Javier Mata | Vila-real (Castellón) (EFE).- The Villarreal Football Club celebrates one hundred years since its foundation on March 10, a date that will be celebrated with an act at the La Cerámica stadium in which the moments will be remembered highlights in the history of the Castellón club.
A centenary of a team that has spent a large part of its history in minor categories, fully entering the history of national football in the 70s, and that has had a markedly presidentialist sign, since in all this time three presidents They cover almost the entire history of it.
José Calduch as founder, Pascual Font de Mora as a key man in growth and with almost forty years at the helm, and with Fernando Roig as the great architect of modern Villarreal.
Villarreal in its early years always played in regional categories, achieved two promotions to the Second Division in the 1970s and 1990s, and from the 1990s onwards always maintained professional football. Being the arrival of Roig in 1997, the great leap to Villarreal that we know.
A centenary from which 10 key moments can be extracted:
1- Foundation and José Calduch
Villarreal was founded on March 10, 1923 in the back room of the Calduch family pharmacy. It was founded by José Calduch, one of the sons of the famous pharmacist who patented suavina.
To maintain the pharmacy and the family business, the young Calduch came to Barcelona to study, a place where he learned about football at the hands of Barcelona and especially RCD Espanyol. After finishing his degree and obsessed with what he had experienced, he opted to found a sports club: Club Deportivo Villarreal.
He did it together with his friends, his first big decision being to buy some hanegadas in the Madrigal area, where he decided to build a field. A stadium called Campo del Villarreal and later Madrigal, which 100 years later remains in the same place.
After beginning to compete irregularly in 1923, CD Villarreal achieved promotion to the first regional division in the 35-36 season, gambling against Cartagena for the option of going up to the Second Division in a promotion that they ended up losing shortly before the war.
2- Fogehetecaz: young people recover football
After the war, football as such disappeared in Vila-real until the 1940s. It was the local youth who first joined clubs and various teams to compete among themselves. One of those teams, Foghetecaz, was the one that stood out the most.
Therefore, it was decided that he was the representative and heir of the city team, although they started first with his creation name. A strange name made up of the first letters of its founders, although they quickly recovered the name of Villarreal, renamed CAF Villarreal.
After being Regional Champions in the year 51, by beating Torrente in Vallejo, the team played the National Amateur Championship.
After leaving Barça Amateur and Iruña de Pamplona in the gutter, they fell in the semifinals before Chamberí. That was the definitive push for Villarreal to recover its prestige, now being renamed Villarreal Club de Fútbol definitively.
Within that team, a local player stood out: Pascual Font de Mora.
3- Font de Mora: the father of modern Villarreal
Pascual Font de Mora was a Villarreal player for 13 years, becoming part of the club’s organizational chart the day he left football.
A successful businessman in the town, he was in charge of running the club, which he led to levels of greater professionalism. Thanks to him, the second division was reached in 1970, and it was raised again in 1991, in addition the club became a Sports Limited Company, to which is added that it kept the team eight years in the Second Division, being the president who transferred power in the hands of Fernando Roig.
Font de Mora spent almost 40 years at Villarreal, being the longest-serving president.
4- Rise 1970
The promotion to the second division in 1970 was the first great milestone in the history of Villarreal, since being a town of less than 30,000 inhabitants, they managed to reach professional football.
From the hand of Pascual Font de Mora, two consecutive ascents were chained; since after going up to third in 68-69, they were able to ascend to the Second Division the following year. After a good season, Villarreal qualified for the promotion promotion. After losing the first match against Langreo due to direct promotion, the people from Castellón played a play-off with Bilbao Athletic, which led them to play a tiebreaker at the Bernabeu on July 7, 1970.
That day, and after winning 2-1, Villarreal rose with a mythical lineup made up of: Alapont, Debón, Alcañiz, Marçal, Eusebio, Linares, Martínez, Luiche, Palau, Causanilles and Serrano.
5- Second rise to Monday in 1991
After 20 years in the lower categories, Font de Mora started another project with the option of returning to the Second Division. It was the 91-92 season, in which after a good campaign in Second B, they managed to reach promotion.
A promotion that would face them against UD Salamanca, Balompédica Linense and Girona. Promotion was achieved on the last day of that group stage, beating the yellows 2-1 at the Balompédica Linense field. This return to the second division will be key for the future, as it will be one of the motivations for the arrival of Roig.
6- Straightness and conversion into SAD
After promotion in 1992, the team was able to maintain the category eight seasons in a row. Suffering financially and sportingly, the Font de Mora team was able to survive each year. A stage in which the yellow leader signed one of the most important characters in history: José Manuel Llaneza.
A few years before this arrival, specifically in 1992, the president was vital for the club to become a Sports Public Limited Company, taking over almost all the shareholders. Llaneza arrived in 1994 to take charge of the club’s finances, and soon after he had taken over everything. Without Llaneza it is not possible to conceive the current Villarreal.
7- Arrival of Roig to Villarreal, first promotion
At the end of 1997 Pascual Font de Mora was already ill and needed to leave the club, a way out that José Manuel Llaneza had to look for. After several interviews, the Fernando Roig option appeared, which ended up bearing fruit in May 1997. The Valencian businessman took over Villarreal’s shares with a clear project of reaching first, Llaneza being his strong man. In addition to improving the squad, work was done to modernize the facilities, the stadium and greatly enhance the youth academy.
The following course, Villarreal achieved an almost unexpected promotion, since, after getting into promotion, they left Compostela in the ditch. Villarreal went up and down the following year, but for Fernando Roig and Llaneza nothing was the same. Both learned from their mistakes and got up close and personal with the top level, a place they returned to the following year.
8- Pellegrini’s Villarreal, league runner-up 07-08
Villarreal’s history is linked to a team and an idea of the game, with good treatment of the ball and the best players being a priority for the club. Roig opted for a good game and quality players, finished off by a coach like Manuel Pellegrini.
After the signing of Argentine international striker Martín Palermo, who put the club in the football orbit in 2001, the arrival of Riquelme and Pellegrini changed everything in the early years of the 21st century.
Villarreal began to sign Argentine soccer players and quality players, getting into the fight for the first places in the qualifying table.
Names like Gonzalo, Godín, Cazorla Forlan, Pires, Sonny Anderson, Riquelme, Cani… season after season they put together a formidable team. That Villarreal became runner-up in the league in the 2007-2008 season, that being his great reference in the domestic championship.
9- Europe and the semifinals
Europe is undoubtedly the great story of Villarreal, since after reaching the First Division, Roig’s next obsession was to take the team to the old continent. The first thing they did was sign up for the Intertoto Cup, a secondary competition that Europe brought you, and which they won in 2003 (Heerenveen) and 2005 (Atlético de Madrid).
Villarreal has been able to play four Europa League or UEFA Cup semifinals, against Valencia in 2004, Porto in 2011, Liverpool in 2016 and Arsenal in 2021. In addition, they have reached two Champions League semifinals, against Arsenal in 2006, and Liverpool last season.
In 20 years at Villarreal he has been a cheerleader for European football, with the missed penalty by Romàn Riquelme against Arsenal in his first contest in the highest competition, the memory that most represents him in the world.
That Villarreal was a rookie in Europe, and that penalty kept them from playing a final that would have been historic.
10- Gdansk
In these 100 years the Villarreal Football Club seemed to have a limit, a glass ceiling. The team had lived through four European semifinals, being eliminated in all of them.
It seemed that the people from Castellón did not have the level to be able to reach and face a final, although they never lost their hopes.
And football had reserved for them one of the most beautiful chapters that are remembered in recent times, since glory came from the hand of the laureate Unai Emery.
After a good group stage in the Europa League, the team was able to reach the semifinals against Arsenal. Once again, the English team was the wall to overcome, and this time it came out expensive. Villarreal won their match at home by two to one, being able to maintain the match in London.
Villarreal reached its dream final in 2021, this would be played in Poland and in the city of Gdansk, with Manchester United being the rival. After scoring first Gerard Moreno, Cavani put a tie that led the final to penalties.
A shootout heroically solved by the Argentine goalkeeper Gero Rulli, who scored the eleventh penalty for his team, and who later saved the one launched by goalkeeper David De Gea.
The first title came to the showcases of Villarreal, who stayed on the verge of joining a second months later, after losing the final of the European Super Cup against Chelsea in a penalty shootout.