Villarreal head to Mestalla on Saturday, 24 October 2026, for Valencia Vs Villarreal with kick-off at 18.30, and the timing could hardly be heavier for Javier Aguirre. Valencia go into the derby in the relegation places, while Aguirre is still waiting for his first win in charge.
The search around this fixture is about more than a local rivalry. Valencia are missing José Copete, Dimitri Foulquier, Umar Sadiq, Diego López and Sergi Canós, which leaves Aguirre trying to build a result with key pieces absent on the day he most needs one. For him, the match is not just about pride. It is about stopping the slide before it deepens.
Iñigo Pérez arrives with his own problems, even if Villarreal have the more comfortable league position. His side have come through European exertions at Anfield, Carlos Romero is ruled out, and Saliba is still being monitored after discomfort. Nico Pepe is back on the grass, but Pérez has not set a return date for him, and he has already signalled that changes to the Villarreal XI are possible as fixtures pile up and recent internationals add to the load.
That makes the derby a test of control as much as quality. Pérez expects a tight contest shaped by emotion and Aguirre’s experience, and he has said his team have taken less than they deserved. That is the friction here: Villarreal may feel they have been unlucky, but the schedule gives them little room to prove it, and Valencia cannot rely on sympathy while they sit in the relegation places.
There is also a bigger club story running alongside the football. On the day of the match, Meriton agreed to sell 42% of the club to Pitchwise Holdings in a deal that includes a €100 million injection, yet the Lim family retain a majority shareholding and Kiat Lim remains president. That means the balance of power does not disappear, even if outside money now enters the picture in a visible way.
So the derby at Mestalla carries two immediate questions at once: whether Aguirre can finally get his first win, and whether Valencia can steady themselves while their ownership structure changes around them. The answer starts when the match begins at 18.30, and the result will say far more about both sides than a routine October fixture usually does.
