Marcos Senna assesses Sparta Prague as the opponent for the Quarter-finals
After the UEFA Europa League draw Villarreal representative, Marcos Senna, explained after getting Sparta Prague (7th April, El Madrigal; 14th April, Generali Arena) that there are no easy rivals left in the competition as all have showed they can compete. “We’re really alive in the competition in terms of morale and confidence. And I think Sparta are the same as us in that respect, we’re both teams that want to go far. It won’t be easy and we have to respect them at all times, from start to finish. It’s a great knockout tie and we hope we can get through. The first thing to do is play. To play against the best you’ve always got to be ready. Now we’ve got to see what they’re like and play the same way we did in the first legs against Napoli and Bayer”.
For the Brazilian born Spaniard, representative of the Institutional Relations Department of the club, the Yellows must remain enthusiastic about their ability to compete in the Quarter-finals as they’ve got here by showing they’re a very solid team. “We’ve had a good journey having not drawn a Spanish team so far. What’s more, they’re going to face each other, which I think is great news for us. Anyway, we can’t get too confident because we’re going into the final stretch and all teams are very good. We have to prepare as best we can to be able to compete and try to get through to the next round”.
To finish, the eternal captain of the Submarine pointed out that playing the first game at home can be beneficial for the team. “We’re on a winning streak and we believe that playing the first game at home makes us even stronger, we have to keep going like this. The squad has recently had two great experiences in this sense and that gives them confidence. For us it’s great to play at home first and get a positive result”.
