Valencia CF sets the tone for a new era as it climbs back to elite competition in Europe

Over the weekend, Valencia CF clinched the qualifying spot for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive season in what The Guardian described as “the hardest, most inexplicable season of Marcelino García Toral’s career’’. Now the team faces one final battle this Saturday as they take on FC Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final. Along with a run all the way to the semifinal of the UEFA Europa League, Valencia has managed to reclaim elite status this season – not only in Spain but also in Europe.

Under the leadership of president Anil Murthy and director general Mateu Alemany, the club is embracing its strengths, its people and a new culture of innovation. Rather than operating with the budgets some of their powerhouse competitors have, the aim is to act more like a startup: investing in the right people, building the right culture, working with more agile processes and, above all, having confidence in the strength and potential of the Academy.

After the first half of the season, Valencia CF was 10 points away from Champions League qualification and no one could imagine that they would make it. But the club’s executives could see that they were on the right path, despite the results.

In the entire 90-year history of LaLiga, no team has ever managed to make up as many points as Valencia did in the second half of the season and qualify for Champions League football.

By the end of 2018, they had only won four LaLiga matches and 2019 started with two losses before a crucial game against Valladolid at Mestalla. Although that match ended in a draw, it was a symbolic moment in the season. It sent a message: these players were going to stand behind their coach.

“While most people expected us to change our coach, we chose stability and decided to support Marcelino,’’ Murthy told The Straits Times.

Patience was key. The club was not going to give up so easily and time has proven them right: the strength and stability of Valencia CF turned into 17 undefeated matches. With every week that passed the team found themselves closer and closer to the Champions League. In the second-to-last week of competition, they clinched that 4th place spot and weren’t going to let it go.

Valencia CF was finally able to breathe a sign of relief in Valladolid after climbing its way back and qualifying for another chance to compete against the best teams in Europe. Celebrations erupted among the hundreds of Valencia fans in attendance. It shouldn’t have been such a remarkable accomplishment, but as The Guardian points out, there was a reason:

“There had been resistance; now there was relief, redemption and a lesson for those prepared to listen. Valencia had got there and Marcelino had got there with them. For most of a year in which, in the words of José Luis Gayá, they had suffered like dogs, a season in which Marcelino said they had been “punched in the face daily’’, neither of those things looked likely. But here they were, still standing.’’

“We want to be among the greatest teams in Europe and we’re going to be,’’ Anil Murthy declared after defeating Valladolid. “Our objective is to play in the Champions League every year.’’

It was no easy feat, but as Murthy noted, “it was important to have faith through the hard times and fight to the end’’. This stability within the team, the financial stability brought to the club in 2014 with Peter Lim’s €200 million investment and the belief in the Academy – where six players currently on the first team roster started their careers – are all characteristics of a new era. “The present and future of the club is the Academy,’’ president Anil Murthy says, highlighting just how essential it is to the club’s success.

Now all that’s left is the Copa del Rey final against a team who not only took home the LaLiga title, but who are recognized internationally as one of the best. This weekend is an opportunity for Valencia to drive home the message – both in Spain and around the world – that, win or lose, Valencia CF is back and ready to compete with the best of the best.