“I said ‘Where is Villarreal?’ ”explains Etienne Capoue, who describes it like he was scanning a map of the world and pointing his finger down. “I was told it was in the sun, just there, next to Valencia. So I said ‘alright, let’s go.”
Capoue’s last two games for Watford were in England’s second tier against Norwich and Huddersfield. He left in January 2021 and his last two games of that season for Villarreal came against Real Madrid and Manchester United.
Villarreal beat United on penalties to win the Europa League final and Capoue was named man of the match. On Wednesday, Villarreal, the club Capoue knew nothing about, face Liverpool in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals. A small, sleepy town on Spain’s east coast now has an outside shot at being crowned kings of Europe.
Nothing to lose
“Winning the Champions League? We never had the audacity to say we could win the Champions League,” Capoue tells AFP laughing.
“We’re the smallest club in the semi-finals, we were the smallest club in the quarter-finals. We’re just making our merry way. And we have nothing to lose.”
Liverpool will be a step up again, with Jurgen Klopp’s side still in the hunt for an historic quadruple. And at Anfield, the challenge is one of the fiercest in football, something Capoue knows only too well.
He has played four times there, all for Watford, and lost by an aggregate score of 18-1.
“Anfield is hell, you have to say it how it is. It’s hell,” says Capoue. “It’s the worst stadium I’ve been to in England. Whether it’s the atmosphere, the way they play. For 90 minutes, you live in hell. They have this ability to transcend themselves, to cause you nothing but problems, all the time, in any part of the field.
‘They never stop’
“They never stop, they rush you all the time, they only want to score goals, and even when they score, they carry on. They want to knock you out.”
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