The Villarreal head coach underlined his side’s hard work against FC Salzburg
Villarreal CF head coach Unai Emery hailed the hard work of his side to overcome FC Salzburg in the second leg of the Round of 32 of the UEFA Europa League. The Yellows won 2-1 on the night, adding to their 0-2 victory in Austria.
“In the first leg, we already saw it was going to be very tough. They are a team that move around a lot and have a lot of players down the middle of the pitch. We need to continue to show personality in how we play. We wanted to find spaces, getting behind their lines. We suffered for the first 20 minutes, but we were emotionally intelligent enough to turn the match around. The equaliser shows how we can be patience, and the personality that we’ve showed. The draw changed the game. It gave us stability to take the game to where we wanted to take it. We knew how to control the match in the second half. It was a hard game and a tough tie,” analysed Emery.
For the Basque manager, the team looked solid: “We’re very happy. We competed well across the 180 minutes. We have moments where we weren’t shining, but you could trust us. The opponents demanded a lot of us because they were very physical. We have to be very compact at certain moments.”
Regarding tomorrow’s draw, Emery does not want to talk about possible opponents: “We need to continue our journey. This competition gets tougher each round. There are very dangerous teams. We’re excited, but we can’t think beyond the next game.”
See the press conference in Spanish by clicking play.
