Valencia boss predicts cliff-hanger against Chelsea

VALENCIA, Spain, Apr 9 (Reuters) Valencia coach Quique Sanchez Flores has predicted a cliff-hanger of a game when his side face up to Chelsea in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final at the Mestalla tomorrow.

The tie is delicately balanced after a 1-1 draw in last week's first leg in London, with Valencia enjoying a slight edge because of their away goal.

''We left Stamford Bridge with the idea in our heads that we had not yet achieved anything yet. The tie is still 50-50,'' Sanchez Flores told a news conference today.

''I predict it will be a very similar game to the one at Stamford Bridge. It will be physical, hard-fought and decided by small details. Nothing will be settled until late on.'' Sanchez Flores said that striker Fernando Morientes, the club's top scorer in Europe, had recovered from a shoulder injury that had caused him to miss the first leg.

''Morientes is fit to play,'' he said. ''It is now up to us to decide if he plays from the start.'' He admitted he was now more concerned about how to stop rival striker Didier Drogba, the scorer of Chelsea's goal at Stamford Bridge.

''We'll have to mark him very well and stay focused,'' he said.

''We'll need to stay on top of him and keep him as far as possible away from the goal.'' Valencia lost back-to-back Champions League finals in 2000 and 2001, and club captain David Albelda said that past experience had only served to show how difficult it was to win the competition.

''We lost two finals and for a club like Valencia winning the Champions League would be a massive achievement, but it is has not become an obsession of ours, it is just a desire,'' he said.

''The players who have been at the club for some time know how hard it is to win this competition, and there are more powerful teams than us still in it.'' He added: ''I wouldn't say we are invincible at the Mestalla because we have lost games there, but we are a difficult side to beat in our own stadium and if Chelsea want to go through then they'll have to work very hard.'' REUTERS PDS PM1932