24 April 24, 2022The Sunday TimesSport
David
Walsh
Any smug Liverpool fans
should read the small
print on Unai Emery.
He’s born to manage
Villarreal and
spoilt United’s
European final
after watching
17 matches in
preparation
to PSG to be the leader, to go through
this process to someday become the
best in the world. It’s a process that
will require a bit more time to
consolidate his position. At
Manchester City, Pep [Guardiola] is in
charge. At PSG, Neymar has to be.”
He also explained how the team
could do amazing things against
opponents in Ligue 1 but, because
nobody rates the French top division,
be given no credit. That played a part
in what followed.
“I think that has an impact on the
players, who end up not believing inthemselves, which prevents them
from competing.
“They know they are great players
because they feel comfortable, but
when that comfort goes out the
window and when the moment of
truth arrives, they are not able to
suffer. PSG needs to overcome this.”
How well Emery called it. Thomas
Tuchel and then Mauricio Pochettino
encountered the same problem. PSG
continue to find ways of losing the
biggest game.
For any La Liga club who are not
Real, Barcelona or Atletico, the
problem is that the championship lies
beyond their reach. Over a longThey’ve knocked out
Juventus and Bayern
Munich from the
Champions League.
They are what you
might call scalpsI
am guessing most Liverpool fans
can remember where they were
when hearing about Samuel
Chukwueze’s late goal at the
Allianz Arena 12 days ago. “Ah,”
they may have thought. “Bayern
out, that makes things easier.”
Only little Villarreal standing
between their team and another
appearance in the Champions League
final. Time to check the cost of flights
to Paris for that last weekend of May.
In truth, only those who haven’t
read the small print will be feeling
smug. Villarreal is a town of about
50,000 people, but the club are small
only in the geographic sense. The
area is known for ceramics, the
industry that underpins Fernando
Roig’s wealth and allowed him to buy
the club for €432,000 in 1997.
Through the past two decades,
Villarreal have been a breath of fresh
air, punching so far above their
weight that after a while
astonishment gives way to pure
admiration. One of the many reasons
a European Super League was an
assault on decency was that it would
have obliterated clubs like Villarreal.
Their story upends the notion that
the game is only for the biggest clubs
in the largest cities. It seemed they
had their moment in the 2005-2006
Champions League, winning their
group, eliminating Rangers and Inter
Milan in knockout games to earn a
place in the semi-finals. There, they
encountered Arsenal.
Those with sharp memories will
recall how fortunate Arsenal were
that Jens Lehmann was so good in
those two matches. Even so,
Villarreal had a penalty late in the
second leg on their own ground totake the game to extra time. Juan
Román Riquelme against Lehmann.
The German would be named Uefa
goalkeeper of the year after that
campaign. Riquelme was the fall guy.
That should have been the
disappointment that knocked the
stuffing out of Villarreal, but they’ve
stayed in the game. Before last year’s
Europa League final against
Manchester United, Roig described
European football as being made up
of “three Englishmen [Champions
League finalists Chelsea and
Manchester City, and Europa
League finalist United] and one
little Spaniard”.
By then, Villarreal’s head coach
was Unai Emery and if ever a man
was born to manage a football club,
Emery was meant to be at this one.
His record at Seville was
extraordinary, winning the Europa
League in three consecutive seasons.
From there he got his chance to
manage the unmanageable Paris
Saint-German and, like those coaches
before and after him, he couldn’t win
the trophy the owners demanded.
During his time in Paris, Emery
offered an insight into the job.
“One day Jorge Valdano said, ‘At
Barcelona the leader is [Lionel] Messi.
At Real Madrid it’s Florentino Pérez.
At Atletico it’s Diego Simeone.’ A
player, a coach and a president. A
different kind of leader every time. I
know when I’m the main person
responsible and when I’m not. It’s a
process that a coach has to live with
and internalise. In every club you
have to know what your role is.
“I am of the opinion that PSG’s
leader is Neymar. Or that he is
currently becoming it. Neymar cameseason they’re not going to
accumulate more points than the
league’s three biggest clubs. The
Europa League is a realistic target and
there is no manager better able to win
this trophy than Emery.
Emery won three with Seville and
then coached Villarreal to last year’s
dramatic 11-10 victory over United in a
penalty shoot-out. Who could have
begrudged them their night in
Gdansk? Sixteen years after Lehmann
beat them on their own ground, their
own goalkeeper, Gerónimo Rulli, won
it for them against United, converting
his team’s 11th penalty and then
saving David de Gea’s effort.
Emery was asked how they’d
beaten a team with vastly greater
resources. “Hard work,” he said. “We
watched 17 Manchester United
matches to prepare for this final.”
And what happened since that
final? United have gone to pot.
Villarreal have gone on to better
things. To get this far in the
Champions League, they’ve knocked
out Juventus and Bayern Munich.
They are what you might call
scalps. Bayern dominated possession
at the Allianz Arena 12 days ago, but
they didn’t have many chances and a
breakaway goal for Villarreal loomed
as a distinct possibility long before it
was scored.
Any Liverpool fan expecting this
semi-final to be straightforward
should just check out the goal that got
the Spanish side through in Munich,
taking note of the quality of the build-
up and the brilliance of the finish.
They’ve done well to get this far,
but that’s not how they will see it.
That alone will make the games
against Liverpool worth watching.Emery has a
remarkable
record in
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[email protected]. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail [email protected]David Walsh (Column, April 17)
states that he “kind of agrees”
with the assessment by the late
Michael Robinson that “you can’t
help but love” Atletico Madrid. On
the contrary, my view is that you
can’t help but dislike them. Their
undoubted talent is wasted on
negative tactics imposed by
pantomime villain Diego
Simeone. Atletico proved
towards the end of and at the
conclusion of the Manchester
City game that they can be
provocative, spiteful and
malicious — and their elimination
from the Champions League will
not be mourned by those who
love the beautiful game.
Adrian Brodkin, LondonTo David Walsh’s valid charge of
jingoism during BT Sport
coverage, may I add that of self-
indulgence. The event itself is
becoming secondary to the
endless replays and analysis by
growing teams of commentators
who seem to think they are more
important than the game on
which they are reporting. Good to
see one replay, perhaps, but any
pause in play is now filled with
several replays from all camera
angles with banal comments. Let
the pictures tell the story please.
Martin Holmes, MonmouthshireI think we can cut Steve
Thompson a bit of slack for
forgetting names within his
household considering that all
seven members (including the
dog) have names beginning with
the letter “s”! Even the most alert
person would slip up. I wish Steve
well with managing his condition.
Lauren Pearce, LutonHaving coached boys’ junior
rugby for many years, I have spent
the last few years working with
Kenilworth women’s team
and echo Stephen Jones’s
thoughts on the female game
(Here come the girls, April 17). I
have found it so refreshing to
work with players who support
and challenge each other and
play with a competitive spirit,
which translates to genuine
camaraderie with the opposition
as soon as the final whistle goes.
All sections of our club value the
women’s team and there is a
collective pride that we retained
our place in National
Championship North 1 after our
first season at that level.
Stephen Haynes, via emailLETTERS
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