Harry Maguire told Marcus Rashford he had taken his most difficult opportunity after the Manchester United forward scored the only goal of the game against Real Betis.
United won 1-0 in Seville to complete a 5-1 aggregate success and book a place in the Europa League quarter-finals, with Rashford scoring his 27th goal of the season.
His fizzing 25-yard strike came just minutes after he had missed two golden chances on the break, but he showed his confidence was unaffected and the 56th-minute goal killed off any threat of a Betis comeback.
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"I just said to him in the dressing room, he scored the hardest one. I don’t know if it bobbled or something, it’s not like him to miss that chance," Maguire told MUTV.
"He’s on fire for us and is scoring big goals at important times and I think that's an important goal in the game. We spoke how important the first goal was. After the first five minutes or the second half, the last 40 minutes of the game we really control the game and then we should have seen the job out with being a bit more clinical."
United had to ride out an early storm from the hosts, who began the game roared on by a 54,000-strong crowd and they had opportunities to strike first in the opening quarter, but Maguire was happy with a professional performance.
"I think it was a good performance. I think we spoke about how important the first goal was once we got the first goal we control the game thoroughly," he said.
"We should have really gone on and won the game 2-0 or 3-0 in the end. And we also spoke about the first 20 minutes and how crucial they'd be. We knew that they'd come out and throw absolutely everything at us for 20 minutes and play at ridiculous intensity and one that we had to match and I felt like we did match it at times.
"Although we probably give them a little, probably one or two more chances than we would have liked and David made some good saves, but they're a good team. They are fifth in La Liga, challenging for the Champions League spots."
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