Barca will go into the final phase of the Champions League with their options intact. Andres Iniesta played a key role in qualifying for the quarter-finals.
350 games in a Barça shirt
The game against Arsenal also entered into Iniesta’s personal record. On Tuesday, he played
his 350th official match in a Barça shirt. Also, he’s the youngest ever Barça player to reach
that figure. On May 11th, Iniesta will turn 27.
He played a part in both of Barça’s opening goals, and he did it with his usual class. After
the game, however, he shied away from the well-deserved protagonism. "I always put the team first
and I saw that we all worked really hard," he said after the game in the Barça TV program “El
Marcador”.
"The most difficult, but the best, is yet to come"
The 3-1 win, much closer than the superiority that Barça demonstrated throughout
the tie, was enough to breed optimism about the months ahead, when titles will be decided: "The
outlook is good. We are where we wanted to be. The most difficult part is yet to come, but
it’s also the best part. We have to enjoy what we’re doing".
"We had an idea how Arsenal would approach the game"
Arsenal, a team used to playing the ball, had to change their style of play against
a very ambitious Barça team: "We could sense that Arsenal would take such an approach. Almost every
team who come to the Camp Nou do the same… Arsenal defended with six a lot of the time,
because Nasri and Rosicky were forced to help out" Iniesta said.
Reaction in time
Iniesta admitted that the own goal by Busquets was "a blow, but we were able to overcome it".
According to him, there were two contributing factors, the time remaining and numerical
superiority, "When they equalised, you look at the scoreboard and see that there’s still
time. Your views and feelings, if you're on the pitch, change, and more so when they went down to
ten players, it’s when we tried to make the extra player count".
Iniesta also had words of praise for the Barça fans, who almost filled the Camp Nou (95,486
spectators): "We need the fans, especially at times like these, when things get complicated."