Valencia hold heads high in defeat

9 February 2012 02:45

Valencia coach Unai Emery could not fault his side after their 2-0 loss to Barcelona in the second leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final.

Valencia coach Unai Emery could not fault his side after their 2-0 loss to Barcelona in the second leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final.

Goals from Cesc Fabregas and Xavi gave Barca a place in the final and a 3-1 aggregate victory in the semi-finals following the 1-1 draw in the first leg at Mestalla last week.

Emery acknowledged that Pep Guardiola's side were the better team in the two-legged affair, but was proud of his players for giving a good account of themselves.

"We have to give credit to Valencia for what they did against a great rival and great players," Emery said. "To beat them we have to do things better."

"We had two good matches against them but we missed something. The most important thing is that we had chances to score, which is positive, while the negative aspect was that we allowed them to create chances which we did not want them to have."

"We were unlucky enough to have good matches and good spells, but we could not beat Barca because of their quality. We knew this tie would be hard, but we remained hopeful."

"We knew we needed to have the perfect match against them, and it did not happen."

The Spanish coach then played down the fact his side could not count on star striker Roberto Soldado, who was ruled out of the match with the flu.

"We have a large squad and we cannot depend on one player," Emery said.

"Everyone should have worked harder, but we are always trying to improve. We seek a very high level but I trust my players, who took us to the semi-finals."

"Now we will focus on La Liga again and we are starting a new phase in the Europa League, we will need every player."