Guardiola: “We place great value on this victory”

Pep Guardiola highlighted the importance of today’s victory over Sevilla at the Sánchez Pizjuán. “I’m very pleased with the game we played,” said the Barça manager.

“We’re pleased that we won in such a difficult stadium. The only sour aspect of the match was that we didn’t convert on all the chances we created”.

“I would have liked to compete for the League title until the end but I don’t know if it will be possible”.

The FC Barcelona manager was pleased with his team for winning their third consecutive match away from the Camp Nou: “in general we played a good game, especially in the first half. We’re pleased that we won in such a difficult stadium.” Josep Guardiola recognised that the team had difficulties in the second half, which, he said, gives the 0-2 win more value: “Sevilla have a fantastic team. We won because we did things well. We give this victory a lot of value. The only sour aspect of the match was that we didn’t convert on all the chances we created. Palop had a fantastic game, he saved four one-on-ones.”

Despite the valuable victory against Sevilla, Guardiola reiterated the statement he made a couple of weeks ago. “I would have liked to compete for this league title until the end, but I don’t know if it will be possible. There's another team that’s managed to earn better results than we have,” he said. When pressed on the matter by journalists, he said “forget it, we won’t win this Liga.”

Guardiola, who lamented the fact that he wasn’t able to see a replay of Messi’s disallowed goal, doesn’t want to focus on the upcoming Champions League match against Milan yet: “first, we have to play against Granada and Mallorca, and we’ll go out to win those matches. Almost all the players play in this team. I suppose some players that didn’t play today will play this Tuesday. Between all of them, we’ll get to the end.”

After the match, Guardiola took the opportunity to talk about Estanislau Basora: “I want to offer my condolences to his family. I also want to congratulate the players, who wanted to have a minute of silence before the match. Everyone said that he was an extraordinary person. He was a pure winger that was part of one of the best teams in Barça’s history. I hope that we can pay our respects to him in the most deserving way on Tuesday.”

He also talked about Éric Abidal. “We think about Abidal every day. It’s been a couple of days that he hasn’t been able to be with us but we always remember him,” said Guardiola. (via FCBarcelona.com)