The Villarreal U19s manager confirms that his team will try and win against Real Madrid, despite the first-leg victory
Complete concentration. Villarreal U19s (Juvenil A) this Sunday face the second leg of the Copa del Rey semi-finals against Real Madrid (12pm CEST, Villarreal TV). The Yellows go into the game with a 1-0 advantage from the first leg, but their manager, Miguel Ángel Tena, is clear what the path to follow is: “The tie is as equally balanced as it was before the first leg. We are not going to think about that result. If we think that we’re on track to go through because of the 1-0 win, we’re wrong. We’ve done a lot of psychological work to make the players see it is a good result and that they can beat a big side. Our idea is to be ambitious and try and win the match. We’re a team that has always tried to win wherever we go. We’re sure that if we’re capable of scoring, the tie will swing in our favour.”
The youngsters have prepared for the match completely: “The team is excited, they’ve worked very hard during the week and above everything, they are more than aware that we’ve got a very difficult match ahead of us, like we had the other day at home. Real Madrid are a team that we know are renowned for their great attacking capability. They have players that if you switch off for a second, they can score against you. What we need to do, like we did in the home game, is try and perform well without the ball, be a solid line, and from there use our attacking armoury and hurt them,” Tena commented.
Regarding the opponents, the Yellows manager warned about their danger: “Madrid are a team that if they don’t have the ball, they’re uncomfortable, and it’s there where they suffer and we can hurt them. The goal did come at the end, but I believe that a long time before that goal we had chances to score to come away with the win, but then eventually we did, and we were a little bit better than Madrid and at the end of the game that was reflected on the scoreboard.”
To conclude, Tena underlined that the team will have to give its all to reach the final: “It’s always good to not concede at home. Now we’ve got a very important game there ahead of us. They’re a really good team. At home, especially, they are going to want to show that they want to go through. We will have to put in one of our best performances to get through.”
