Guardiola: ‘Milan is comfortable playing with a 0-0. We need to play with a lot of intensity and find the best way to attack them. We aren’t able to defend a result for a long time’
Guardiola: ‘Milan is a team with the capacity to dominate matches. When they play games where they are the ones being dominated, they defend really well in their area and they are very strong on the counter. They can send us out of the competition. They’re leaders of the Italian League and they have fantastic players’
Guardiola: ‘Our success is that we’re fighting to be in our fifth consecutive Champions League semifinal. It shows that we’ve done a good job. I’m very proud. When you get this far in the competition all the games are vital. The prospect of staying in the Champions League is very exiting for us’
Guardiola: ‘The situation is simple. Whoever wins will go through to the semifinals. I perceive that Milan will score. They have the capacity to do it. That’s what I’ve told my players. In these last couple of days we’ve been working on the way to create as many goalscoring opportunities as possible in order to score as many goals as possible. We have to find the way to attack their extremely strong defence, I have faith that we’ll find a way through’
Guardiola: ‘When Ibrahimovic receives balls in the air, he’s superior to us. We consider it a lost play. We’ll try to stop him from participating in the match and force him to play as far away from our area as possible.
Guardiola: ‘The team will go out onto the pitch with 11 players and they’ll give it their all, don’t doubt that. These games make me very happy. We’ve played almost everything, but games like this remind me of my first day. I feel lucky and privileged’
Puyol: ‘FC Barcelona will take this game on like any other game: we’ll go out to win and try to play our game. We’re aware that we’re going up against a fantastic team, but I’m sure they’ll come out to defend and capitalise on counterattacks. We’ll have to put in a complete game both defensively and offensively’
Puyol: ‘It’s an incredible match, the most important one because we have to win. There is no margin for error, it’s a final. Finishing with a draw doesn’t help us, except a 0-0. I’m convinced that the Camp Nou will be full, our Cule fans have always been on our side and they won’t let us down’
Puyol: ‘It’s always important to not concede goals; even more so at home. We have to play a very serious defensive match. Up top, we have to move the ball around with pace and score as soon as possible, even though we know it won’t be easy’
This is a game that would have been worthy of being the final. The winner tonight could easily go on and lift the trophy in May. In many ways, this game reminds me of the Arsenal game last season. That was a game I was privileged to be able to attend. In that game, Barcelona rose to the occasion and overcame a very worthy opponent. I am hoping for the same level of performance and a similar outcome tonight against Milan.
THE DAY HAS COME: TIME FOR QUALIFY FOR THE SEMIS!!!!!!!!!!!
