The Villarreal faces for the eighth time in its history the quarterfinals of a European competition, six of them in the Europa League and two in the Champions League, with the aim of being able to take advantage of the ‘Emery effect’, since his coach is a specialist in the second continental competition, in which he has accumulated three titles.
The challenge for the team led by Unai Emery is to reach a European final for the first time in its history, for which it needs to overcome the Dinamo Zagreb in the quarterfinals and later in the semifinals to the winner of the Arsenal-Slavia Prague tie.
So far, the Castellón team has reached a continental semifinal four times, but never surpassed it after losing against Valencia (2004), Arsenal (2006 in the Champions League), Porto (2011) and Liverpool (2016).
After all these disappointments, Villarreal once again has his dream in sight with the favorable factor of having the most successful coach in the Europa League, since Emery has won the tournament three times with Sevilla and lost a final with Arsenal.
These records make him the coach who best knows the way to lift a title like this, as no one has won it as many times as he has.
To this, the experience of Villarreal is added, since it is the team that has played the most matches and knockouts in this competition.
So far the Emery-Villarreal tandem has worked perfectly in Europe. The yellows signed an immaculate group stage with five victories and a draw, although one of their triumphs was obtained, against Qarabag of Azerbaijan, in the offices but when Villarreal already had their classification assured.
The team was superior not only to the Azerbaijani team, but also to the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Turkish Sivasspor, to later leave on the account the Austrian Red Bull Salzburg, which they beat in both games of the round of 32.
The last rival overcome was the Ukrainian Dynamo Kiev, also with victories in both matches in the round of 16.
Villarreal is one of the few that reaches this final stretch of the season with such good numbers, which fuels optimism, since even when the team added a streak of eight league games without winning, they were never short of victories in Europe , which allowed him to reactivate in times of crisis.