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Enero, 17 2018
Marcelino: “We all fought together to turn the scoreline around”
Marcelino Garcia Toral has spoken to the press after Valencia CF’s 2-1 first-leg victory against Deportivo Alaves in the quarter-final stages of the Copa del Rey.
“I am happy with the result, also with the reaction in the second half, but I was disgusted with the first half," the VCF coach began.
"It is a short competition and we have to play the 90 minutes at the highest level. Alaves could have given themselves a huge advantage in the knock-out tie, we have been lucky and come back after a bad first half. In the second half we were superior and, after the possible 1-0, we went 0-1 behind to something that was avoidable. But after that, the team kept going and going, and we achieved the 2-1 that leaves us with an advantage, but we have to score away.”
“What happened in the first half was an accumulation of a lot of factors, and the fault lies with me for not getting the message across to my players about the importance of the game and to fight for 90 minutes. Therefore, I am responsible. We have had a first half that was way below our usual level and I want to thank the fans again for helping us in the second half. We all fought together to turn the scoreline around and put the tie back in our favour.
“For the majority of the game, we have played with ten behind the ball and we should have avoided it. We lacked mobility collectively. For this reason, we lost the ball in the middle of midfield and we fell victim several times to the counter attack and created danger for ourselves. Alaves knew how to play their game, they used their weapons and they fought back against us perfectly.
"From there, they hurt us and despite my efforts, we all thought that we were already in the semi finals, but we still had to fight and battle. I am happy with the reaction of the team in the second half. The team always wants to win, but in front of us we always have an opponent that wants to win too, be it Alaves or our next opposition UD Las Palmas. I expected this kind of game, Alaves are very organised and have picked up very good results in recent weeks,” Marcelino explained.