Current stars of the game to have graduated in recent years include Isco, Jordi Alba, Juan Bernat, José Gayà, Carlos Soler, Ferran Torres, and Lee Kang-in.

Former two-time European Footballer of the Year award winner Alfredo Di Stéfano was hired as Valencia coach in 1970, and immediately inspired his new club to their fourth La Liga championship and first since 1947.

Koldo Aguirre replaced Miljanić as coach, and Valencia barely avoided relegation that year, relying on favorable results from other teams to ensure their own survival.

The club finally hit rock bottom when it was relegated at the end of the 1985–86 season, and riven with internal problems such as unpaid player and staff wages, as well as poor morale.

Guus Hiddink was appointed as head coach in the 1991–92 season, and the club finished fourth in the League and reached the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey.

Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, fresh from winning the 1994 FIFA World Cup with the Brazil national team, became manager at Mestalla in 1994.

Parreira immediately signed Spanish goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, Russian forward Oleg Salenko, and Predrag Mijatović, but failed to produce results expected of him.

The club's earlier successes continued to elude it, although it was not short of top coaching staff like Luis Aragonés and Jorge Valdano, as well as foreign star forwards like Brazilian Romário, Claudio López, Ariel Ortega from Argentina, and Adrian Ilie from Romania.

The notable signings of that summer were John Carew, Rubén Baraja, Roberto Ayala, Vicente Rodríguez, and Brazilian left-back Fábio Aurélio.

After passing the two mini-league phases, Héctor Cúper's team eliminated English sides Arsenal in the quarter-finals and Leeds United in the semi-finals, reaching the final for the second consecutive year.

After extra time, the match went to a penalty shoot-out, where a Mauricio Pellegrino miss gave Bayern Champions League glory and dealt Valencia a second-straight defeat in the final.

D. Jaime Ortí replaced Cortés as president and expressed his intention of maintaining the good form that had made the club so admired on the European circuit.

Among the playing squad, Gaizka Mendieta, Didier Deschamps, Luis Milla, and Zlatko Zahovič left, while Carlos Marchena, Mista, Curro Torres, Francisco Rufete, Gonzalo de los Santos, and Salva Ballesta all arrived.

After a defeat in A Coruña against Deportivo on 9 December 2001, the team had to overcome Espanyol at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys to avoid further backsliding behind the league leaders.

In the second part of the season, Benítez's team suffered a temporary setback after losing 1–0 at the Santiago Bernabéu to Real Madrid, but in the coming six matches they recovered from this defeat and achieved four victories and two draws.

An early goal from Roberto Ayala and another close to half-time from Fábio Aurélio secured Valencia a fifth La Liga crown, 31 years after their last title win.

The 2002–03 season was a disappointing one for Valencia, as they failed in their attempt to retain the La Liga title and ended up outside of the Champions League spots in fifth, behind Celta Vigo.

His second reign at the club was a disappointment, however, as Valencia harboured realistic hopes of retaining their La Liga crown but, by February, found themselves in seventh place.

The 2006–07 season was one with many difficulties; a campaign which started with realistic hopes of challenging for the title was disrupted with a huge list of injuries to key players, as well as internal arguments between Flores and new sporting director Amedeo Carboni.

Voro would eventually drag Valencia from the relegation battle to a safe mid-table finish of tenth place, finally ending a disastrous league campaign for Los Che.

The start of the young manager's career looked to be promising, with the club winning four out of its first five games, a surge that saw the team rise to the top position of the La Liga table.

After a run where Valencia took only five points from ten games in La Liga, an announcement was made that the club had secured a loan that would cover the players' expenses until the end of the year.

This announcement coincided with an upturn in form, and the club won six of its next eight games to surge back into the critical fourth place Champions' League spot.

Despite the loss of two of the club's most important players, the team was able to finish comfortably in third place again in the 2010–11 La Liga for the second season running, although they would be eliminated from the Champions League by German side Schalke 04 in the round of 16.

Almost a month after Salvo was named president, on 1 August, Valencia sold star striker Roberto Soldado to English club Tottenham Hotspur for a reported fee of €30 million.

[10] Under Pizzi, Valencia reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Europa League, where they lost to eventual winners Sevilla on away goals, and finished eighth in La Liga despite a disastrous start to the season.

Notable signings included Álvaro Negredo, André Gomes and Enzo Pérez, who had just won the Player of the Year in the Portuguese Primeira Liga.

[40] Days later, on 7 January 2017, Valencia sporting director Jesús García Pitarch also resigned, saying he felt like he was being used as a shield for criticism by the club and that he could not defend something he no longer believed in.

[66] The club issued a statement clarifying that it had intended to use a revised version of its bat logo for a line of casual clothing and applied for permission from the Office of Harmonisation of the Internal Market but the application was dropped after DC Comics filed an objection, not a lawsuit.

[67] DC Comics again filed a complaint with the EU's office of IP opposing the trademark application made by Valencia for its centennial logo, claiming there is likely to be confusion with its Batman’s symbol.