“The lads were exceptional against a physical and technical side. The regret is we could have scored more given what we created, and a very difficult and intense second leg now awaits in Madrid. I’m happy for Arna and pleased with how he’s working. In fact, all our strikers are training well, and I like the attitude I’m seeing from them. We did well in the opening 45 but didn’t start the first ten minutes of the second half that well. After that, we were fantastic, and the players who came on gave us a big hand. Nevertheless, we know that was just the first leg.
Thuram had a little problem when he sprinted to reach a pass. Then, he felt pain when taking a shot. We’ll see; these are things that can happen. We hope he won’t be out for a long time. We’ve done really well in the past six months, but the most important months are March and April. I’m delighted with the boys, both in terms of how they’re playing and how they’re training. We know that the further we go, the more difficulties we’ll encounter and the more fatigue there will be, but we need to carry on in this manner. Barella was excellent, just like all the other midfielders. If I would have liked to play in this team? Yes! As regards our wing-backs, Dumfries and Carlos Augusto were excellent after coming on, but Dimash and Matteo also played well before that. In that moment of the game, I needed a little bit more out wide. Our widemen are the players who push the most, and then we have Buchanan, who is an excellent player. It was an important evening, one where we also remembered Brehme. Today, I was with Ferri, who was a teammate of his. We were all devastated to hear the news because we’ve lost a great player and extraordinary person.”