Head coach: Martín Anselmi · 3-4-2-1 à trois centraux (décrit aussi comme 5-2-2-1 par ElDesmarque), avec bascules en 3-4-3 ou 3-1-4-2 selon les phases.
Rank
18th
Pts
7
P
9
Form
🟡 Average
The essentials at a glance
The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.
Editors' ratings
5/10
Attack
3/10
Defence
4/10
Form
5/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:Medium
18th with 7 pts from 9 matches: 1 win, 4 draws, 4 defeats.
11 goals scored, 17 conceded.
The tie to zero between the Villarreal and the Elche had a moment where the encounter could have changed when the collegiate Víctor García Verdura pointed a maximum penalty in favor of the Elche at 59 minutes of meeting. All for a possible grip from Alberto Moleiro to Roy Revivo. & nbsp;
Villarreal and Elche are facing today Saturday October 17 at 16: 15 at the Ceramics Stadium in the match corresponding to the 9th day of the League EA Sports. Read
Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.
Latest matches
Dvs Villarreal CF (A) · 0-0
Dvs RC Celta de Vigo (H) · 0-0
Wvs RCD Espanyol de Barcelona (A) · 3-1
Lvs Real Madrid CF (H) · 2-3
Dvs Athletic Club (A) · 1-1
WDDDDLLLL
11 scored / 17 conceded over 9 matches played
Rest: 1 day since the last match · 2 matches played in the last 15 days
Home form
0W - 1D - 3L
Away form
1W - 3D - 1L
Statistics
Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.
Goals scored per match
1.2
Goals conceded per match
1.0
At home
2 scored · 3 conceded in 2 matches
Away
4 scored · 2 conceded in 3 matches
Over 2.5 goals
2 of 5
Both teams score
3 of 5
Clean sheets
2 of 5
Failed to score
2 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average
Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.
How Elche CF play
System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.
Playing identity
Preferred system
3-4-2-1 à trois centraux (décrit aussi comme 5-2-2-1 par ElDesmarque), avec bascules en 3-4-3 ou 3-1-4-2 selon les phases.
Philosophy
A clear positional game: short build-up from the back line to draw the press, find the free man, then accelerate once the opponent's first line has been beaten.
Attacking strengths
Attack stalling after three matchdays: 3 goals scored (Buba Sangaré 78' and Fer Niño 79' at Santander), with the club having lost its three top scorers from 2025-26 (Álvaro Rodríguez, Rafa Mir, André Silva).
Defensive solidity
The absolute low point: 9 goals conceded in 3 matchdays, including a 0-5 home defeat to Barça and a 0-3 scoreline at half-time at El Sardinero, with an error by goalkeeper Dituro on Zabiri's opening goal.
Pressing
High pressing and immediate counter-press after losing the ball, with a demand for tight proximity between the lines; the defensive line is deliberately pushed up.
Transitions
Vulnerability identified as early as pre-season: the team suffers behind its high defensive line when the opponent attacks the space, which Racing exploited with vertical play.
StrengthA clear and well-drilled playing identity, the ability to dominate long spells of possession, a proud response in the second half at Santander (two goals in two minutes), and a squad rejuvenated with technical profiles (Buonanotte, Villar, Redondo).
WeaknessDefensive fragility and repeated individual errors, the absence of an established offensive focal point since Álvaro Rodríguez's departure, and an adaptation period to a three-centre-back system that is new for part of the squad.
The mood around the club, and who is missing
Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.
Mood
Squad confidence
Dented and under pressure: nineteenth on a single point, Elche have still not won and let a match slip in Santander after leading 3-0 at half-time. The club is clinging to its board's message, with Pedro Schinocca saying they had a “great window, in line with what we had set ourselves” and had “a balanced squad, with options and variations”. David Affengruber's departure, a pillar of the defence, nonetheless deprives Martín Anselmi of a reference point just as the three-centre-back system is still finding itself. Hosting Real Sociedad, to close matchday 4, already looks like a match they cannot afford to miss.
Coach / players / board relationship
No friction reported between Martín Anselmi, the sporting directors and Christian Bragarnik's ownership. General manager Pedro Schinocca publicly owned the window's decisions and called for unity: “time will put everything in its place and we surely all need to stay together”. The head coach, tied down until 30 June 2027 with an optional year, sticks to his remit by leaving recruitment to the sporting director. The one thing that could cause discomfort is Affengruber's late departure, sold for €12m to Fulham once the season had already started.
Mood with the supporters
The Martínez Valero appreciates the ambition the recruitment shows: with €23.25m invested, Elche are the sixth biggest spenders in LaLiga this summer, ahead of almost every team of their standing. Affengruber's move to Fulham, by contrast, was experienced as a loss of identity, the Austrian defender being a symbol of promotion and then survival, and his farewell message — “a part of Elche will always stay with me” — circulated widely. The worry now concerns results, with a single point from three matchdays and bottom place in sight. No organised protest is reported at this stage, however.
Pressure on the head coach
Low to moderate, but the margin is narrowing. Only three matchdays have been played and the project is new, launched in June, which still protects Martín Anselmi. The points return, one point and nineteenth place, would become hard to defend if hosting Real Sociedad went badly. The loss of Affengruber and an injury list full of doubts — Yago de Santiago, Boayar, Fer Niño — make the Argentine coach's task harder still.
Club objectives
Survival remains the sole, openly stated objective, in continuity with the escape secured in 2025-26. The board built a large squad, ten permanent deals and two loans, including Thomas Lemar and Facundo Buonanotte, and still has two registration slots available. The club is in fact scanning the free-agent market for a forward and a goalkeeper, squad numbers 15 and 25 remaining vacant. The immediate schedule, with Real Sociedad and then the rest of September, will say whether the investment made quickly translates into points.
Recent internal tensions
No internal tension is reported by the sources consulted. The most sensitive point is both financial and sporting: the sale of Affengruber to Fulham for around €12m, confirmed on 1 September, weakened the centre of defence at the very moment the board was praising the balance of its squad. The club offset it with a deadline-day trim, including Umaru Konaré's loan to AD Ceuta. Schinocca's public message, centred on unity, suggests the board is anticipating criticism if results do not follow.
Absences
DoubtfulYago de Santiago — Continuing his recovery after a knee arthroscopy; still listed as doubtful by FútbolFantasy for the visit of Real Sociedad.
DoubtfulAdam Boayar — Quadriceps injury; listed as doubtful for matchday 4 by FútbolFantasy as of 3 Sep 2026.
DoubtfulFernando Niño — Unspecified discomfort noted on 3 Sep 2026, which puts him among the doubts for the visit of Real Sociedad.
BackThomas Lemar — Arrived on loan from Atlético Madrid and confirmed on 2 Sep 2026; he trained separately but is announced as available for matchday 4.
Before kick-off
What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.
Next match
Rayo Vallecano — Elche CF
AwaySaturday 24 October at 14:00Matchday 10
In 5 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.
No preview found for this fixture. The press mostly covers the big games, and usually the day before.
Prediction
EstimateRayo Vallecano — Elche CF
46 %
1 · Rayo Vallecano
20 %
X · draw
34 %
2 · Elche CF
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 7 matches played by Rayo Vallecano, 9 matches by Elche CF. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
League average. 238 goals scored over 159 team-matches played (19 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.50 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
TeamGoalsRawKept
Rayo Vallecano — attack11 in 7 matches1.051.03
Rayo Vallecano — defence16 in 7 matches1.531.28
Elche CF — attack11 in 9 matches0.820.89
Elche CF — defence17 in 9 matches1.261.16
The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.54 for Rayo Vallecano and 0.60 for Elche CF. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 1.76 goal scored on average by the host against 1.38 by the visitor, over the 45 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.27; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.43, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.11. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
Rayo Vallecano at home: 2.33 pts/match versus 1.14 overall over 3 matches → ×1.120 Elche CF away: 1.20 pts/match versus 0.78 overall over 5 matches → ×1.120
Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 45.5%, draw 20.2%, away win 34.4% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 2-1 (only 7.6%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.
The full squad
The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.
Goalkeepers
Matías Dituro
Alejandro Iturbe
Defenders
Buba Sangaré
Bambo Diaby
Pedro Bigas
David Affengruber
Víctor Chust
Matia Barzić
Midfielders
Marc Aguado
Federico Redondo
Gonzalo Villar
Martim Neto
Facundo Buonanotte
Ali Houary
Adam Boayar
Javi Morcillo
Forwards
Ezequiel Ponce
Fer Niño
Tete Morente
Germán Valera
Grady Diangana
Lucas Cepeda
Josan Ferrández
Yago de Santiago
Abiel Osorio
Álvaro Padilla
Umaru Konaré
Nordin Al Lal
This team's current captain could not be confirmed with certainty at the last check — no armband is shown above until the information is reliable.
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: BeSoccer (Elche 2026/27 squad, with shirt numbers) cross-checked with Fichajes.com; list possibly incomplete (the two sources diverge on a few goalkeepers and youngsters).
What has been said recently
Chronological feed of verified information about the club.
rss17 Oct 2026
0-0: The Villarreal stars in front of an Elche that resists in La Cerámica
Matchday 4: Elche host Real Sociedad on Monday 7 September 2026 at 21:30 at the Martínez Valero, closing the matchday, needing at last to get their season going after a single point from three matches.
David Affengruber said farewell to Elche's supporters, assuring them that “a part of Elche will always stay with me”, with the club for its part paying tribute to a “committed, competitive and dedicated” player who “defended the badge with pride”.
The window closed on Tuesday evening but not necessarily for Elche: the club retains two registration slots and is scanning the free-agent market, looking for a forward and a goalkeeper. Squad numbers 15 and 25 remain vacant.
General manager Pedro Schinocca defended the window: “We had a great window, in line with what we had set ourselves,” and “I believe this is a balanced squad, with options and variations”. He insisted on the need to “all stay united”, judging that “time will put everything in its place”.
Elche are the sixth biggest summer investors in LaLiga with €23.25m, behind Real Madrid (€225m), FC Barcelona (€184m), Atlético Madrid (€123m), Betis (€30.5m) and Deportivo (€26m), across ten permanent deals and two loans.
The club also registered defender Kevin Lomónaco from Independiente, Rubén Sánchez bought from Espanyol and Roy Revivo, who arrived on a free from Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The club has confirmed the transfer of Austrian centre-back David Affengruber to Fulham FC for around €12m. A pillar of promotion and then survival, he leaves the Martínez Valero after two seasons, forcing the board to accelerate the end of its window.
2018 world champion Thomas Lemar has left Atlético Madrid to join Elche on loan in the final hours of the window, looking for playing time after seasons disrupted by injury.
Matchday 3: Elche go down 3-2 at El Sardinero against Racing de Santander after trailing 3-0 at half-time (a hat-trick from Zabiri); Buba Sangaré (78') and Fer Niño (79') revive the match too late.
News last verified on 17 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.
