FCBARCELONA.CAT

20.10.2009 23:59

“Despite the defeat, we played well”

Vanessa Forns

Despite losing their first game of the season, Pep Guardiola felt his players had: “done everything possible to win the game - we played well and put in a good performance”.

“Football is special like that, in any sport we would have won the game with stats like ours tonight. We played well, but we lost and there's nothing you can do about that. It's a pity because we were looking to take a big step towards the quarter finals, but we played our game and at no point gave up on our own style”.

“We tried everything”

Guardiola also stressed that his team had enjoyed most of the possession and managed 13 shots on target and insisted: “we played better than in the last few games, we moved the ball better and tried everything we could”.

Well done Rubin

For the Barca boss: “they scored a great goal early on, but we played very, very well indeed until the equaliser, then we tried to hurry things a bit too much. Rubin Kazan came here with a very well organised defence. They are the champions of Russia and I have to congratulate them because they played a good game tonight. They sat back and defended and hit us on the break and they were very good at that”.

Tight in Group F

With three teams tied on 4 points in the group, Guardiola admitted that “it's all got very tight now. This is a tough group, all four teams are national champions. We now have to go and get a good result in Russia”.

Fans' support

Although the crowd of 55.930 wasn't one of the biggest of the season, Guardiola made a point of thanking the fans for their positive attitude: “the supporters really helped us. If we don't make an effort they give us some stick, but that didn't happen tonight because we didn't stop working hard all through the game”.