Penalti Dua Kali Pepelu Bring Valencia To Beat Villarreal

JAKARTA - Valencia started the new year 2024 with an important 3-1 win over Villarreal in the Spanish La Liga match at the Mestalna Stadium, Wednesday, January 3, 2024 in the morning WIB. The Pepelu midfielder scored a brace with a penalty that won Valencia.

Valencia was still consistent when entering the new year. They won their first victory in 2024 which made Valencia continue to crawl to improve its position.

Victory over Villarreal left Valencia unbeaten over the past three matches. Previously, Los Che held Barcelona 1-1 and then narrowly won 1-0 over Rayo Vallecano.

The result made Valencia move up to ninth with 26. The same as Getafe who failed to score points after being beaten by Vallecano 2-0. But Valencia still lost on goal difference.

Meanwhile, Villarreal is stuck in 13th position with 19 points. The Yellow Submarine's position in the middle board is not yet completely safe.

The reason is, they are only six points ahead of Celta Vigo who is in the 18th position or the top of the team in the relegation zone.

In that match, Valencia completely dominated. The control of the ball, which reached 80%, made it difficult for the hosts to face Villarreal.

Evidently, the game had only been running for four minutes, Valencia had already broken into the opponent's goal. The quick goal was produced by Roman Yaremchuk who finished Jose Gaya's assist.

Winning 1-0 made Valencia more aggressive in suppressing the opponent's defense. The result was not disappointing.

The hosts took the advantage of the penalty spot in the 27th minute. Penalti was awarded after Adria Altimira committed a foul on Hugo Duro.

The referee immediately pointed to the spot. Pepelu also completed the execution after his shot outwitted goalkeeper Filip Joergensen. Score 2-0 to Valencia and lasted until the end of the first half.

Valencia continued to play at a high tempo when entering the second half. The hosts' breakthrough made the Villarreal defense weaken for a long time.

As a result, Valencia was again awarded a penalty in the 57th minute. Again, Altimira made a mistake in the forbidden box.

This time, he touched the ball so referee Jesus Gil pointed to the spot. Altimira had strongly protested over the decision, but Gil ignored the protests.

Pepelu for the second time beat Joergensen. Only this time, the goalkeeper could guess the direction of the ball. However, Pepelu's shot continued to roll hard into the goal.

Villarreal was finally able to reduce the lag to 3-1 in the 73rd minute. The forward Gerard Moreno successfully completed the assist from Ilias Akhomach.

This was the last goal of the match. Valencia's 3-1 score lasted until the end of the game.