Valencia 0 - Alavés 0

Valencia: Cañizares; Curro Torres, Ayala, Pellegrino, Carboni; Albelda, De los Santos (Juan Sánchez 72'); Angulo (Rufete 65'), Aimar, Vicente (Kily González 70'); Alieu Carew. 4-2-3-1.
Alavés: Kike; Geli, Téllez, Coloccini, Llorens; Astudillo, Pablo; Mara (Karmona 77'), Witschge (Turiel 51'), Ibon Begoña; Rubén Navarro (Iván Alonso 52'). 4-2-3-1.

Team changes: Valencia: No change / Alavés: Ibon Begoña for Magno.

Goals: None.

Valencia were held to a 0-0 draw by their bogey team Alavés, who had won in their last two visits to the Mestalla stadium. Rafa Benítez put out the same side who draw at Bilbao last week, which meant there was still no place for new signings Salva and Rufete in the starting line up. The Alavés manager Mané was returning to Valencia for the first time since he turned down the manager's job, and having several of his attacking players missing through injury including, Jordi Cruyff and Magno, he preferred to put out a more defensive line up.

It was a hard fought match, with eleven yellow cards, and Valencia's Carboni got his marching orders right at the end for a second bookable offence. Valencia went closest to scoring, with Ayala hitting the bar with a header before the break and Carew hitting the post after the restart. Benítez changed his wing forwards with half an hour to go, but as time wore on and with the home fans calling for Salva, he chose instead to bring on Juan Sánchez. The home grown striker had a reasonable penalty appeal turned down in the last minute, but his team should have sewn things up well before then. At the end of the day both teams drop down the table to seventh and eight respectively.