Romaric focused on Europa League

Posted Thursday, November 04, 2010 by ESPN

Sevilla midfielder Ndri Romaric has urged his side to forget about their weekend mauling at the hands of Barcelona and focus on their Europa League clash against struggling Karpaty Lviv.
Sevilla went into Saturday's league encounter against Barca having won five of six competitive matches under new coach Gregorio Manzano but they were humbled 5-0 at the Nou Camp in what was the Andalusian club's heaviest defeat in almost five years.

The good news for Sevilla is they have a quick chance to make amends for that loss as they play host to Karpaty knowing a victory will move them a step closer to the knockout stages of the Europa League.

Romaric said on SFC Radio: "Football always gives you another opportunity because there is always another game. What happened at the Nou Camp hurts a lot, but we need to forget it.

"Manzano is very intelligent and he's talked to us about the Barca game but we now have to focus on Thursday's match. We cannot spend the whole season talking about the Barcelona match. Now we need to lift our heads.''

The Spaniards, having been knocked out of the Champions League play-offs by Braga, suffered a disappointing start to their Europa League campaign as they lost their first Group J fixture at home to Paris St Germain.

However, under Manzano, Sevilla have bounced back from that with successive 1-0 away wins over Borussia Dortmund and Karpaty, leaving them second in the table, a point behind PSG and two in front of third-placed Dortmund.

Karpaty prop up the group having lost all three of their matches so far, and Romaric is well aware that the Ukrainian side will be desperate to keep alive their chances of getting out of the group with a victory at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.

"They will be eager to win, but what we want is to qualify. We have to make it impossible for them to win. It's a very very important game, because with a win we would have a foot in the next round. That is a big motivation for us.''

Anything other than a win in Spain could spell the end of Karpaty's hopes of claiming a top-two finish.

A defeat in Seville would definitely leave Oleg Kononov's side out of the running, while a draw would leave them a slight chance providing Dortmund beat PSG in the other match. One ray of light for the Ukrainians is that Sevilla have lost their last three home games in Europe.

Karpaty have won two and drawn the other of their three league and cup games since losing at home to Sevilla a fortnight ago.