The bosses at Villarreal want to make it very clear. There is not one “magic” reason behind the academy that produced Ballon d’Or winner Rodri.

Villarreal are from a small industrial city of the same name in eastern Spain with a population of 50,000.

Yet, despite a catchment area about the size of Yeovil, the academy has trained world-renowned stars like Rodri, Nicolas Jackson, Pau Torres and their current Spain winger Alex Baena.

Over the past 25 years Villarreal’s academy graduates have helped establish the club as perennial overachievers.

Their first season in the top tier of Spanish football was in 1998-99.

Since then they have qualified for Europe 19 times, reached the last four of the Champions League on three occasions – in 2006, 2016 and 2022 – and even beat Manchester United in the 2021 Europa League final.

This season, a rare one without European football, they’re overachieving again.

The club, nicknamed the Yellow Submarines, are fifth – battling Athletic Bilbao for La Liga’s best of the rest slot, behind Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona.

But Villarreal chief executive Fernando Roig stressed to BBC Sport no single person at the club “is a magician”.

“We have not hired Ted Lasso to make a big change,” he said.

So how do Villarreal do it then?