Villarreal makes the return of Pepe Reina official. The Madrid goalkeeper, trained in the FC Barcelona youth academy before making the leap to Villarreal’s first team in 2002, left the yellow submarine after three years to sign for Liverpool. He has not returned to Spain since 2005: eight seasons with the English team, one at Bayern Munich, four at Napoli, two at Milan (one of them on loan at Aston Villa) and one at Lazio. 17 years later, he returns to his country, to the club where he began his professional career.
Close to turning 40, the goalkeeper has signed for one season with Villarreal. He becomes the second addition to the market, after the announcement of the arrival of José Luis Morales from relegated Levante. He lands at the Estadio de la Cerámica to fill the gap left by another veteran, Sergio Asenjo, who at 33 years old returned to the recently promoted Valladolid, where he made his professional debut. The Argentinian Gerónimo Rulli will accompany him in the goal.
His previous stage as a yellow player was very positive. In the three campaigns in which he wore the colors of Villarreal, between 2002 and 2005, he soon became a starter and turned out to be a decisive piece in the construction of one of the club’s best stages. In his second year he won the Intertoto Cup, the first official title in the entity’s history, and in the third he repeated that success and Villarreal qualified for the Champions League for the first time, after finishing the League in third position.
In statements collected by El Golazo de Gol, Reina assured, on his arrival in Vila-real, that he was very happy and eager to start this new stage. “I arrive with the illusion of a child,” he confessed. He looked back and remembered how everything has evolved since his previous time in the ‘yellow submarine’: “I arrived at 19 years old, with hair, without children… Everything has changed a lot and now I have the illusion of closing the circle” .
Between his two stages with the groguet team, Reina won a European Super Cup, an FA Cup, a Community Shield and a Capital One Cup with Liverpool; a Coppa Italia with Napoli; and a Bundesliga with Bayern; in addition to the two European Championships and the World Cup with the Spanish team. On an individual level, he was awarded the Premier League Gold Glove three years in a row, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
