Five lessons for Valencia after Zenit loss

The UEFA Champions is revered as the most coveted, most important club tournament in the history of football.

Players and coaches yearn after it, greatness is often determined by winning it, the famous 'Hymn' as it's called in Spain, UEFA Champions League anthem to me and you, makes the hair stand up on the back of the footballers' necks as they listen to it pre-match.

But it is also a cruel mistress. The UEFA Champions League certainly has a set of inherent rules, practically written in stone and certainly stamped in the consciousness of all those who lose out by ignoring them.

Thus the 3-2 home defeat which Valencia suffered at the hands of Zenit emphasised that there are (at least) five things for the Liga side to learn.

Stay tight
Space may have been the 'Final Frontier' for Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek – but it is a commodity you can never, ever afford to give away in the UEFA Champions League. When Hulk scored the opener, João Cancelo allowed the Brazilian about a metre too much room and although the angle and distance seemed to set an unfeasible challenge, Hulk scored daringly.

For the decisive third, Axel Witsel was one of two Zenit players queuing up on the right of the box and when he received the ball André Gomes, returning from four months out, did not have the legs to close him down. Throughout the match Danny was allowed an almost free canvas to paint his pretty footballing pictures. Nuno Espirito Santos will know all this. Now his players have to understand, learn and apply the lesson.

The joy after the equaliser was short-lived©AFP/Getty Images

Stay cool
In elite football, particularly the UEFA Champions League, two French phrases are apt – 'savoir faire' and 'sang froid'. We call them 'savvy' and 'cold blood'. Because Nuno had so many UEFA Champions League debutants against a more battle-experienced Zenit they, collectively, forgot that you are never more vulnerable than when you have just hauled yourself back into a game and equalised.

There is a subconscious feeling of triumph, a surge in adrenaline and confidence and, sometimes, concentration can dip. Three minutes after Gomes' equaliser for 2-2, Witsel hit the winner. Another cold, hard lesson.

Voices missed
When times are hard economically it is difficult to chide fans for picking and choosing which matches they attend. And it is inarguable that the atmosphere created by those inside the Mestalla was fervent. The stuff of '12th man' expressions.

But there were nearly 18,000 more fans behind Valencia when they beat AS Monaco in the UEFA Champions League play-off round. It felt as if there was an assumption by many that getting into the group was the difficult part and that Zenit would be, pretty automatically, beaten. Not so. Perhaps the players missed those roaring voices.

Could Paco have been brought on earlier?©Getty Images

Dare to create
Nuno's daring move to bring on Paco Alcácer and André Gomes functioned superbly. They added confidence, invention, daring and occupied Zenit players who were previously overlapping. He also changed the playing formation to 3-4-3.

The Portuguese coach produced a similar trump card in the play-off against Monaco in bringing on Pablo Piatti. Is there a case, perhaps, for the Valencia coach to risk similar creative ideas sooner in European matches which have turned against Valencia?

Beware Hulk
Avoid Hulk in this mood. At all costs. Was Cancelo a little short of his marking duties for the 1-0 goal? Yes. Did the 2-0 goal make Jaume Doménech look slow to react? A little. But is Hulk an utterly exceptional striker with a Roberto Carlos-style cannon in his boots? Yes. Sometimes you just have to take your medicine and accept you lost to a phenomenon.