Champions League: Man Utd v Valencia – the fall and rise of the La Liga side

If Valencia are to replicate their feats of the early 2000s by reaching the latter stages of the Champions League, they will have to do it the hard way. While they will be favourites to beat Swiss minnows Young Boys, Manchester United and Juventus are fearsome opponents with a different level of financial power.

Juve paid a Serie A record £99.2m to bring in Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid in the summer, while United spent around £67m on midfielder Fred and full-back Diogo Dalot, having previously held the world transfer record when signing Paul Pogba.

Valencia spent money themselves – in excess of £100m on players including Goncalo Guedes from Paris St-Germain, Geoffrey Kondogbia from Inter Milan and Kevin Gameiro from Atletico Madrid – but their longer-term aim is to do things differently.

They hope to move to the Nou Mestalla, a stadium that is partially built after work began in 2007 but was halted for financial reasons. The original plans have subsequently been reworked and the club hope to make the move in three years’ time.

Murthy: “It is important that Valencia does not enter into this race of spending hundreds of millions. We can’t and we don’t want to. What we are doing in a very constructed manner is to build our academy. We had the likes of Juan Mata and David Silva come through, both of whom are playing in the Premier League now.

“We are building an academy of players who are good enough to play in the top division. Last season we made it into the Champions League and had a 17-year-old, Ferran Torres, playing on the right wing. We were the youngest team in La Liga with an average age of 24.

“This year it is slightly older but we maintain a young team. The academy is the future of the club, we want to maintain the wages and keep the purse under control but compete at the highest level with a young team.

“We play at the Mestalla but the other stadium was not built as a football stadium, it was built as an Olympic-style stadium with a running track, very flat and 75,000 seats. We need to make significant changes, with £150m investment to convert it into a football stadium. Our plan is still to move there for the 2021-22 season.

“You need to have a fantastic feeling at the new stadium. We get that at the moment in our current stadium and we should not lose that when we move.

“I am a realist, there is no such thing in football as calm and serenity. Marcelino is a great coach, I am not sure how long he will be with us because nothing is guaranteed in football. What we need to do and be clear about is the strategy and where we want to go.

“We have eight points after the first seven league games – we did not expect that because we built a strong team. We must push ahead in this direction. We need to make Valencia a reference club in La Liga and in Europe.”