From rags to riches: The Curious Case Of Villarreal CF | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Look at the teams in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

Manchester United come from Manchester and have the biggest market in football.

FC Porto come from the second biggest city in Portugal and have been the best team in Portugal during the last years.

Arsenal come from London and has a big international fan base (even Bin Laden likes them!)

Barcelona come from Barcelona and have always had one of the best sides in Europe.

Bayern Munich are theGerman team, the undisputed German "Rekordmeister" (record champion).

Chelsea come from London and are boosted by the generous pockets of Roman Abramovic.

Liverpool come from Liverpool, a legendary club with five European titles in their museum and a huge international fan base.

Now, what about Villarreal? Where do they come from? What have they won recently? Have they won anything actually?

Many would think that Villarreal play in Madrid, since their stadium is "El Madrigal" (which has nothing to do with Madrid) and Villareal could actually stand for Madrid, since "Villa" means town and "real" is royal, and the royal city is Madrid.

But no, they don't come from Madrid.

Those who have heard that Villarreal comes from the Valencia region, and therefore think that they come from the city of Valencia are equally wrong.

Villarreal comes from the small province of Castelló, which has a population of a whopping 600,000.

Villarreal is not even the biggest city in the province. It's actually a small city with only 48,000 inhabitants, making them the team with not only the smallest fan base in the Champions League quarterfinals, but also the one from  the smallest city.

Their stadium only holds 25,000 people. When Villarreal plays, it is said that the city is empty (and it really is).

Villarreal was never a top-flight team.

Until 1990, the team fought its way in the regional division. After 67 years of minor league games, they found their way into the second Division.

In the 1997/1998 season Villarreal joined La Liga, and got relegated.

Unbelievable isn't it?

Well, back in 2000 the sun shone again over Villarreal and they were back to La Liga.

And now the €20 million question.

What happened to Villarreal during the next season?

Answer; they got relegated. Duh!

Computer lock the answer!

Well, dear contestant, your answer is wrong.

The right answer would be; they reached the seventh place.

Now, that is unbelievable!

So, in 2003 the club's biggest hour arrived:

The final of the prestigious Intertoto Cup. They beat Dutch side Herenveen and qualified for the UEFA CUP.

The next season they went on to lose in the semifinals against their neighbours and eventual UEFA CUP Champions (no it's not GD Castellón) Valencia.

Weren't expecting that, now were you?

They then qualified for the UEFA Cup and reached the quarterfinals, in which they lost 3-2 on aggregate to AZ Alkmaar.

They also reached an incredible third place in the tough La Liga.

Their Champions League debut was incredible, arguably the best debut in Champions League history.

Villarreal met the French giants Lille, the glorious two-time winner Benfica, and the out-of-this-world Manchester United.

They topped their group and passed on to the next phase, followed by Benfica.

By luck of the draw, they played Glasgow Rangers (aka The Huns, or simply the scum of Scotland).

They went thorugh thanks to the away goals rule.

Then they were faced with Inter Milan, who they beat 1-0 at the Madrigal to book their flight to London, where they would play Arsenal.

"El Submarino Amarillo" (The Yellow Submarine) eventually sunk in the semifinals, because Riquelme missed a last-minute penalty.

Last year they finished in second place and automatically qualified for the next round.

After some fine performances, they again reached the quarterfinals, once again facing Arsenal.

After a 1-1 draw at "El Madrigal", will the Yellow Submarine shoot the Gunners down?

We'll have to wait until next week, to continue the story of the curious case of Villarreal.

What do we learn from this strange case?

Well, Villarreal is the result of some great managing and hard-work. With unknown players, they achieved spectacular results, and despite having little money, they gone toe-to-toe with Europe's elite teams. 

That Manuel Pellegrini is probably a football genius, isn't he Mr. Wenger?

(Hey, Mourinho did not make it to the quarterfinals, did he?)

The moral of this story; money does not make a winning side.