(Fr) Villareal 3v0 New York Cosmos

Wednesday 13th November 2013

Estadio El Madrigal, Villareal   Attendance 11,000

Just 4 days after their Soccer Bowl triumph the Cosmos travelled to Spain to honour Marcos Senna and face a Villareal side riding high in La Liga in 4th place in a tribute match for Senna.

The new NASL Champions put up a good showing, but went down 3v0 to the superior Spanish side, with 2 of the goals coming in the last 10mins.

Cosmos sent a strong squad to Eastern Spain, making just 2 changes to the starting line up that beat Atlanta in the Soccer Bowl, one of which was enforced as Marcos Senna lined up for his former Club against the Cosmos in the 1st half.

The match was played in a typical exhibition fashion, with the crowd applauding good play on both sides, a lack of intensity and plenty of substitutions. The Spanish side took just 11mins to take the lead, capitalising on a misplaced pass in the Cosmos midfield, a pass to Perpet split the Cosmos defence, and his shot was too hot for Reynish to as the ball looped off the Keepers hand into the net.

As expected Villareal looked the more dangerous side, with their slick passing causing the Cosmos problems, and the visitors were forced into making some timely interceptions in their area to avoid further damage.

But it was far from one way traffic, Cosmos did put together some passing moves and did create some opportunities, the best of which was wasted by Diaz, who could only shoot wide from a cut back down the left wing from Paulo Mendes. Most of Cosmos opportunities were speculative long range efforts, which rarely troubled the Villareal Keeper.

The 2nd half saw Senna swap sides and play for the Cosmos, and it has his through ball that put in Noselli who put the ball into the home net, only for the linesman to flag for offside.

Villareal should have doubled their lead as Ortuno went clean through, only to horribly miscue his effort which went weakly wide of the target.

Cosmos were coming under increasing pressure, and substitute Keeper Jimmy Maurer made a good close range save from Uche, who had only come on seconds earlier.

Maurer then made a fine save from a Robert Pires Free Kick, and the Keeper dashed off his line to give Hernan Perez a tight angle, with the lob going over the Cosmos goal.

With just a single goal separating the 2 teams, Cosmos went in search of an unlikely equaliser and had a good spell, only for the home side to grab 2 goals late on.

Ortuno made up for his earlier miss by scoring the second as his perfectly timed run evaded the Cosmos defence, to convert from close range, and minutes later, Villareal put together a neat passing move to cut the Cosmos apart and grab a third with a close range finish from Uche.