‘Villarreal can only think of victory’

Marcelino isn’t considering anything other than a Villarreal win against Dinamo Minsk as ‘lose and it’s difficult to even be second’ in their Europa League group.

The Yellow Submarine are in Belarus for the Group E fixture against Minsk, thus far without a point, but trail Rapid Wien by three points and lead Viktoria Plzen by the same margin.

“It’s an important game because, for starters, it’s the most immediate,” Marcelino told reporters, according to AS.

“In addition I believe we’ve got a lot of Europa League to play. It’s a game that allows us to continue to have clear options to be first and to lose would make it difficult to even be second, so we can’t think of anything other than victory.

“Winning puts us in the best position to advance to the next round. And we’re convinced that it’s beneficial to be first. If we go to the next round, the draw could be capricious, but we’d prefer to go with an 80% chance that we won’t get an opponent who demands the maximum of us.

“If you’re second you have to play against a rival from the Champions League or a first-place Europa League team, and they are very strong teams.

“We have to try to win and we consider this to be a very important match. Every match is different and it will cost us a lot more than the first leg.

“We will rotate but we won’t change 10 players. We have to have an eye on the game against Barcelona but the priority is [Dinamo].”

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