The Owls are on the last lap of pre-season ahead of the 2022/23 campaign and welcomed Rayo Vallecano to Hillsborough on Wednesday evening.

The friendly was an entertaining affair as expected and the 2-0 result in Rayo’s favour academic in the wider picture.

For both clubs, the assignment was a fitness and sharpness exercise with long seasons on the near horizon in League One and La Liga respectively, and those boxes were ticked.

On the football front, the Spanish side enjoyed the better of the first half in terms of chances, although Wednesday certainly gave as good as they got generally with the ball.

The contest stayed goalless until just before the half-hour mark when a low Bebe cross from the right was unfortunately deflected into his own net by Jack Hunt.

Similar fortune evaded the Owls soon after the break when Josh Windass’ shot from range appeared to be parried over the line by keeper Dimitrieveski but the verdict was no.

And Rayo promptly doubled their lead from the next attack on the hour when Alvaro broke down the left and squared for the onrushing Nteka to slot home.

Wednesday pushed forward - Sylla Sow forced a fine point-blank save from Dimitrieveski before Callum Paterson was inches away from Liam Palmer’s teasing feed.

But the primary object of the mission was achieved as the players got more valuable minutes into the legs and Wednesday have just one more pre-season friendly to encounter – at Wigan on Saturday – before the real thing begins on 30 July.

Wednesday: Stockdale (Dawson 65), J Hunt (James 72), Famewo (Palmer 46), Heneghan, Iorfa, Johnson (Brown 72), Adeniran (A Hunt 78), Bannan (Dele-Bashiru 65), Windass (Sow 60), Gregory (Paterson 60)