Levante's European Debut

In 2008, when Levante relegated back to Segunda, people weren’t talking about whether Levante would return to the top flight. Instead talk surrounded on whether or not we would ever see Levante again period. The club was on the verge of disappearing due to its accumulated debts from a reckless and incredibly arrogant owner, Pedro Villarroel.

Now, in 2012, quite a bit has changed. The club is now socio-owned, fastly consolidating and absolving debt, with a President whose trademark has been money-managing and resource-managing, and a sporting director who seeks out the most inexpensive players, as well as a growing fan base that is emerging from the shadows that the previous ownership cast them in. What seemed like an impossibility, has become a reality. Not only have Levante come out into the light, but on this Thursday, August the 23rd, at 2:45 EST, Levante will step out under the lights of a humble Scottish stadium in a two-leg Europa League qualifying match against Motherwell, a modest team with nonetheless a fair bit of experience in European matches.

Motherwell, Levante’s opponent and  a club not all that different from Levante in terms of circumstances and history, will have three key advantages in the opening leg in Scotland: conditioning, European experience and home-field advantage. The first seems to stand out most of the three. Motherwell won their first league match this past weekend and is currently second in the Scottish table after three rounds of play. Levante, meanwhile, have only played one league fixture and are still very much coming together as a team. For starters, the club are awaiting the signing of another striker and another centre back. However, it should not be overlooked that many of Levante’s signings have just arrived in the last week and a half: Christian Lell, Dudka, Nikos Karampelas andGekas. Their adaptation to a new language, club and team is still in its initial phase. In front, Levante has a rival that may be inferior on paper but that will take the field  competition-ready and in peak-condition.

Levante will most likely make some alterations to the lineup that took on Atletico Madrid, however, JIM is notorious for sticking to his guns, so those alterations will most likely be minimal. It will be interesting to see if Levante take the field looking to frustrate Motherwell with some lockdown defense or frustrate them by dominating possession.

Levante have shown that they are capable of playing a different style of football other than the counter-attacking they are more known for. In a preseason friendly against Villarreal, Levante dominated possession and created a slough of opportunities, even if the final result was not desirable. The starting lineup will tell us a lot. It would not be surprising to see a Michel enter the starting lineup in a center-attacking role, with Gekas or Angel up-top, pressuring the defense when on the back foot and springing forward through combination play when possible. It also could be that JIM experiments with using Angel as a mediapunta and Gekas as a more true striker. Pallardomay have also shown enough merit against Villarreal and Atletico to start alongside Iborra in the midfield in place of Diop. According to the analysis that Levante have taken of Motherwell, the Scotish club will look to attack from the wings.

Whichever tactic Levante choose, to wait for the counter or to go after the game, the team needs to be convinced of its style of play and be confident that it can take away a positive result from this first-leg. This first-leg proves to be a battleground, a center stage appearance for two of Europe’s more successful modest clubs. Which humble club will carry the advantage into the second-leg in Valencia?