Pep Guardiola: “We scored two goals from their mistakes”

Is Zinedine Zidane getting pointers from Pep Guardiola, and asking what he could’ve done differently? Maybe. It’s anyone’s guess as to what these two were talking about in that moment, but it’s clear who got the upper hand over two legs.

Anyway, here are Guardiola’s post-game quotes:

“Of course, it’s important for us. We beat them twice. They have never lost two knockout games.

“To win this competition you have to win against teams like Madrid, Barca and so on.

“When you play against Real Madrid, you realise how good they are. You can see the personality they play with; they are good.

“When you are on the sidelines and see the personality and charisma, it looks like they are playing a friendly - they play this kind of game thousands of times.

“We weren’t keen to defend 1-1. We tried to score and couldn’t; Courtois made some saves - but we deserve to be in the next stage.

“We scored two goals from their mistakes. It’s not easy and we tried to convince them to attack, but we are in the quarter finals and we are happy.”

Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling also spoke to the press:

Jesus

“It was so important for us to win. Real Madrid are a top club and the best club in the competition so for us, its massive.”

“I think it’s all about belief,” Sterling said of Varane’s mistakes. “Belief that there would be mistakes. They are humans.

“You can make a mistake if you are pressed a lot.

“It’s one of my powers to press all the time to help my team. I was happy to score, too.

They are such a good team. They have a lot of top players. It’s Real Madrid - a top club.

“They can beat us. We came to work hard and try to win and play good football, which we did.”

Sterling

“The most important thing today was that we knew how good they were, but we know how good we are.

“I think the difference was who ran the most and who was willing to put that extra yard in and I thought we were brilliant tonight.

“With the players that we’ve got we felt no inferiority; we played really well and of course they’ve got some great players, but with the energy and the performance the boys showed, we were brilliant tonight.

“Pressing high was part of the plan - to be on the front foot, with aggression and be right on them and we did that. Through our pressing, we got two goals.”

“Now we’re through to the last eight in Lisbon and it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to. I’m just pleased that we’re there.”