- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Spanish superstar David Villa has declared he’s fit and ready to fire in Melbourne City’s maiden A-League campaign as a rebranded club.
Villa will play up to 10 games for the A-League club, aligned with English Premier League powerhouse Manchester City, after signing on a guest stint from sister club New York City, where he has a three-year contract.
The 32-year-old striker’s last match was against the Socceroos at the World Cup, where he scored in his international swansong.
Despite the four months gap since that 3-0 Spain victory, Villa has trained with a personal conditioning team he has brought with him to Australia.
Arriving just five days before City’s season opener against Sydney FC at Allianz Stadium on Saturday, Villa dismissed any notion that the lengthy break from competitive action would put him behind the eight-ball.
“I feel good,” Villa told a media conference in Melbourne on Tuesday through a translator, “a little bit tired from the long trip, but focussed on the game and team-mates.
“I feel prepared. I’ve been working hard.”
Villa’s aim in Melbourne is not to win the league – he will leave before the half-way point of the season – but to bring joy.
“I’d like for the fans across Australia to have good memories and to enjoy my performance,” he said.
The 32-year-old brings to the A-League a sparkling pedigree of major international and club success – bettered perhaps only by Italian and Juventus legend Alessandro Del Piero for his completed stint at Sydney FC.
Villa, who has winner’s medals from a World Cup, European Championship and UEFA Champions League, fits neatly into the departed Italian’s role as the league’s highest profile player.
How then, did the striker sneak into sports-mad Melbourne without anyone noticing?
Villa arrived without the usual fanfare that greets marquee arrivals.
There was no airport greeting on Tuesday morning, no fans at their Bundoora training base as he met his new teammates and barely two hours notice of his first media appearance.
For a fledgling football club yet to play a league match, the curious decision to hide their biggest star away came due to Villa’s wishes.
“It was a very quiet arrival… which is what I wanted.”
He is without his family during his time in Melbourne, with only coach John van ‘t Schip and Argentinian midfielder Jonatan Germano as Spanish speakers in the group.
Van ‘t Schip said a decision on whether Villa will start against Sydney will be made in a conversation between the pair on his fitness.
“We are humans, we’re not a robot, so there are things we need to look at carefully,” he said.
“The whole club is excited that David has arrived, we are here to help him, he is here to help us.”
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.