Next Saturday, 27th of September 2014, the all-powerful Real Madrid will visit the Comunidad Valenciana to measure forces with Villarreal at El Madrigal for round six of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match that will certainly pose as an interesting and demanding test for the current European champions.

Last Tuesday’s night, Real Madrid inflicted a major defeat to Elche at Santiago Bernábeu with Cristiano Ronaldo having yet another memorable night and carrying the team to the second goal galore in just four days’ time. Los Blancos won by 5-1 with four goals by the Portuguese winger who is again enjoying a great moment after the complicated injury that taunted him for several months.

Carlo Ancelotti implemented some rotation in his team for the match against Elche and tried a 4-4-2 attacking and at the same time versatile style, with Ronaldo and Bale acting as false nines, Illarramendi and Kroos dictating the team’s tempo and with James Rodríguez acting as an advanced playmaker, constantly going from the right to the middle, providing a valuable support to the front men duo. The Italian manager has been experiencing some difficulties in placing all of his team’s superstars into the same starting lineup, but judging by Real Madrid’s recent results, he has apparently found the recipe for success.

Without diminishing Real Madrid’s recent opponents, Los Blancos will face a fairly more complicated team next Saturday and the match against Villarreal might actually be a very good test to see how much Real have improved since the beginning of the season.

For next Saturday’s match, Ancelotti will still not be able to rely on the contributions of Sami Khedira and Pepe, both are sidelined due to injury.

As for Villarreal, after their impressive season start, the Yellow Submarine has been experiencing some difficulties especially after the defeat against Barcelona. Ever since then, Villarreal have only won one of their four official matches and next weekend’s clash against Real Madrid will surely demand a lot of effort from them.

Marcelino Toral’s job at the helm of the Submarino Amarillo has been particularly impressive and it is certainly fair to currently place them among the best teams at Spanish football.

The last time both teams met at El Madrigal was one year ago and back then the match ended in a 2-2 draw. Things have changed a lot for both sides since then, but there is a great possibility that next weekend’s match will end in draw.

Villarreal

Stats: W-2 L-0 D-3

Recent Form - DWDDW

Real Madrid

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLL

Possible Line-ups

Villarreal (4-4-2) - Asenjo - Rukavina - Musacchio - Gabriel - Mario - J. Dos Santos - Manu Trigueros - Cheryshev - Cani - Uche - Moreno

Real Madrid (4-4-2) - Navas - Carvajal - Varane - Sergio Ramos - Coentrão - Modric - Kroos - James Rodríguez - Ronaldo - Bale - Benzema

Prediction

Villarreal 1 Real Madrid 1