Quique Setien
Barcelona coach Quique Setien insists his team were the better side and took a ‘step forward’ in Thursday night’s Copa del Rey quarter-final defeat to Athletic Bilbao at San Mames.
Iñaki Williams scored a stoppage-time winner for Athletic Club, which consigned Barcelona to defeat and made it the first time since 2013 they have failed to reach the Copa del Rey final.
But, despite defeat, Setien was looking for positives after the final whistle. “The team played well today. I think we were the better side,” he is quoted as saying by SPORT.
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“It’s not easy to control the game against Athletic, but I don’t think [Marc-Andre] Ter Stegen had a save to make in the whole game. In the second half, we had four or five clear chances and their goal arrived with no time to react.”
Aside from the obvious result, Setien argued that ‘everything went well’ for his team.
“It’s sad to get knocked out, but I think we took a step forward in terms of where we must improve. A lot of things beyond the result will stay with me from a really complicated and difficult game,” the coach explained.
Defender Gerard Pique insisted that Barcelona are not in crisis, telling Marca in the mixed zone that the “unity of the dressing room is incredible” and now is “not the time to dig up dirt”.
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The centre-back echoed his manager’s comments that the performance represented a positive.
“What I can say is that our confidence is at its highest, we’re happy with the way we’ve played and reacted to the outside noise,” he said. “It’s really hard because we were eliminated; we took an important step, we had a very positive feeling – it was a very important step forward.”
Barcelona return to action in La Liga on Sunday evening when Setien leads the team against former club Real Betis at Benito Villamarin.
Fotmob
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