Villarreal president Fernando Roig has said that it’ll be an ’emotional’ experience to see his team playing against Liverpool at Anfield on Tuesday night.
The LaLiga club will visit Merseyside for their next Champions League fixture tomorrow, having won and lost one game each in the tournament so far this season and been held to a 0-0 draw at home by struggling Elche at the weekend.
It’ll be their third time coming to Anfield, having been beaten on their two previous visits, losing 4-o in the second leg of their Europa League semi-final in 2016 and 2-0 at the same stage in the Champions League six years later.
Villarreal president on ’emotional’ Anfield experience
Roig – who’d also been Villarreal president for both of those ties – has said that it’ll be an ’emotional’ experience to watch his team playing away to Liverpool once more, although he admitted that it could also be ‘very stressful’ for him.
In an interview with The Guardian, the 79-year-old said: “It’s emotional to play Liverpool. This will be the fifth time we have faced them, the third at Anfield. The other two were European semi-finals.
“I’ll watch the morning training session, travel with the team. We’ll go and eat; everywhere we go we get treated very well and we treat them well back.
“The next day I’ll watch the under-19s [in the UEFA Youth League] in the morning, that I do like, and then the [Champions League] game, which I don’t. Then we’ll fly back here very, very late. It’s very stressful.”
(Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
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Villarreal go to Anfield after a poor start to their season
Roig’s comments about Villarreal playing at Anfield encapsulate the aura in which Liverpool’s home ground is held across Europe, even for someone who’s already witnessed his team playing there twice previously in far higher-stakes matches than the one tomorrow night.
The Spanish side are no strangers to Champions League football – this is their sixth season in the competition and they’ve reached two previous semi-finals – although their poor start to this campaign (they’re 12th in LaLiga) suggests that the Reds will be favourites to win on Tuesday.
Although the concession of seven goals in as many days is an obvious concern, Andoni Iraola’s side go into the match with four wins from their last five in all competitions and seem to be adapting to the head coach’s tactical blueprint.
Tomorrow’s game is a fourth in 10 days for Liverpool, but if they can pick up a third victory in a row, it’ll ensure that they carry positive momentum into a short break before a tough assignment at home to high-flying Brighton next Sunday.
Before then, there awaits a tricky clash against Villarreal, but it’s one in which the Reds should prevail if they turn in the commanding level of performance that they showed for most of the win over LASK in Austria.