Villarreal returned to Estadio de la Cerámica on Saturday 5 September at 21:00 to face Deportivo de A Coruña in jornada 4 of LaLiga EA Sports, a homecoming that carried more weight than a routine league fixture. For Villarreal, it was the first time the club could present itself to its home supporters after three jornadas away.
Íñigo Pérez had Villarreal back in front of its own crowd with only two points in the table after the loss to Alavés, a start that left the team 15th and still without a win. The match was available live on DAZN and could also be followed through Radio MARCA and MARCA.com, which made the meeting easy to track as the evening began in Castellón.
Deportivo arrived with a different mood. The newly promoted side had beaten Valencia CF, had taken five points, and sat eighth without having lost or even trailed on the scoreboard. That made the visit to Estadio de la Cerámica more than a simple early-season test: it put a side trying to stop its slide against one still carrying the confidence of an unbeaten start.
The contrast was sharp enough to matter before the first whistle. Villarreal needed its first home setting to change the feel of its season, while Deportivo came in with results that suggested a team already comfortable at this level. The meeting was part of jornada 4, so neither side could treat it as a distant checkpoint; the table was already taking shape, and both clubs had something to defend.
What came next depended on whether Villarreal could turn the return to home into the start of a recovery. The result was not given in advance, but the conditions were clear enough: a side stuck on two points at home against a promoted opponent that had not yet been beaten. That is the kind of night that can either reset a season or harden the questions around it.
