Villa blow for Valencia, Barca held by Espanyol

Valencia's hopes of retaining their Spanish Cup trophy hang on a knife edge after they scraped a 3-2 home victory over Sevilla in their quarter-final first leg clash yesterday.

The evening's other match saw Espanyol hold city rivals Barcelona 0-0.

To make things worse for Valencia, striker David Villa, having scored their opener in the fifth minute had to come off injured later in the first-half.

Sevilla rebounded in the second-half to take a 2-1 lead as first Luis Fabiano and then Adriano gave them the advantage. However, Valencia showed resilience by scoring twice in the last seven minutes through Ruben Baraja and then Juan Mata to take a slender advantage to Sevilla next week.

u00a0Barca coach Josep Guardiola opted to rest the majority of his first choice players as is is habit for the Cup.