Spain’s European championship hero David Villa celebrated his contract extension at Valencia with a goal as his side routed Real Mallorca 3-0 on Saturday.
Villa, top-scorer at Euro 2008, was the subject of intense interest from Real Madrid in the summer, but signed a new deal at Valencia until 2014 and struck on 34 minutes as he continued his purple patch in front of goal.
“We showed the Valencia of last year [that finished 10th in the league] is a thing of the past,” Villa said. “The club wanted to keep me and I feel comfortable here, so it is all fine. It is just nice to get back to scoring goals.”
PHOTO: AP
Juan Mata added a second three minutes later and Vicente struck late on to give new coach Unai Emery a winning start and help Valencia forget about their nightmare Super Cup defeat against Real Madrid six days ago. Goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand paid the price for his poor Super Cup displays, with Emery leaving the German out of the squad and Brazilian Renan Brito made his debut between the sticks, but had little to do.
Mallorca, who sold star striker Daniel Guiza in the summer, did hit the post, but always looked shaky at the back.
Earlier, Espanyol shrugged off the loss of departing first team stars Albert Riera and Pablo Zabaleta to defeat Valladolid 1-0 on Saturday in the curtain raiser of the 2008-2009 Spanish league season.
Spanish international Riera is poised to join Liverpool, while Zabaleta, part of the Argentina side that won Olympic gold, is bound for Manchester City for 8 million euros (US$11.7 million).
Espanyol’s Luis Garcia, still recovering from the disappointment of being dropped from the Spain squad shortly before Euro 2008, had the honor of scoring the first goal of the new season a minute after the break.
It proved enough, as Espanyol won their first league match since mid-March, while new coach Bartolome Marquez enjoyed a winning start in his first match in charge.
“The team did well and we won, so I am happy although we suffered far too much in the final few minutes,” Marquez said.
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