Marcelino Garc\u00eda Toral came bounding down the steps like an excited schoolboy when the bell goes. He flew past the substitutes and staff, skidded left, and sprinted up the line all wide-eyed and excited, shaking his fists and beaming. He had gone 15 or 20 metres, maybe 25, when he realised \u2013 just a fraction later than everyone else \u2013 that something had gone wrong again. So Villarreal\u2019s manager put the brakes on and his head down, and turned back towards the bench feeling almost as silly as this was getting. This, he already suspected, was going to be one of those days.<\/p>\n
They had been playing 16 minutes and the goal Villarreal had scored, the goal Jules Kound\u00e9 scored for them, wasn\u2019t a goal at all. Just as the chance they made after 80 seconds wasn\u2019t, Nicolas P\u00e9p\u00e9 putting wide from a yard out. Just as Ayoze P\u00e9rez\u2019s opportunity on six minutes wasn\u2019t a goal, Tajon Buchanan\u2019s effort on 13 wasn\u2019t, and Raphinha\u2019s on nine minutes was. One moment \u2013 a dash, a tumble and a penalty \u2013 and from nowhere Villarreal trailed Barcelona<\/a>. Now they were level again only for a raised flag to halt the manager\u2019s run as suddenly, the oh neatly summing up the afternoon when La Liga\u2019s best teams met on the Mediterranean, not in Miami, and Barcelona beat Villarreal 2-0.<\/p>\n Marcelino sat back down, but soon he was on his feet again. Buchanan put another wide on 24 minutes. P\u00e9p\u00e9 ran clear, the move ending with an Albert Moleiro shot on 32. Three minutes later Buchanan was in again but the ball hit Joan Garc\u00eda, hit Buchanan, bounced back towards the line and didn\u2019t hit the net. Somehow, no one really knew how, it had squeezed past the far post instead. Marcelino now put his head in his hands. The next time, he just stood there, arms wide, looking into space, barely able to believe it. A bit before the break Villarreal were broken, a man down after Renato Veiga was sent off for going through Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n \u201cJust when the game was so nice, such a lovely spectacle,\u201d Marcelino said afterwards, which might not be the most convincing reason not to give a red, but you could understand how he felt, maybe even feel the same way. Down to 10 men, the game was done; an enjoyable one, on edge, had come to an early end. Whistled for the terrible crime of being taken out, early in the second half Lamine Yamal scored a smart toe poke with a hint of Ronaldinho about it, the finish more futsal than full size, and celebrated by whistling back. There was an appeal for a penalty \u2013 Marcelino claimed Bar\u00e7a\u2019s Garc\u00eda took down Rafa Mar\u00edn while also admitting \u201cother opinions\u201d are available \u2013 but no more goals. Villarreal\u2019s challenge had lasted 38 minutes.<\/p>\n Lamine Yamal toe-pokes the ball into the Villarreal net to make it 2-0 to Barcelona. Photograph: Biel Ali\u00f1o\/EPA<\/p>\n It had been short but it had been some challenge. Which is the way it was supposed to be, if not where it was supposed to be. This was first against third, and if Villarreal\u2019s manager has kept saying that they couldn\u2019t win the league lately, that was because people kept asking if they could. Although he insisted the actual championship was out of their reach, the winter championship \u2013 an honorary, trophy-less title \u201cgiven\u201d to the team that\u2019s top at halfway \u2013 still wasn\u2019t. Barcelona had won seven in a row, Villarreal six. They hadn\u2019t been beaten at home; the run in fact stretched into last season, all the way back to March.<\/p>\n In short, this was exactly the kind of game you would take to the States if you wanted to promote La Liga and exactly the kind of scenario that supported the argument that you shouldn\u2019t: how could you take a home game off one team competing for the league and give it to another? In the end, the league\u2019s president, Javier Tebas, was beaten by his own blustering bullishness, victim of his very Tebasness<\/a>. With plans incomplete, the players he had refused to listen to stood up to be heard and with Real Madrid manoeuvring against them, Tebas had failed for a fourth time to take La Liga to the US<\/a>. Never mind Crockett and Tubbs, the Hard Rock Stadium and flying to Florida, Barcelona instead caught a plane 250km south to Castell\u00f3n, installing themselves in a hotel opposite the station and travelling 10km up to Vila-real where instead of Miami\u2019s pastel pinks it was all yellow \u2013 even the Father Christmas sitting outside the ground.<\/p>\n To start with, most of the attacks were too. The game began at 4.15pm local time, 10.15am eastern standard; by 4.17pm at the ceramic stadium, Villarreal had already had their first chance. The chances kept coming too, racking up half a dozen of them by the time Veiga was sent off: 38 really good minutes in which Barcelona struggled to get out and Villarreal repeatedly got through, robbing and running relentlessly \u2013 even after Raphinha scored the penalty and then smashed an outrageous shot off the bar.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw a really great Villarreal, an enormous Villarreal,\u201d Marcelino said afterwards. He also said that Veiga\u2019s red could have been orange and suggested Raphinha\u2019s penalty was a bit soft. But he knew this was an opportunity lost. \u201cTo beat Barcelona, you have to take your chances,\u201d Marcelino offered.<\/p>\n Marcelino holds his head in his hands as he watches Villarreal\u2019s first home defeat in 14 league matches. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Jordan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n