Laurent Blanc confessed Paris Saint-Germain were taken slightly aback by Barcelona's unusual system during Wednesday's 3-1 defeat.
La Blaugrana lined up with a 3-5-1-1 formation for the Champions League Group F decider, but the French giants' Coach, while admitting his 'surprise' with Luis Enrique's tactics, insisted it was the players which guided the hosts to victory.
"We were quite surprised about the tactics put out by Luis Enrique, although I don't think it was this which made the difference," he continued in his post-match dissection.
"The frustration about tonight is that we expected this kind of match. We were dangerous with the ball, but we weren't at our best in attack.
"The system wasn't key, Barca's players were still the same. It wasn't their three-man defence which let them dominate, their philosophy remained the same.
"We wanted them to have less of the ball. We went forward, hoping to get the second goal, but it didn't pan out like that.
"It wasn’t the most dangerous Barca players who received the ball more, rather it were [Marc] Bartra and [Jeremy] Mathieu."