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The oldest coach of the defending Spanish champions, Italian Claudio Ranieri, praised his team, which yesterday claimed a crucial victory away against the Belgian champions "Anderlecht".
This victory, along with the draws of the other teams in the group - "Werder" and "Inter" - means that "Valencia" still has a chance to secure a spot in the Champions League quarterfinals, but they must defeat Bremen's "Werder" team in Valencia by a better than 2-1 scoreline in two weeks.
Ranieri, speaking about yesterday's match, said that the team did not show their best game, but praised the players for showing the desire to win.
"The team gave everything they could at this moment," Ranieri said. "The most important thing is that we finally ended the streak of bad matches."
"The match was tough, but we knew it before the game, because "Anderlecht" counterattacks a lot," commented the 52-year-old strategist. "A crucial factor in the victory was the excellent play of (Ruben) Baraja and (Mohamed) Sissoko."
The Italian told journalists that there is still a lot of work to be done to beat "Werder": "It won't be easy to play against "Werder" because they are a really high-level team. We will have to be in top form, but so far we have not reached it."
