Mestalla Stadium

And with good cause.

Having topped a Champions League group containing Lyon and Benfica, Schalke defeated Valencia 4-2 on aggregate in the last 16, with Raul meting the crucial equaliser in the first leg draw at Mestalla.

What followed in the quarter-finals, though, was truly remarkable.

Inter may have endured a dreadful start to the season under Mourinho's successor, Rafa Benitez, who was sacked just before Christmas.

There was an acceptance that the club had overspent in the years previously and was in debt.

Obviously, the staging project for the new Mestalla, that was paused after the financial crash in 2008.

So the club was paying for two stadiums, the maintenance of Mestalla, which was an Asian stadium.

It's over 100 years old.

But then also they were paying for the maintenance of the shell of the new Mestalla, which was sitting there not getting worked on.

And then over time, Peter Lim started to become disillusioned.

There started to be fallouts with the fan base.

They seem to have a lot of involvement in football in the past and in sports businesses.

Understandably, why they weren't happy with him with his comments in the summer and even there was I think there was a comment after Julian made after one of the Champions League games at the end of last season which again felt like it was again talking about leaving so time will tell but in the meantime and for Atletico Madrid at the moment it's certainly a positive and as I say they'll be pretty pleased where they are in the league table just two points adrift of Barcelona and still ahead of Real Madrid even though Real Madrid won the Clásico and One of the other big games that took place over the weekend was the big derby match between Valencia and Virial.

The game took place at Mestalla and it was a match that at one point Valencia looked like they were going to claim three much needed points because Pepe Lu scored from the penalty spot in the first half.

They did.

briefly go two goals up, but had a goal disallowed for an offside infringement.

And I should say, to sort of add insult to injury for Valencia, that their youngster, Otobi, picked up a serious-looking injury in the first half.

He went off on a stretcher, so...

As day goes, it wasn't a good one for Valencia at Mestalla.

And as I say, they're still really embroiled in that relegation battle and are needing their luck to turn sooner rather than later, Roman.

On to Valencia 1, Villarreal 2, Valencia 19, Villarreal 9, Pepelu, Freeman and Mkhotadze all scored.

Now if as scheduled this is to be the last derby at the Mestalla before Los Che move across town and this old Colosseum is destroyed, then it's an apt symbol of the times that Valencia live in that they lost and in this manner.

I enjoyed co-commentating on this match with Bruno Bargareche and here are some match notes.

First of all, commiserations to Davido Torbi, the talented, explosive kid that fans are so excited about.

Sorry about the Billy Elliot mention, but come on Harvey! Playing 11 against 10 in a local derby, a chance to shine, barely on the pitch and yapping your way to a double booking and then red card within seconds of each other is infantile.

The only good thing for the neutral was watching the stone-faced fury of Aguirre as Elliot trounced off to watch the game and the points slip away once it went to 10 v 10, his fault.

Finally, the 1-2 between Mkhattadze and Molero, which rolled out across 75 metres of the Mestalla pitch, was superb, confident, untracked by Valencia players and a really lovely winner from the Georgian.

The yellow submarine are beginning to flourish under Admiral Inigo.