Chukwueze’s Villarreal Seek Perfection to Beat Liverpool

Super Eagles winger Samuel Chuwueze’s Villarreal will be aiming to re-enact  that form that saw off Juventus and Bayern Munich this evening when they take on Liverpool in their Champions League semi-final second leg this evening. 

The Spanish club will first need to cancel out the deficit of two goals they carried here from the first leg in Anfield last week.

The trio of Finidi George, Nwankwo Kanu and John Mikel Obi are the only Nigerian players to have lifted the coveted European club football trophy.

Both Finidi and Kanu won it with Ajax in 1995 while Mikel also did same with Chelsea in 2012.

And in both occasions  Ajax and Chelsea had to go through difficult second leg semi-final hurdle to reach the final stage.   

This is the same situation that Chukwueze, who scored the vital goal that gave his team the edge over Bayern Munich in the crucial quarter final match at the Allianz Arena in Munich, has found himself also.

More worrisome is Villarreal’s 1-2 loss to lowly Alaves in the La Liga. It certainly 

was not ideal preparation and coach Unai Emery knows how hard it will be to beat Liverpool, who have only lost three matches this season in all competitions.

“We will need a perfect game to achieve what no other team in Europe accomplished against Liverpool this season,” Emery told a news conference yesterday. 

“Overturning a two-goal deficit is already complicated against any rivals and much more when your opponent is a team that is almost flawless. We benefit that away goals are not worth double any more so it gives us more freedom to attack,” he added. 

“Homefield advantage there was key and I hope it work the same for us here. We need to be impeccable on defence, better than in Anfield. And we need to find our game, something that we have not achieved in the first leg.” 

TODAY@8:00pm

Villarreal v Liverpool 

WEDNESDAY @8:00pm

R’Madrid v Man City