Villarreal’s Champions League inaugural journey continued when their 1-1 draw with Rangers put them into the quarter-finals on away goals.
The Spanish club suffered a setback when Peter Lovenkrands put Rangers ahead after 12 minutes, but grabbed the equaliser on 49 minutes when Rodolfo Arruabarrena slotted home from close range.
“This is a very important achievement for both the club and for the town of Villarreal,” said Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini.
“There are no limits to what this club can achieve. So far no one has shown themselves to be better than us on the pitch.
“Rangers made life difficult for us in the first half, but we responded well in the second and the most important thing was to get through.”
“We’re not satisfied with what we’ve achieved up to now,” he said.
“We’ll try and make the most of our chances and keep going.
“We started cautiously and we conceded an early goal. In the second half, we corrected our mistakes.”
Rangers manager Alex McLeish said he was proud of his players.
“It is difficult to speak just now, the players are shattered in there, they gave everything,” McLeish, who will step down at Ibrox at the end of the season, told ITV.
“We went for broke at the end and I’m really proud of the players. We took it right down to the wire and we had the opportunity to get an historic result in Rangers history.”
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