Yahoo News Unai Emery disagrees with Olympiacos boss as Aston Villa face 'biggest challenge' of the season
Even if Olympiacos boss Jose Luis Mendillabar believes the Europa Conference League semi-final tie with Aston Villa is finely poised, there's no doubt Unai Emery's side face an uphill task to return to Athens at the end of the month. But this is a challenge the Spaniard has overcome previously.
Back in 2014, Emery's Sevilla side avenged a two-goal home defeat to Real Betis in the Europa League, winning 2-0 away from home in the second leg before advancing on penalties. Emery also overcame a two-goal deficit while manager of Arsenal after winning the reverse leg of a Europa League round of 16 clash against Rennes 3-0 in 2019 following a a 3-1 defeat in France.
"Experiences can always help, being successful or not," Emery explained in his pre-match press conference at the Karaiskakis Stadium. "But we have to create and build a new way and we lost the first leg clearly. Tomorrow will be difficult to come back but we must play tomorrow thinking to stand after the first 90 minutes, the game plan we had that didn’t work well but expect tomorrow to do better.
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"It’s going to be very difficult here with the atmosphere, it could be more difficult with the supporters pushing a lot but focusing like we can with my experience before and building a new experience here with our players and idea and our experiences this year. This is the challenge tomorrow, the biggest challenge we are going to face this year, playing in this semi-final.
Asked if he spoke to his group specifically about when his Sevilla team overturned Real Betis away from home after being two goals behind, Emery said: "Not specifically about that moment, we are speaking about our experiences and how we reacted to losing some matches, even in Premier League or even how we reacted to Carabao Cup or FA Cup or even how we reacted in Conference League playing some matches.
"More thinking or something similar. Trying to prepare the match with them to try to help them with my expectation about how we can react tomorrow, with the result and emotions. It’s a good moment to see how we can react, how we can focus on our game plan and how we can progressively do good things and the things we need to do and with the respect we have of them."
The thousands of Villa fans who have flocked to Athens over the last 48 hours know that whatever happens on Thursday night, they'll have more European trips to come next season and likely beyond that under Emery. Few managers in world football boast his tremendously consistent record on the continent.
"We are in a process," Emery continued. "We can be very demanding but never feel we are under pressure, we’re in a process as a team and as a club. We enjoyed getting here and to win a trophy in Europe is very difficult and we can watch behind us.
"To get here is only when you’re being consistent and successful. But if we don't win tomorrow the process is clear, how we’re trying to get there is being demanding and be a contender for a trophy.
"Maybe we could be favourites before the first leg but then to show it on the field and they showed their power and how they want to be contender as well and they are favourites now. I’m very demanding and will prepare the match tomorrow to try and come back but we are not playing under pressure we are playing under our demands.
"We have to try and enjoy both competitions until we are finished, hopefully not tomorrow but if we do finish tomorrow we need to be proud."
Before Emery arrived at the stadium, Mendilibar disagreed with one reporter during his press conference, who suggested that Olympiacos were now favourites to reach the final ahead of Villa given their two-goal advantage.
"After the first leg they are favourites," Emery claimed. "It’s not a surprise for me [how they played in the first leg], everything I watched they delivered. It was how they were competing previously.
"They have more or less being successful in Europe and when we were playing 90 minutes there and some circumstances happened it was not a surprise but some circumstances against us we are always making some mistakes and they were clinical and they were very competitive and we couldn’t stop them in some tactical ways that we usually can.
"Tomorrow is a challenge to be clinical and stop them and try and control them in 90 minutes and if we create chances and being clinical we could be close to draw the match and then hopefully it’s going long more than 90 minutes, it would be good news for us."
