Marcelino has encouraged people to come to the stadium to be with the team in this great match

Villarreal CF head coach Marcelino García Toral appeared before the media and Eric Bailly in the press room at José Manuel Llaneza Training Ground ahead of the second leg of the UEFA Europa League round of 16 tie against Olymique de Marseille (Thursday, 6:45pm CET, Estadio de la Cerámica).

These were the most important statements:

On tomorrow’s game

“We’re going to play a match against a great team that clearly outplayed us in the first leg where we were far from our best performance. We want to win, we want to show that the difference between one team and another is not that big. We’d like the stadium to be full, we’d like people to be with us. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to win the game and as the minutes go by we’ll see the chances that are generated.”

LALIGA as a priority?

“Since we’ve been here, we’ve prioritised the immediate as the most important thing. Out of respect for ourselves, the Valencia game is a long way off. Tomorrow we’re going to try to play the best game possible to win it, to try to recover the best feelings and out of respect for ourselves, the fans and the competition itself.”

Effectiveness in front of goal, key in the tie

“We have to play at our maximum level. We have a great team in front of us, as we saw in the first leg. It’s clear that to beat OM we have to play at our best, otherwise it’s impossible for us to win. We were far behind last Thursday and the rival outplayed us, but I think we have the capacity to equalise the match, to try in our stadium and with our people to beat the rival. It will also be a question of accuracy. In Marseille, our opponents were better than us but they also had a brutal ability to score. If we had the same ability we could come close, but the first thing is to regain our pride tomorrow and play at our maximum level for 90 minutes.”

The fans, key in tomorrow’s game

“I hope and wish that all our fans will be present and fill the pitch. The club, the fans and this competition is beautiful, it could be our last game, we will fight for whatever it is not, this competition gave them their biggest success in terms of titles and all that together should make the fans come. I don’t think the Marseille fans will be an impediment to going to the stadium. There will be the necessary security measures and from here on we will enjoy the football, which is a beautiful spectacle.”