VALENCIA: Villarreal aim to rekindle the spirit that saw off Juventus and Bayern Munich when they bid to overturn a 2-0 deficit in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Liverpool on Tuesday.

A 2-1 LaLiga loss to lowly Alaves was not ideal preparation and coach Unai Emery knows how hard it will be to beat Liverpool, who have only lost three matches this season in all competitions and none by more than two goals.

“We will need a perfect game to achieve what no other team in Europe accomplished against Liverpool this season,” Emery told a news conference on Monday.

“Overturning a two-goal deficit is already complicated against any rivals and much more when your opponent is a team that is almost flawless. We benefit that away goals are not worth double any more so it gives us more freedom to attack,” he added.

“Homefield advantage there was key and I hope it work the same for us here.”

After eliminating former champions Juventus in the last 16 and Bayern in the quarter-finals, the former Paris St Germain and Arsenal manager believes his team are capable of delivering another shock.

“I want my players and the fans to face the challenge with pride,” Emery said.

“Football is about feelings, and we feel a great connection to our fan base, being from a small industrial town. I truly believe we have what it takes to present Liverpool something they didn’t experience this season so far.”

For Emery’s Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp, his team have only got half the job done in their semi-final against Villarreal and the Premier League side must be prepared for the worst against Emery’s team.

Liverpool have won every away game in the competition this season, but Emery has an 84% success rate as a coach in European knockout ties since 2010. “We didn’t win the games by sitting deep and counter-attacking,” Klopp told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s second leg in Spain. “We tried to play as ourselves and we have to do that again. We have to be ready to suffer and sit back in moments, but not as a general approach.”

Liverpool have lost only once this year as they seek an unprecedented quadruple of trophies. “We must’ve done something right in the last few months. The problem now is everything is perfect, then the next game we start on the wrong foot and all of a sudden the game is different,” Klopp said. Liverpool have not lost by a two-goal margin in 56 games all season. Avoid such a defeat again on Tuesday and they will be in to a third Champions League final in five seasons.

The Reds have come a long way since the first of those finals when Real Madrid’s Luka Modric and Toni Kroos helped nullify Liverpool’s press in a 3-1 win for the Spanish giants in Kiev.

A rematch of that clash is also a possibility for Paris on May 28 should Madrid produce another famous European fightback from 4-3 down against City in the other semi-final.

Published in Dawn,May 3rd, 2022