Villa, say: team in conference having missed the first half (9)
I believe the answer is:
residence
'villa' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'team in conference having missed the first half' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'team' could be 'side' (both can mean a sports team) and 'side' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'say' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for residence that I've seen before include "The White House" , "Dire scene (anag.)" , "Place or house where one lives" , "bode" , "Person's home" .)