RIYADH (Reuters) – Barcelona supervisor Xavi Hernandez was happy with his staff despite the fact that they misplaced 3-2 to bitter rivals Real Madrid in an exhilarating Spanish Super Cup semi-final in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Real beat Barca for the seventh time in eight Super Cup clashes however Xavi thought his aspect deserved to win.
“We had it in our fingers,” Xavi instructed a information convention in Riyadh. “We dominated Madrid for a lot of the recreation however we nonetheless lack expertise, endurance and effectiveness. We are shut. We cornered Real. It is a pity.”
Xavi praised his gamers’ character in a recreation they entered as enormous underdogs in opposition to the LaLiga leaders.
“It was a day to be courageous and put our complexes behind us. This Barca can compete with anybody,” Xavi mentioned. “We will go dwelling indignant and annoyed. We may have gained. We took dangers and they took benefit of our errors.”
Real Madrid supervisor Carlo Ancelotti thought the sport was properly balanced.
“I believe it was a match between two nice groups,” Ancelotti instructed. “They managed the possession however we conceded the primary objective due to dangerous luck. There have been no dominant or dominated (staff). We went again on function to search for the counter-attack. The three objectives that we scored have been spectacular.”
Ancelotti praised his strikers Karim Benzema and Vinicius Jr., who between them have scored 29 Real Madrid’s 45 objectives in LaLiga this season, however he’s involved about fatigue.
“It was a giant bodily effort,” he mentioned. “But now we have held out properly to the tip. The contemporary legs that got here out from the bench did properly. We are drained however comfortable.”
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, modifying by Ed Osmond)
