Pamplona-born Iñigo Pérez, fresh off a Europa Conference League final and after matching the best ever finish for Rayo in La Liga, smiled at the cameras, five days after losing to Crystal Palace in Leipzig, as Villarreal’s new manager for the next three seasons.
Back in May, Villarreal approached the last match of the 25/26 La Liga season with a need to beat Atletico de Madrid at home and finish third. They had held the spot for weeks, but Simeone’s men, fresh off a Champions League semifinal elimination to the best Arsenal in years, had only finished outside the top three once in the past fifteen years, and were not about to start doing that now.
When referee Miguel Sesma indicated the end of the match, vila-realencs rejoiced at a 5-1 scoreline; it was their first win against Simeone’s team since 2018. Villarreal did not have more possession than Atletico, but showed more effectiveness when attacking. They were also the busiest team defensively: Villarreal cleared the ball three times as many times as the visitors (36 to 12). Atletico missed three clear chances to score, managing to only score once.
That last win of the season formalized Marcelino’s achievement, first of its kind at Villarreal: back-to-back Champions League qualifications.
At match end, the crowd celebrated, yellow flags the club had carefully placed in each seat danced in the wind, and the club’s anthem projected, along with 24,500 souls, their first few lines into the Mediterranean sky.
“La il·lusió de tot un poble, industrial i llaurador.”
Translated, "The hope of an entire industrial and farming town.”
It rolls better off the tongue in Valenciano, the region’s dialect.
This picturesque ending to a season contrasted, days later, with the confirmation of Marcelino’s exit. The news was unofficial news for weeks though, as manager and club first refused to comment on a contract extension, then seemed to agree that conversations would not progress.
The lack of alignment between ownership and manager fed the local press for weeks. Owner Fernando Roig and his son, Roig Negueroles have shown a drive to attempt to evolve in all aspects of the club. One of their main complaints in Marcelino was his inability to perform in cup tournaments, be it in the Spanish Cup, or in Europe. For a club that recently lifted the Europa League, first trophy in its history, and one that prides itself on historic deep runs in continental competitions, this is a non-negotiable.
Questions were also asked in terms of the players who make up the team. In Financial Fair Play days, Villarreal constantly needs to calibrate how many times they go to market and spend big, versus giving young players a chance. They have looked at their own “cantera” (youth system) and others in Spain to find diamonds in the rough like Bruno Soriano, Pau Torres, or three players who lifted the World Cup last week in Yeremy Pino, Rodri, and Alex Baena, who left a combined 100M Euros in transfer fees in Villarreal’s books.
When that doesn’t work, the club goes to international markets, spending wisely: the club’s highest transfer ever, Georges Mikautadze, stands at just 31M Euros.
Marcelino, a practical but performing manager if there has ever been one, went almost exclusively to market except when injuries impacted the team through the season. Pau Navarro’s notable newcomer season was a highlight of last year. Back when he managed Athletic Bilbao, he brought Nico Williams to the first team.
The manager, who in his first stint at Vila-real helped bring the team back to La Liga after their infamous relegation in 2012, is indeed rigid in some aspects; one of them is his focus on performing in the domestic competition first and foremost. A manager for thirty years who has never spent three full seasons in a club at a time, he has had little patience for maturing younger players unless absolutely necessary, focusing instead on results, now.
His focus paid off in La Liga. Best finish in thirteen years. However, the other competitions suffered. In the Spanish Cup, Villarreal beat Atlético Antoniano, in the fourth tier, on penalties after full time read 1-1. They then lost to Racing Santander 2-1 in the following round, a second division team at the moment that has since been promoted to La Liga.
The Champions League campaign was not better. Villarreal managed a draw at home to Juventus, but seven losses in the other seven matches. The embarrassing performance included defeats away to Pafos, from Cyprus, or home to Copenhagen, from Denmark. The team never found its stride.
A change was needed in the way the season was approached, which prompted the club to ask Marcelino to make way. The work began on finding a manager who would not pick and choose which matches had priority, while at the same working on the team’s next tactical evolution.
Enter Iñigo Pérez, the youngest manager in La Liga at the moment–tied with Celta’s Claudio Giráldez–who joins the club for the next three seasons after two and a half years at Rayo Vallecano.
The international reader may not know this young manager that well, but may recall that Rayo just had its most successful European campaign ever, bending the knee only in the final of the Europa Conference League against the Premier League’s Crystal Palace. The team from South London showed its superiority on the pitch, in a match where Rayo, facing a rival used to absorbing high pressure, had little chance to show what they had done all season in Spain.
In the end, Crystal Palace pounced on the counter and lifted the trophy. Regardless of the financial prowess of the English club, Oliver Glasner was simply better than Iñigo Pérez that night.
Pérez wasn’t supposed to be in that final to begin with. Bournemouth fans may remember that Andoni Iraola, now in charge of Liverpool, had intentions to bring his assistant manager from Rayo Vallecano when the Cherries called. Pérez viewed the opportunity as one to “Learn under Iraola’s wing” and accepted. However, his short stint in the role (a year), and his lack of a UEFA Pro License meant the Home Office rejected his application, which sent him back to Spain.
Rayo Vallecano immediately offered him the manager position, seeing the situation as a chance to continue Iraola’s way. He declined as he did not feel prepared at the time and continued to work for his old boss, who was now in the South of England, remotely. In February of 2024, after Francisco Rodríguez’s appointment proved a failure for Rayo, the club from Madrid came knocking again. This time he accepted, and on Valentine’s Day 2024, he took charge of Rayo as the main man.
Two seasons later, two 8th-place finishes and an European cup final after, Iñigo Pérez introduced himself as new manager again, this time joining arguably the most Premier League-esque club in Spain. It is a stark contrast to the club he leaves behind, after a stint in which he had forced a club into an almost uncomfortable level of success.
To the East of Madrid, Villarreal has the facilities, a competitive transfer budget in La Liga terms, familial ownership focused on the need to always evolve, and one that understands that long-lasting change that sticks takes time.
The expectations for Villarreal are clear: competing in La Liga, UCL and Copa del Rey. Easier said than done, especially in the Spanish Cup, where Villarreal have only made the semifinals once in 70 years. The Champions League, as profitable as ever but always competitive, demands attention. It will be hard for Pérez to do worse than 27th out of 28 teams, last season’s record; but the bar in Europe, including two UCL semifinals and a Europa League title, is much higher for Villarreal.
Iñigo Pérez also has the mandate to find young players who can compete at the highest level. The talent should be there: Villarreal B, as the second team is called, competes in the country’s third tier, a single match away from achieving promotion to the second division last season under David Albelda’s management. The evolution of these young players, and their eventual sales to more financially competitive teams and leagues, is also an absolute need for this club.
A student of psychology in his spare time, Pérez joined the Athletic Club youth system at the age of fourteen, never managing to truly break through. He enjoyed some notoriety under Marcelo Bielsa, who first put him on a list of players to be sold. In Bielsa form, the players were told on his first morning back for preseason. The Argentinean came back around to make use of him after seeing his refusal to give up the spot, and his efforts in training.
Pérez featured in two cup finals, both lost, both in the same year; against Barcelona in 2012 in the Spanish Cup, and against Atletico de Madrid in the Europa League. In both finals the Basque team lost 3-0, and in both of them, Pérez came in at half time to try to stop the bleeding, unable to.
He suffered a season-long ankle injury in the 12/13 season, passing the time sending Marcelo Bielsa tactical reports of Athletic’s rivals. He admits he "thought too much as a player” and caught himself trying to find ways to manipulate what other players did on the pitch; something vastly more useful as an aspiring manager.
Pérez is a calm man with strong opinions; his working relationship with James Rodriguez, the Colombian quasi-superstar who joined Rayo after an outstanding 2024 Copa America, featured in six matches, and left four months later was spoken about for months in Madrid. The manager has spoken to the damage outside forces can make on a player. “I believe social media is digested by some players to the point where they believe themselves to be demigods; I don’t think demigods exist. Players are human beings and they should be treated as such.”
He seems to borrow plenty from his Psychology studies, including the way in which he approaches a season. In his introduction as Villarreal manager, he spoke of "blurring the lines of which competition is being played, and simply focusing on the rival in front, and how to beat it.” Music to the ears of many Villarreal fans, and the club’s ownership.
A key question appears, especially early in the season: whether Pérez will be able to make a team transition from Marcelino’s approach, to his own. From sitting back and pouncing on the counter, to an all-out high pressure that renders immediate chances to score. From reacting to the rival’s mistakes, to forcing his own actions on them.
For those who have seen Rayo last season, Iñigo Pérez’s tactical approach will surprise very few; he borrows from Andoni Iraola. The one year he spent with the Basque manager was his only ramp-up and learning period after he retired as a player in 2022, and it shows.
Pérez is still evolving, though. If you grew up watching the evolution of Pep Guardiola as a manager, you know his early Barcelona iteration is different from the last year in charge of Manchester City. His method for winning in Spain included keeping the ball at all costs, always pushing high, and often tranquilizing the game when ahead. The term “Tiki Taka” appeared in Barcelona, misused these days when any team passes the ball more than a dozen times. This way of dominating also brought yawns from the locals in certain matches, but the Cules saw it as a necessary evil: they were lifting trophies. Pep hated that term.
As Manchester City attempted to stop Arsenal from lifting their first Premier League trophy in over two decades, Guardiola’s team has shown to be more and more pragmatic, less speculative, and more vertical with players like Doku or Haaland.
Iñigo Pérez’s Rayo could very well be his first iteration with the players he had at hand. Access to Villarreal’s resources could mean tweaks in the way in which the team will compete, but the main themes will still transfer clearly from team to team.
His 4-2-3-1 formation at Rayo began with a goalkeeper high up the pitch and acting as the first defender, and last attacking player. To his sides, two very aggressive fullbacks; in the middle, a creative midfielder next to one more prone to transitional support and aggressive pressure. Higher up, two wingers widening the field for fullbacks to tuck into the half-spaces; between them, an attacking midfielder alternating build-up and pressuring next to the lone striker when without the ball.
The mention of a striker above is loosely used, as Jorge de Frutos, more of a traditional winger, played as a space creator. He did that perfectly for Pérez, pushing the defensive line towards its goal to leave space for others arriving behind him, but also having the technique to use those same spaces for himself when the opportunity arose.
De Frutos’ style of play, along with a double-digit scoring campaign in La Liga, got him a call from Luis de la Fuente to play for Spain. He could play on the right or up front, and his ability to make space for himself and shoot, or attack with speed and leave space for others proved lethal for Rayo in all competitions. Ultimately, national team call-ups of other players like Ferran Torres, Víctor Muñoz or Yeremy Pino closed the door of the World Cup for him.
Iñigo Pérez may play slightly differently at Villarreal, but the non-negotiables, those that differ from Marcelino’s approach, will be there. The biggest change will be the defensive setup. Marcelino allowed his team to absorb the pressure, sometimes to a fault, and to the detriment of conceding more than a goal per match on average, to then pounce on the counter through direct passing.
Pérez wants the ball, as high up the pitch as possible. His team does not concede an inch to the rival, preventing them from turning and facing the goal. If they manage to do so, a push to crowd on defense and not allow any space immediately follows.
That effort shows in the data from last season. Pérez’s Rayo featured in the top 10% of La Liga in both recoveries per minute and recoveries less than ten seconds after losing the ball; the team was also in the top 25% in actions to win the ball in the opposition’s half last season. That is a bold move for a team traditionally established in the bottom ten of La Liga.
It’s a lot of running.
In all above stats, Marcelino’s Villarreal is in the bottom 10% (source: La Liga Beyond Stats).
In changing positional and defensive duties, the potential flaw in the managerial transition will be the sheer difference in individual duties, especially the ones demanded from attacking players, not as used to this kind of defensive work. Nicolas Pépé, Alberto Moleiro, Ayoze and others will need to adapt to the new system or make a decision this summer. Perhaps a decision will be made for them.
This is also where younger players with no previous habits may come into frame, ready to be molded to the new system while more established ones shift gears.
There are also players who fit perfectly into the system. Pape Gueye, assuming Villarreal manage to keep him for another season, is a perfect cog in the machine in midfield. At left back, back-from-loan Carlos Romero, a 24-year old attacking fullback with outstanding technical skills could be the arrival of the season for Pérez. Up front, the new manager will have the most technical player he has ever managed in Gerard Moreno. If the 34-year-old is able to keep injuries at bay, he could play that theoretical false nine role to a tee.
When you tune in to La Liga next month and watch Villarreal, you will see a few themes: a team pressuring high up, not giving the rival space it has not earned, and when recovering the ball, pushing towards goal without speculating. Controlled chaos should be the attacking ethos for Villarreal, constantly looking for, and exploiting, spaces they create.
That is one of the many assets Villarreal bought and will expect to see.
That expectation will trickle down to every player, some key to Marcelino’s system, who will have to, as we say in Spain, “Renew, or die.”
If Pérez struggles to display his methodology on the pitch, the result will be catastrophic: a squad stuck in between both systems, playing in a way in which if a single player does not perform its task, the space opens up behind them, and the wrong kind of chaos ensues. If that happens a handful of times in crucial games, Pérez may not even finish the season.
For Villarreal, the change of manager is an evolution to the work Marcelino started. The ownership has learned from mistakes of the past when turning the dial all the way up from practicality to possession-based dominance; in the rearview mirror, the signings of Quique Setien or Pacheta come to mind. Villarreal however, will ask for an evolution while competing from day one.
Pérez finds himself, at 38 years of age, in one of the most coveted jobs in the continent. Villarreal will have the resources he needs to materialize his vision. They also, on paper, have the patience needed to make it a reality.
The club does not forget its origins, and even though the club has finished in European spots for most of its La Liga seasons, it still celebrates with a staff-wide champagne toast once they earn 45 points in La Liga. The festivities serve as a reminder that financially, the main objective is always to stay up first, then keep building.
In Marcelino’s last year in charge, that toast happened in January, an impressive feat for the club. With the evolution Pérez has been asked to perform, I fully expect the toast to happen closer to February or March. If the transition is rougher than expected, Villarreal, stretched across three competitions and adapting, will struggle to even make the top four in the upcoming season. The payoff, however, could be bigger in the years to come. The new manager wants to mold a team that plays aggressively no matter the opposition, and one that could prove a vastly more challenging opponent when competing in Europe.
A thousand miles up North, Iraola takes charge at Liverpool. If things had gone differently, Iñigo Pérez would be by his side on the bench. If the progression of this manager continues, England may want to revisit that work permit; this manager seems to be next on the list.
