Conference League finalists and the team that knocked Gary O'Neil's Strasbourg out of that same competition visit Portman Road on Saturday 8th August.

Fortunately for O'Neil, Iñigo Pérez, who masterminded that victory, will not be in the dugout having left for Villareal in the summer. He has been replaced by former Eibar boss Benat San Jose.

It will be the 46-year-old's first taste of La Liga despite a storied career. He started his managerial career in Saudi Arabia back in 2013, before the money was there, with spells at Al-Ittihad and Al-Ettifaq before time in Chile, Bolivia, UAE, Belgium and Mexico with various clubs prior to finally landing a job in his native country with Eibar in La Liga 2.

He takes over a side that finished seventh in La Liga last season and landed a spot in Europa Conference League qualifying once again.

Rayo's most common formation used last season was a 4-2-3-1, but they switched between that and a 4-3-3 on occasion.

Argentinian Augusto Batalla was the man in between the sticks for 34 games in La Liga and 13 in the Europa Conference League keeping 16 clean sheets in total. He prevented 1.53 goals across both of those competitions. Dani Cárdenas was the back-up keeper, filling in for four La Liga games and getting four Copa Del Rey starts.

A lot of Vallecano's success was built upon a stable centre-back pairing of Florian Lejeune and Nobel Mendy which combined youth and experience. Lejeune may be a familiar name to some of you reading this. He featured 46 times for Newcastle, most of those coming in 2017/18 before moving back to Spain, playing for Deportivo Aalves and Girona before joining Los Franjirrojos (The Red Sashes.)

Mendy made his Senegal debut in March 2026 but was unable to force his way into the World Cup squad. You can see from the visual above how high both full-backs are which leaves Lejeune and Mendy as last-ditch defenders and both average over six clearances per game.

Andrei Rațiu is the flying right-back who dyed his hair blue whilst playing for Romania during Euro 2024, earning him the nickname 'Sonic'. Unsurprisingly given how high his average position is, he has more successful take-ons and box entries than anyone else in the squad. He brings both passing and carrying threat. If Vallecano want to close the distance between defence and attack, Rațiu is the man they’ll look to find.

Pep Chavarría tries to have a similar impact on the other side. He averages the third-most touches for his side behind Lejeune and Rațiu and is second only to the Romanian in crosses and carry distance, whilst he tops the squad for progressive passes.

Depth at centre-back comes from Barcelona academy graduate Pelayo Fernández, who having spent last season on loan at Cadiz, who has been given chances in pre-season so far, Italian Luiz Felipe and young Dutchman Jozhua Vertrouwd, who can also cover left-back. Thirty-four-year-old Albanian Iván Balliu is the back up right-back.

With such aggressive full-backs, you need to make sure you have two players in the midfield double-pivot that are athletic enough to cover defensively without losing threat going forward. Rayo have that in Óscar Valentín and Pathé Ismaël Ciss.

Valentín, despite sitting higher on the average position visual, is the one who excels in all defensive metrics but keeps it simple on the ball, whilst Ciss has much more of the ball, making way more progressive passes but also making a lot more backwards passes than his counterpart showing that they're not shy of going backwards to progress forwards when gaps open up.

Ahead of them is Isi Palazón, who has one of the most entertaining red card stories you'll hear. Having been subbed off against Real Sociedad, he entered the pitch to protest a refereeing decision a little too forcefully, receiving a seven-match ban, one for the double yellow cards, two more for the protest and an extra four for the choice of words, "eres un sinvergüenza", which according to Google translates to "you're a scoundrel" but in the context was essentially accusing the referee of being a cheat.

He'll be a big miss for them at the start of next season, having scored seven goals and assisted six in all competitions. He's not afraid of a shot but is also excellent at finding space to clip crosses into the box. Unai López and Pedro Díaz are the back-up midfielders.

Given the role of the full-backs, you need attacking midfielders who are excellent on the ball and have great ball retention. Thirty-three-year-old Álvaro García has that. Alongside Palazón he was Rayo's creative outlet with nine goals and nine assists across all competitions.

On the other side was Jorge de Frutos who, having spent time as a striker in his career, managed to score 10 league goals last season, playing largely on the right wing.

Twenty-three-year-old Fran Perez didn't feature that much last season but is a handy utility player to have, having played on the right, on the left and down the middle.

At the top of the pitch, Vallecano got through a number of strikers with Brazilian Alemão the man staking the biggest claim towards the end of the season with four goals in 10 appearances.

Sergio Camello and Randy Nteka also featured but mainly off the bench whilst Raúl de Tomás rejoins the squad having spent last season on loan in Qatar.

Interestingly, this game feels very much like a style match-up with Rayo playing a very similar brand of football to that which Gary O'Neil is trying to implement at Town. It will be intriguing to see who comes out on top in this one in what looks to be Town's toughest pre-season fixture to date.

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