With a defeat in the second leg of the quarter-finals, 4-1, against Liverpool, the blue and whites ended their participation in the Champions League. At the end of the match, players Pepe, Danilo and Herrera thanked the support of the thousands of fans at the stands, and talked of the feeling of unfairness for the result.  The focus will now turn for national championships: the League and the Portuguese Cup.

Danilo
“We leave with our heads raised as we played a great match, despite the defeat. Just like in Liverpool, they scored on their first shot. We weren’t as lucky and we had to look for a different result. Liverpool played in counter-attack and was fortunate in those moments. Against these teams, we need to stay focused on finishing, as we weren’t, this season. We could have score more. These matches are good to learn and we surely learned from our mistakes.”

Pepe
“I want to thank our fans, who were fantastic. This result is unfair, but that’s football. We did well and they scored on their first attempt. We had a great run in the Champions League and I can only be proud of that. Now we need to focus on the championship, as we have another final to win on Saturday" We need to be objective and everyone here dreams of winning the Champions League. Tonight, we showed our strength against a great team. We were better in the first-half, but they scored in the mistake we made. We work every day to go as far as possible in every competition.”

Herrera
“We had issues with the counter-attacks; we left many spaces open, lost organization, which is normal, as we tried to recover from a defeat. Truth is that I’m calm, proud to belong to this team and the institution, so now the focus is on the championship and on the final of the cup. I think it was an unfair result, we didn’t deserve to lose at home like this, but that happened and there’s nothing you can do. We played an interesting match, very aggressive. I feel that, if we had scored before them, the match would have been different. If we play like this in the championship, I’m sure we will be happy in the end. The fans have been amazing, the support they give us in each match is fantastic, and we need to take in this positive energy and become stronger.”