UEFA Champions League: FC Barcelona 0-0 FC Juventus (first leg: 0-3)
Barcelona was unable to recover from the three goal deficit conceded during the first leg. There was no comeback this time as Barcelona did the last round against PSG. Instead, a strong Juventus side came to Camp Nou to defend and let not much space for the attacking trident. Juventus deserved to move on and showed there were the better team in this round.
Coach Juventus, Allegri on advancing to the semifinals:
“Only a great Juve side could have made it through a tie like this. We afforded them a few chances but still defended with good shape and determination for 95 minutes. Clearly, when we went forward we weren’t as cool-headed as we might have been but we’ll work on that.
Everyone played well, the centre-halves especially, including those that came on late like [Andrea] Barzagli. It felt like the match could have gone on a lot longer without us conceding. Yet Barcelona come to life at home. [Lionel] Messi, Neymar and [Luis] Suarez move the ball incredibly well and [Andres] Iniesta also played excellently. It’s nigh-on impossible to keep back-to-back clean sheets against Barça, which means we did really well.
“We haven’t achieved anything yet, though. This is just another step on the road to Cardiff. We mustn’t let up at all now. On Sunday we have a big game – it’s the business end of the season. This squad is full of great professionals though: they’re responsible and I don’t need to keep them on their toes. The time to change a formation is when you’re winning. If you do so after a loss, it becomes that much harder.
We’ll enjoy this even though we have big room for improvement. I must, however, congratulate the lads. On a more general note, it was only fair and nice to see the Nou Camp applaud two great teams”.
Coach Barcelona Enrique on the elimination:
“A victory today it would have been deserved for us, but Juventus deserve to go through. I’ll take the attitude of my players and the fans up until the last moment. We fought until the very end.
We tried. We had a good attitude and the players were ambitious but the ball didn’t want to go in. Tonight, we saw two teams who attack. Juventus also looked for opportunities on the counterattack. It was difficult for our players to control their intensity on attack after recovering balls on defense.”
