Players disappoint McCall

MOTHERWELL manager Stuart McCall believes his players failed to do themselves justice last night as they left themselves with what he described as only “a very small chance” of reaching the Europa League group stage.

Levante’s 2-0 win at Fir Park appears to make next week’s second leg of the Play-off round tie in Valencia little more than a formality for the Spaniards.

And McCall said: “We weren’t very good, but Levante were excellent and merited the victory

“In our Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos here, I was proud of the team’s performance despite also losing that one 2-0. But I have a sense of disappointment tonight. We didn’t play as well as we could.

“We now have a very small chance of winning the tie. We would have to play far, far better over there next week. If we score first, then maybe we could still make a game of it.”

McCall had no complaints about defender Shaun Hutchinson’s red card, for a foul on Levante striker Theofanis Gekas.

Levante coach Juan Ignacio Martinez was critical of the home team. He said: “Motherwell play in a typical British style. They play a bit rougher than we do and I felt their players were a bit late with challenges on a couple of occasions. One of our players, Nikolaos Karabelas, has a bad strain because of one of them.

“But this was a very special day for Levante in our club’s first European game. We have taken a giant step towards qualifying.”