Emery 'very proud' as Aston Villa reach ECL semifinals

Aston Villa head coach Unai Emery was a proud man after seeing his team win in the Europa Conference League.

The Midlands club are now through to the last four of the competition, beating Lille on penalties over two legs.

Villa nearly went out, but managed to get a late goal to lose the second leg 2-1, having won the first leg 2-1.

In extra time, neither team could score, before penalties won it out for Villa.

I'm very proud of our work and very happy," he said post-game.

Playing quarter-finals in Europe is always very difficult. This year we've played against Legia Warszawa, AZ Alkmaar, HK Zrinjski and Ajax and always it was very difficult and it was a good example for today.

We had an advantage 2-1 from the first leg and I knew that it was not enough, but it was important to get an advantage from home.

Today we struggled in the first half and we didn't play like we are more or less playing. In the second half, we were getting better and then when they scored the second goal it was a difficult moment.

We were always trying to keep balance and have our gameplan in our minds. We scored the goal and we had the possibility to play extra-time and penalties.

We were accepting everything because the most important thing is being resilient and being strong in our minds with our gameplan. It was a difficult match we were playing, respecting the opponent.

Here at home they were feeling strong. At the end, we won and I'm very happy for our supporters because we're going to play in the semi-finals. It's important for the supporters and for us as professionals."