The Villarreal CF head coach urges the team to forget the Champions League and break the current run with a win at El Sadar (Saturday, 4.15pm)
Villarreal CF head coach, Marcelino García Toral, spoke to the media this Friday to analyse the build‑up to the match against CA Osasuna, corresponding to Matchday 22 of LALIGA EA Sports, which will take place this Saturday at 4.15pm at El Sadar.
The Yellow coach opened his press conference by calling for the team to leave the Champions League behind and fully focus on the remaining 18 matches of LALIGA EA Sports: “Morale is good because the Champions League had been over for us for some time. We would have liked to finish with a win, but it was difficult. Now we have 18 league matches left to try to return.”
With the Champions League now out of mind, Marcelino underlined the need to reverse the current run of results: “We’re on a bad streak. Across competitions, we’ve lost four games in a row and we want to change that. Aside from Leverkusen, we’ve competed well in the other matches and they were tight. Football has runs—sometimes you win with little, sometimes it costs a lot. In the last games, we’ve scored only one goal and conceded too many. We need to regain solidity in both boxes.”
The Yellow Submarine will have the chance to do so against Osasuna at El Sadar—a match that, as Marcelino points out, will demand their best: “I expect a difficult game because Osasuna have won seven and drawn two of their eleven home matches. They’re also in a great scoring moment with Budimir. The team is feeling good with the ball, they combine quickly and have strong play on the wings. Plus, they score a lot from set pieces. We must stay very focused on defending set plays and look to attack their goal as much as possible.”
In the same vein, the Asturian coach believes it will be a high‑tempo match: “We will need to show intensity. We know the level of demand Osasuna impose at home. Last year, we managed a draw in Pamplona.”
Finally, Marcelino was ambitious and highlighted the team’s efforts in LALIGA: “The first half of the season we’ve had is very commendable, especially while playing in the Champions League. Now we leave that competition behind and focus on recovering our best version for the rest of the league. We’re ambitious. We want to win and look upwards in the table.”
