Giovani Dos Santos yearns for stability at Villarreal

The beginning of his second season at Villarreal can finally give Mexican Giovani Dos Santos the much-needed peace and calm he has been looking for during most of his career.

At 25 years of age, Dos Santos has had a meteoric career, that has taken him from the very top to the hardships of seeing your team relegated, and that’s why in Villarreal el Tri’s star has found his very own haven to limit the noise around him.

The Yellow Submarine had a great season last year and some of that credit should go to Gio Dos Santos great performances.

Alongside his countrymen Javier Aquino, Dos Santos led the team from the Valencia region to the 6th spot of La Liga, although most of the season the men coached by Marcelino battled for the last berth that gave access to the Champions League.

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Giovani reminded everyone of the player that had become a star in Barcelona before he even turned 20, and who was quickly compared with Ronaldinho –then main star of the Catalan club and top player in the world.

It was perhaps those types of comparisons what made Dos Santos lose his footing a bit and try to manage his career in an unhealthy way.

His stints at Tottenham, Ipswich Town and Galatasaray where disastrous, and there was a serious concern that Dos Santos’ talent would be prematurely wasted.

In an effort to reset his career, the Mexican attacker came back to La Liga, where he had exploded into a young super star with Barcelona, but first with Racing Santander and then with Mallorca, Dos Santos alone was not enough to save the two teams from relegation.

The stigma of having been relegated –not once but twice—is a heavy burden for any player to manage, but Gio is so good that Villarreal saw Mallorca going down to Second Division to snatch up one of the most underrated players in Spain at that time.

The rest is history, as the Mexican had a wonderful season with the Yellow team, topped off with an impressive World Cup performance with el Tri.

With Chicharito off his game and Vela out of the National Team, Dos Santos was Miguel Herrera’s main star and the attacker did not let his manager down.

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Gio only managed to score against Holland, in the round of sixteen match that saw Mexico disqualified from the Brazil 2014 World Cup, but his performances against Brazil and Croatia made all National Team fans quite proud.

After a few weeks vacation, Dos Santos is back to Villarreal to start pre-season with the clear objective of finding the stability his never had in his career. The stage is perfectly set, as Villarreal as even signed his younger brother Jonathan Dos Santos and two will pair up again like they did at Barcelona youth systems.

Being able to compete with the best in Spain and also at the Continental Level in the Europa League will be the perfect incentive for the Mexican, who has been looking for the right mix of calm and competitiveness in order to shine again at the club level.

Dos Santos has had the chance to look for a bigger team this summer. Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan have asked his agent if the Mexican would be willing to leave Villarreal this summer and the answer was always the same: Gio is staying put this season.

Since he is still only 25 years old, he will surely have time to sign another big contract, but right now Dos Santos needs to find the stability he lost when things started moving a bit too fast at Barcelona; and there’s no better place to get that than at his current club.