Andres Iniesta assessed that Barcelona’s patience was key to seeing out the tension against Paris Saint-Germain.
Barca played out a 1-1 draw in Wednesday evening’s Champions League quarter-final second leg, to progress to the semis 3-3 on aggregate on away goals.
“It's true that PSG are a fantastic team – really excellent. They have players who have lots of experience,” mused Iniesta post-match to UEFA’s official website.
“They have players of the highest level – technically very good. We knew this was going to be hard and it's true that we had to endure a bit to get through.
“But that's completely normal against a team which is as strong as PSG in a quarter-final of the Champions League. The suffering and the tension were high right to the end but we achieved what we set out to do.
“Patience is important in this type of game. We were always looking to score because we knew that if we got a goal they would need to get two.
“Maybe we should have controlled the game more to avoid suffering too much because of their counterattacking skill and because Javier Pastore knew how to play between the lines really intelligently, but big games are like that and we got the result we needed.”
Pedro Rodriguez scored La Blaugrana’s equaliser last night, after Javier Pastore had given the French a second-half lead.
“Pedro always scores. He always scores because he is a finisher – he's got goals in his boots and beyond getting the important goal tonight he had a terrific match.
“In fact the team did well enough to merit being in the semi-final draw.
“The semi-final draw? We achieved our objective to be in it. The other three teams are really strong and playing at a great level.
“We are in the semis on merit and we are going to give our utmost to be in the final regardless of whoever we face next.”
