The Dark Knights return – Can Nuno take Valencia back to the top?

The legendary home of Valencia C.F. – the Mestalla – is as imposing a stadium as they get

Fresh coats of the legendary orange, white and black that the denizens of the Mestalla have worn with so much pride for nearly a century had given the grand old arena a new age feel. Inside though, there was an atmosphere that the beautiful coastal city had not felt for years – an atmosphere heavy with anticipation as Valencia prepared to take on the defending champions, Atlético Madrid.

For the past 10 odd years, a visit from a champion side would have created more trepidation than anticipation amongst the Los Che faithful, but this year it felt different. And the Mestalla was trembling with the loud expressions of expectations from the 45,000 who packed her terraces.

You see, the Mestalla at the best of times is an imposing stadium with steep terraces building a claustrophobic illusion that the congregated mass of screaming Valencianos are right on top of the player’s heads. It can become downright scary when the football on the pitch matches the fervour in the stands.

Leading up to the match, it was clear to all that this Valencia outfit was certainly a team in form. The man responsible for the dramatic turnaround in the quality of the football, and in turn the atmosphere of their home stadium, paced up and down his technical area bellowing at his charges to keep their collective foot on the pedal.

Valencia and the Nuno ‘cult’

Nuno Espírito Santo wasn’t exactly what the fans of the third most supported club in Spain had been looking forward to when they had heard that they were to have a new manager. This was after club president Amadeo Silva announced the sacking of the popular Juan Antonio Pizzi – the Argentine who had done a great job last year by guiding Valencia to eighth place and who had taken over the reins from the disaster that was Miroslav Djukic.

But it appeared that the man who is poised to take over the struggling club, Singaporean businessman Peter Lim, had wanted a new face for the new era he wants to usher in at the Mestalla. And for this, through his confidante – the omnipresent Jorge Mendes – he had brought in Nuno (incidentally, the super agent’s first client).

At best a journeyman goalkeeper in his playing days, Nuno's only previous managerial experience had come at Rio Ave – a mid-table club in the Portuguese Primeira Liga. He may have led the unassuming club from the tiny town of Vila do Conde to the finals of the Taça de Portugal and the Taça da Liga, and he may have taken them to Europe for the first time ever, but that was hardly going to be enough to quell the concerns of the demanding Valencian public.

Nuno barking orders at his charges. He has brought with him aggression, intensity and a winning mentality to Valencia.

His team’s early performances on the pitch though have not just dispelled these concerns but have even planted the seeds of a cult figure-ish image being built around the man. Shirt sleeves rolled up and broad chest pumped out, Nuno cuts an intimidating figure as he prowls his technical area like a retired prize fighter seeing his protégé going at it in the ring.

“Boxing protégé” perfectly describes the collective punch that Valencia have packed this season. Playing a brand of football rarely seen on the possession obsessed shores of the Iberian peninsula, Nuno’s team have been almost insultingly direct, eschewing any unnecessary intricacies and tiki-taka-isms to find the quickest way to goal.

When not in possession of the ball, they drop into a solidly organized but not too deep set-up that presses high and presses constantly. This intense Klopp-esque pressing has a great physical and psychological effect on the opposition – any mistake, and the ball is lost.

And once they have the ball at their feet, Los Murciélagos live up to the symbol on their city and club crests – swarming forward in large numbers like provoked, angry bats from their caves, and stunning their enemies with the swiftness and violence of their response. For opposing defenders, the sight of the white/orange shirts flying forward with menacing intent is beginning to get just as nightmare inducing.

Knocking out the champions

Their opening match against a tough Sevilla outfit had hinted at something new; despite going a goal and a man down, they didn’t give up like the Valencia sides of the recent past have been accused of doing. They went for it and seized the match by the throat, eventually equalizing to walk away with a well-deserved point.

They seemed to draw some form of primal inspiration from that epic fight back – before they walked out to meet the champions, they had scored 14 goals in 6 games and had conceded just thrice. Granted, that had been against the likes of Malaga, Cordoba, Getafe, Espanyol and Real Sociedad – all except Malaga (and Sevilla) are in the bottom half as I write this – but that fact didn’t seem to even make a notch on the palpable electricity that surrounded the Mestalla. There was something about the manner of the wins that struck a chord with the fans.

This was evident in the match against Atléti. The opening 20-odd minutes of the match saw some of the most intense football ever seen in the storied history of the grand old arena. A farcical own goal from Luis Miranda, a dazzling effort from the highly impressive new signing Andre Gomes and an emphatic header from fellow new-comer Nicolas Otamendi had given Valencia a stunningly emphatic three-goal lead but it was what followed – amidst a Mario Mandzukic goal and a brilliant Diego Alves penalty save – that truly hinted at greatness in the near future. They out-Atlético-ed Atlético.

Defensively solid and unpretentious, Valencia were a snarling, snapping mass of tackles and fouls with a sharp attack that kept the champions’ defence on their toes all game. And they were impossibly superior defending and attacking set pieces – they had taken the same mix that had led El Chulo’s men to the title, and raised it a notch higher.

After that initial blitzkrieg, they slowed the game down and saw Atléti off with a professionalism that few would have expected from the Valencia of recent years. What must be especially satisfying for Nuno is the fact that almost everyone has performed so well, that to single out one player would be an impossible task – not just in the Atléti game, but in all of Los Che’s early matches.

Can this be Valencia’s year?

In goal, the underrated Diego Alves has been in scintillating form, while ahead of him, Nicolas Otamendi has been an absolute monster in the heart of defence, sliding into tackles all over and winning aerial duels with almost arrogant ease. Around the Argentine, his fellow centre back Shkodran Mustafi has hardly put a foot wrong, while fullbacks Antonio Barragán and José Luis Gayá have been splendid, providing valuable width while going forward and doing their defensive duties more than capably.

This fortress-like backline has been protected by the almost maniacal covering of Javi Fuego, who in turn has allowed his central midfield partner and captain of the side Daniel Parejo the freedom of the park to work his magic and create at will.

Ahead of them lie a fluid attacking trio of the scorching fast Pablo Piatti, the exciting young Andre Gomes and the attacker-turned-inverted-winger Rodrigo Moreno, all of whom have pace, dynamism and skill to spare. And ahead of them roves the brilliant, instinctive, Raul-esque goal monger that is Paco Alcácer, a true triumph of the Valencia youth system.

The mercurial (and at times unplayable) Sofiane Feghouli, Carles Gil, the pacy Rodrigo de Paul and Robert Ibanez are all available to step in to the starting XI and keep up the intense aggression and lethal directness that have marked every attack engineered by Nuno’s men. This combination of defensive steel and lethal attack, all imbibed with that streak of madness, that freakish attitude of “I’ll die before I give up”, have lent to the construction of an aura around Nuno and his men.

Not since the heady days of the dawn of the millennium, when Pablo Aimar was doing his mini-Maradona impression, Ruben Baraja and Gaizka Mendieta were pulling strings like master puppeteers and wave upon wave of opposition attacks were breaking futilely in the unflinching faces of Roberto Ayala and Santiago Canizares, has that aura been seen around men wearing jerseys with bats on their crests.

Nuno’s team, the dark knights if you will, have bulldozed their way to second on the league table, undefeated after seven games and playing some of the best football in Spain. At the moment, they appear very much capable of living up to this very special aura that surrounds them.

The aura of potential champions.