Unai Emery hailed Villarreal’s “near-perfect” performance against Bayern Munich but admitted their 1-0 first-leg lead was not enough.
Villarreal beat Bayern in the home game of the Champions League quarter-finals, although the margin of victory could have been greater.
After Arnaut Danjuma’s opener, Francis Coquelin sees a shot ruled out for offside and Gerard Moreno hits the post.
On the other side, Bayern only managed to get a shot on goal in the 59th minute; prior to this match, his first effort had come at 12 minutes on average this season.
Despite the win, the scoreline was a concern for Emery – although Bayern have lost the last five games, they have been beaten in the first leg, four of them against Spanish sides.
“We are here to try to compete and qualify for the semi-finals,” Emery said after Villarreal’s first home win in the competition since April 2006.
“We are against the favourites, against a team that has not lost, but if we have an almost perfect match like today, we can beat them. If it was perfect, we would have beaten more.
“We have to play another 90 minutes and find continuity. We’re not going to dwell on how well we’ve played, won and competed and been better against Bayern.
“We have to be demanding and, at the same time, as professionals that we are, we want to take a step forward. And these measures that we are taking do not stop.
“We will try to play a 90-minute match, with what it will take, with what it will take, with the difficulty that we will find more than today, to overcome them.
“In today’s 90 minutes, I’m happy that the fans experienced a historic moment playing in the quarter-finals against Bayern Munich, that they experienced it and repeated it and that we played a good match and won, but it’s still the second 90 minutes.
“It’s part of the game that you have a second goal that’s offside, it’s part of the game that they have chances and you stop them, it’s part of the game that you score a goal, it’s part of the game that you have chances and don’t score them.
“You can’t think about what happened and what could have happened. The result is 1-0. It’s a good result, but logically insufficient. The difficulty will be greater there.
“They’re the favourites, they’re a great team. It’s not normal that they lose, but they lose once in a while – even by more goals, rarely, very rarely. Most of the time they win by many goals. happy, but at the same time careful.”
He added: “We have 90 minutes left and I want to beat Bayern Munich. Knowing that it is very difficult, I want to do it and I want to work on it.
“And if I don’t beat them, I won’t be happy, I’ll be frustrated, that we played a good game [in the first leg].”