Calleja underlines that the team must be ‘intelligent’ and look for a win to get to the quarter-finals
Villarreal manager Javi Calleja, and defender Mario Gaspar, appeared in front of the media in a press conference ahead of this Thursday’s match with FC Zenit (9pm CET).
The Yellow Submarine head coach underlined that, despite the great result in the first leg (1-3), Villarreal should look for victory to secure passage to the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals: “We can’t go onto the pitch relaxed, thinking that we have the tie wrapped up. We need to earn the passage at home, playing well, like we did in the first leg. To do that, we need to be focused and look for goals. If we score, we make it very complicated for then. We need to think about our style of play and not so much in the result.”
The manager confirmed that his side will give everything to get past the side from Saint Petersburg: “We will put out the best XI to win this match. That doesn’t mean there won’t be changes. There are players who will stay in the starting XI and others who will come in. If we want to win, we need to be intelligent, not rush things or make mistakes. We need to have the ball and a cool head.”
Finally, Calleja recognised that the Europa League is a competition that excites the Yellows: “We’re ambitious and we want to be in Europe until the end. It’s a competition that makes us dream and allows us to believe that we can achieve something important.”
Mario Gaspar: “We need to go out to win the match from the first minute”
Villarreal defender Mario Gaspar underlined that the Yellows must go out and try and win the match to get through to the quarter-final of the second biggest competition in the continent: “In Europe, every opponent makes things difficult for you. What is happening at the moment in other games should warn us. We have a good advantage, but we need to go for the game to not let them get into the tie because they could be very dangerous.”
Furthermore, he underlined that the squad wants to continue as far as possible in the Europa League: “We want to get as deep as possible in this competition. Getting knocked out would be a blow. We are going to try and avoid that by playing well and going out to win the match from the first minute.”
