"I said 'Where is Villarreal?'" makes sense of Etienne Capoue, who depicts it like he was checking a guide of the world and pointing his finger down.
"I was informed it was in the sun, only there, close to Valencia. So I said 'okay, we should go'."
Capoue's last two games for Watford were in England's second level against Norwich and Huddersfield.
He left in January 2021 and his last two rounds of that season for Villarreal came against Real Madrid and Manchester United. Villarreal beat United on punishments to win the Europa League last and Capoue was named man of the match.
On Tuesday, Villarreal, the club Capoue didn't know anything about, face Liverpool in the primary leg of the Champions League elimination rounds. A little, lethargic town on Spain's east coast currently has an external shot at being delegated lords of Europe.
"Winning the Champions League? We never had the dauntlessness to say we could win the Champions League," Capoue tells AFP chuckling.
"We're the littlest club in the elimination rounds, we were the littlest club in the quarterfinals. We're simply making our joyful way. Furthermore, we might as well go for it."
Villarreal took out Juventus in the last 16 and Bayern Munich in the quarters, two clubs that together own two times as numerous European Cups - eight - as Villarreal have wins in the take out stage.
At the point when Bayern were winning a third successive European Cup in 1976, Villarreal were being consigned to the Spanish fourth level.
For some at Villarreal, the discussion of fantasies and monster killings may wear ragged.
Villarreal is a small town yet a major club, the Europa League advocate, a group possessed by a store big shot, who have completed only one of the last eight seasons outside La Liga's main seven.
"We couldn't care less, we know we're longshots," says Capoue.
"No one will say we're top picks since we're not. Who are different groups? What else could we at any point say about them?
"It's not culpable anybody to say there are 50,000 individuals here and in their arenas alone, they have 70,000 seats. We don't care about, it's reality."
ANFIELD 'Most awful STADIUM'
Liverpool will be a move forward in the future, with Jurgen Klopp's side still in the chase after a notable quadruple.
What's more, at Anfield, the test is one of the fiercest in football, something Capoue knows very well indeed. He has played multiple times there, for Watford, and lost by a total score of 18-1.
"Anfield is heck, you need to say it the way things are. It's hellfire," says Capoue.
"It's the most terrible arena I've been to in England. Whether it's the climate, the manner in which they play... For an hour and a half, you live in hellfire.
"They have this capacity to rise above themselves, to cause you only issues, constantly, in any piece of the field.
"They never stop, they rush you constantly, they just need to score goals, and in any event, when they score, they continue. They need to take you out.
"It doesn't matter at all to them what or who is before them. They simply need to kill everybody and that is all there is to it."
Basically Capoue is probably not going to be scared. The French midfielder hate football, tries not to watch football at home and says "I don't believe that football should be for what seems like forever".
Conversely, Villarreal's coach Unai Emery will know everything about his rivals this week. Emery's fastidious planning reaches out to broadly lengthy video meetings, with the mean to set up his players for each conceivable situation.
"I'm in the first column, I'm the great understudy," Capoue says happily.
"I don't watch football by any means so I wouldn't fret. In the event that the others watch football at home and, when they come in they need to observe more football recordings, perhaps that disturbs them.
"It doesn't annoy me since I know it's not so much for the sake of entertainment, it's work. He does it to give you however much data as could be expected and eventually, this large number of circumstances, in matches, they occur.
"Toward the finish of the match, you tell yourself, 'you know what, the coach, he is amazingly brilliant'. That happens to me constantly."
Capoue feels somewhat doubtful about the base of Emery's concerns at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal.
"The coach's fundamental approach to playing is tied in with setting your self image to the side," says Capoue. "We do, and that shows on the pitch, however with the enormous groups that likewise returned to cause major problems for him."
At Villarreal, it's a strategy the players "follow aimlessly", says Capoue, a methodology that imparts conviction.
"We're in the semis which shows we weren't apprehensive about Juventus or Bayern," he says.
"We're not a major group but rather we're a strong group, playing for the love of football, that needs to partake in this second. Since what we're encountering is inconceivable."
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