In the final minutes before Villarreal met Copenhagen in December, they came down the tunnel, marched on to the pitch, lined up before the ballboys holding out that starry tarpaulin like firemen waiting for a leap from a burning building, and listened to the Champions League anthem blasting out. Only there was no die besten that night, no grosse sportliche veranstaltung and no grandes équipes either. No lyrics at all, in fact. Someone somewhere had put on the Europa League tune by mistake, so they shifted their feet and looked awkward instead. Then they went out and got beaten again. But that was then and this was now and this time the DJ played the right record and everyone danced, singing along to the chorus, life good again.

That was December, before week six in the Champions League, and Villarreal were soon gone. Without a win, having picked up a single point in eight games, they were the second-worst team there and eliminated early: the continent’s premier competition, it seemed, was not their place, some kind of musical metaphor in that mix-up. But this was May, five months on, and they had just beaten Levante 5-1, securing the opportunity to go back and try again. They had done that early too. So at the full-time whistle on Saturday afternoon, week 34 in La Liga, the right anthem did go round the Cerámica, and so did the players, setting off on a lap of honour. Above them, a message appeared on the scoreboard. “We are a Champions League team (again),” it said.

Their manager went with them, waving as he went, lingering a little longer than everyone else, a little more emotional than everyone else too, knowing that this was also goodbye. “We’re going into the Champions League through the front door, brilliantly. We’ve met a big challenge. To have qualified with four weeks to spare is extraordinary, it’s not usual,” Marcelino García Toral said, perhaps a little pointedly, and it was hard to argue: third in the league, five points ahead of Atlético, 15 over Betis, this is the first time Villarreal have qualified two seasons running. He had done it again but deep down they knew he wasn’t going back with them and two days later it was official: Marcelino is leaving. What isn’t official yet is his replacement, although it will be Rayo Vallecano’s coach, Iñigo Pérez.

Marcelino was the coach who brought Real Zaragoza up from the second division to the first, who took Recreativo de Huelva up and into eighth, their best ever finish, and qualified Racing Santander for Europe for only the second time. The man who led Valencia to fourth place two years running and was sacked for trying to win the Copa del Rey – for succeeding too – and reached a cup final and won the Super Cup with Athletic Club. The last time Marcelino was at Villarreal, a decade ago, he had taken them up from the second division to primera, Europe and the Champions League.

When he returned in November 2023, they were 13th and in trouble, having picked up just 12 points in as many games, the kind of record that results in relegation. He came, he later said, “to take away the fear” and did so. That year they finished in a European place; the next they took a Champions League place, the club renaming him Salvador Milagros: Saviour Miracles. Now they’re back again.

Villarreal have been here seven times (2005, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2021, 2025, 2026). The last three times that they qualified through their league position, it was Marcelino who took them there. In 2021 they went because they had won the Europa League under Unai Emery. In the two and a half years Marcelino has been in charge, only Barcelona, Madrid and Atlético have more points. In that period, they are only five points behind Atlético (who took their two best players off them, Alex Sørloth and Álex Baena), 21 points ahead of Athletic, 56 over Betis. In the last 15 years, Girona are the only other team to break the top three. And now he’s going. But Marcelino isn’t going to somewhere bigger: in fact, he’s not got a club yet. This is a decision driven more by the club than him, something accepted not sought. Which sounds weird but didn’t really come as a surprise.

It took six years and a lot of soul-searching, plenty of bridges rebuilt, for Marcelino to return last time. When he left Villarreal in 2016, relationships had been strained to breaking point and he was sacked a week before the season started, denied the chance to lead them into the Champions League season he had qualified them for. By December 2023, though, there was a crisis at the club and they needed him, pride swallowed on both sides. His condition for returning was simple – we’re not going to argue – and he has stuck to that since, right to the end, and so have they. Yet it has been hard to avoid the feeling that the club’s CEO, Fernando Roig Jr, who has taken over the running of the club from his president father and is younger than the coach, was never completely convinced or entirely comfortable, a disconnect there.

The dreadful Champions League campaign – a single point from a draw with Juventus, home defeats by Copenhagen and Bayer Leverkusen, beaten by Pafos – didn’t help either. Nor did an embarrassingly early Copa del Rey exit to second division Racing Santander. And if you couldn’t really ask for more in the league, some felt you couldn’t, or shouldn’t, ask for very much less either: that Villarreal are where they should be. The club with the fourth-biggest budget, last summer they spent €105m and the summer before €69m. Georges Mikautadze cost €31m, their most expensive player ever, Renato Veiga €24.5m, Alberto Moleiro €16m.

That their domestic form was so dramatically different to Europe made it feel almost like it didn’t count. The fact that they have been in a Champions League place all season, that they didn’t have big nights against the big teams – their only losses in the first half of the season came to Barcelona, Madrid and Atlético – normalised it all, meant that it just wasn’t very exciting, a good team just kind of quietly getting on with being good, beating those they should beat. All the more so as their form fell away a little in the second half of the season, that early talk of competing for the title forgotten, drifting a bit and Betis, Getafe and Girona beating them to go with a second loss against Barcelona and Madrid. That they are nine points behind Madrid and 20 behind Barcelona brought a bit of a shrug. Sometimes, some felt, the football wasn’t that exciting either.

All of which can seem a little unfair. If Villarreal have spent €160m over the last two summers, they have sold for €190m. If good players have come in, better players have gone out, and the plan is to turn more towards the academy, to continue to sell. Yeremy Pino went on the final day of the window. There have been injuries, including for Gerard Moreno – the best player by miles, midfielder Santi Comesaña rightly says. When they are good, they are very good: an extremely well-drilled counterattacking side. Moleiro, signed from relegated Las Palmas, has been superb. The five goals scored on Saturday were extraordinary, completing a clean sweep of wins in six derbies against rivals from the Comunitat de Valencia. While it has almost counted against them, the consistency – even allowing for the fall-off in the second half of the season – is quite something: Champions League football tied up with four games left, ahead of Atlético, already hitting a record points total for the club and on course for a figure that would have won them the title three times this century.

Even the drift makes some sense too, contextualised by occurring amid an increasing awareness that the coach wouldn’t continue, his inevitable departure ever more evident, with everything that means for authority and leadership. Marcelino’s contract was up at the end of the season and Villarreal made two new offers before Christmas. Both of them were for a single season, received as an invitation to walk; when they came back again in January, it was still just one and they didn’t come back again. “If there’s nothing signed and your contract is up, then it’s pretty clear,” Marcelino said a couple of weeks ago. Asked again after he set off round the pitch on Saturday, he said that “more than a goodbye, or not a goodbye, it was gratitude for fans who have always given me love”, but he knew and so did everyone else, supporters waiting outside the ground for him when he finally left six long hours after kick-off.

Objective achieved, all that was left was to announce it. They would do it together, the right way, he said. Set for some time this week, a call on Monday morning brought it forward, the final bars of Zadok the Priest still going round their minds when the statement dropped. Marcelino García Toral was leaving Villarreal in the Champions League (again). “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” it said.