Champions League quarterfinals: Chelsea 2-2 PSG (3-3 on aggregate PSG to next round on away goals).
The Blues had everything in hand especially when Zlatan Ibrahimovic got directly sent off for a violent charge on Oscar at the 32nd minute. PSG stood and kept competing until Chelsea opened the score at the 81th minute. But then former Blues, David Luiz equalized in the 86th minute to send the match into overtime. Once again Chelsea would take the lead from a penalty transformed by Hazard but again PSG came from behing to equalize by the intermediary of its captain Thiago Silva… what a game!
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho:
“They deserved to win,’ he said. ‘When a team cannot defend two corners and concedes two goals from a corner a team doesn’t deserve to win.
‘We couldn’t cope with the pressure of playing with one player more and playing at home. For me it was a surprise.
‘For them it was easy with 10 men – defensive organisation, two lines of four, Cavani in attack, waiting for the right moment at a corner or from a mistake. Mentally they had nothing to lose. I know that feeling having played with 10 men in the Champions League.
‘They were experienced, they were good. We deserved to be punished.’
‘The players felt the responsibility of the game too much especially when the opposition had 10 men. Clearly some of the players couldn’t cope with that. The individual performances were not good enough.
‘There was no accumulation of matches; there was a normal period of training using the same methodology that has pushed us to be top of the league since day one. Apart from Matic who trained only one day, every player was training normally. It’s obviously not a physical situation, that’s not the reason.
‘When you concede two goals from two corners it’s even more evidence of what I’m saying. It’s about lack of concentration, it’s about lack of responsibility to cope with the markers and the space you have to control.’
‘To analyse the situation is the next step. We need to react. We have a Premier League to win. I told that to the players. We lost a competition where even if we had won today we would have had many stages to get through and good teams to beat.
‘We are in a good situation. It’s not time to cry; it’s also not time to laugh. It’s time to analyse what happened.
‘We must come here on Sunday to the same stadium, and the same players have to go on to the pitch and make one more step towards winning the Premier League, because if we win the Premier League and the Capital One Cup it’s still a fantastic season for us.
‘No time to cry. Move on, and look forward.’
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