Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Pellegrini Untroubled By Five-Goal Deficit

There's confidence, and then there's confidence. Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini exemplified the latter of the two today as he spoke about his team's chances of progressing to the next round of the Copa Del Rey with AS.

El Submarino Amarillo trail Poli Ejido 5-0 from the first leg but despite the overwhelming scoreline the Chilean believes his side can overturn it, and he wouldn't even class it as a divine act if they did so.

"I do not know if it would be a miracle to win this - it is a result that we should achieve as we are used to giving it to others in football. If we were talking about twelve to zero then that might be a miracle," he exclaimed.

"It is clear that it is difficult and will not be easy but we have to try from the first minute, not only to score goals but to not concede them too - that will be key. We should not be too hasty: going at 200% for an hour would create a lot of errors. We have to play an intense game, to recover the ball whenever possible and to use it with success."

Certainly Villarreal will have to be at their best if they are to win this match and Pellegrini revealed that he has told his players 'to go out and win, to show that it was an accident.'

He also said that he does not want them to have a score in their head but rather just to play to their best, both in attack and in defence. Obviously this is all rather said than done and the coach did acknowledge that their opponents will be trying their best to break the game up and will probably play differently from the first leg with the scoreline in their favour.

For the match Villarreal will be without five players who played against Almería at the weekend and those are Joan Capdevila, Santi Cazorla, Giuseppe Rossi, Marcos Senna and Diego Godin.

Villarreal squad to face Poli Ejido: Diego López, Viera, Cygan, Fuentes, Gonzalo, Javi Venta, Cani, Eguren, Bruno, Edmilson, Pires, Ibagaza, Mati Fernández, Altidore, Guille Franco, Llorente.


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