goal came in a 2-2 draw with Real Madrid in the 2011 Supercopa de España. After contributing two more goals for Barcelona, Villa suffered a season ending injury. In a Club World Cup match against Al Sadd, Villa broke his tibia and was ruled out for six months.

Recently becoming Spain's all time top scorer, him and Spain are eager for him to be available for the upcoming European Championship campaign. In which Spain are aiming for a record of three major titles in succession.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brazillian wonder-kid arriving at Barça?

Neymar's future has been uncertain for a long time now. Clubs from every top European league seem to be queuing up for his signature. But the speculation is drawing to a close and the fight for Neymar's signature has turned into a two horse race between the Spanish giants. This will all have to wait until 2014 as Neymar recently snubbed the transfer talk and extended his contract with current club Santos. That doesn't mean Real and Barça can't fight for the first chance to sign the 19 year old. It was recently reported that Barcelona have agreed a fee with Santos for first dibs at Neymar. But any deal that Barça would try to carve out will be met by competition from Real Madrid as well as a hefty price tag. Neymar is currently on £90,000 a week wages in an attempt to see off the European clubs but Barça will try to combat that by offering a deal worth €7 million euros a year. This would put him in the same wage bracket as World Cup winners David Villa and Xavi. Ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

Madrid's meltdown gives Barça a route to the title

Real Madrid boss, José Mourinho, could be the unlikeliest source of Barcelona's hope in retaining their league title. Spanish newspaper Marca recently obtained access to a Real Madrid training session, more importantly a training session in which Mourinho and Sergio Ramos exchanged insults in a war of words. The newspaper ran the transcript of the argument not only between Mourinho and Ramos but also club captain Casillas. Heavy words were thrown between both parties and it all stemmed from the marking of Carles Puyol. Or the lack of marking in Mourinho's opinion. Ramos explained that he and Pepe made the decision to switch defensive duties because Gerard Piqué was looking the most dangerous so Ramos should mark him instead of Puyol, who Pepe will now pick up. Mourinho reacted angrily at this asking Ramos "So you're the manager as well now then?" This question caused Ramos to also react angrily explaining “Depending on the match situation, sometimes it’s neces...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rotation, rotation, rotation: How does Valverde keep his squad happy?

For most FIFA career mode players, there will come a point where you simply have too many superstars to fit into the starting XI. Antoine Griezmann playing in the Joan Gamper trophy Due to practical issues such as money and the fact real humans can not be told to go away by the mere tap of an A button, this is rarely a luxury afford to real life managers. But for Ernesto Valverde, going in to what could potentially be his final season at the club, this is his reality. He can boast one of the most star-laden teams in Europe but the problem remains the same. How does 23 fit into 11? Barcelona's summer recruitment involved the arrivals of Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong to an increasingly busy forward line and midfield three, meaning Valverde must begin the plate-spinning akin task of trying to keep everyone happy. His preference for a 4-4-2 last season could either have been one of choice or one of necessity as Ousmane Dembélé struggled with injuries but it seems u...
Post a Comment
Read more