With the action all finished on the pitch we now move to the press conferences, where Real Madrid are rather understandably unhappy while Barcelona are ecstatic. We've already seen Jose Mourinho go off on a bizarre rant about how he would be ashamed to have taken advantage of a bad refereeing decision (in this case, the red card shown to Pepe), but Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola is in a much better mood:
Real Madrid Vs. Barcelona: Post-Game Reaction From Pep Guardiola, Gerard Pique And Sergi Roberto
We corrected some things we did badly in the cup final. We played a very good game, team was very aggressive, we won a lot of duels, Keita helped us a lot. We’re 90 minutes away from CL final, we’re trying to get there.
Guardiola pointedly refused comment when asked about Mourinho's remarks after the game. Gerard Pique, meanwhile, was more than happy to talk about the red card incident:
[Madrid] play at the limit of violence. If you play with fire, you can end up burning yourself. It’s always the same, they didn’t want to play at football, at their own stadium.
Strong words from the defender, who had a fairly comfortable game, albeit one punctuated by several mistakes which could have been disastrous. And last, but not least, we have Sergi Roberto, who came on for the excellent David Villa with just a few minutes left to play:
I didn’t expect to play but it went really well. The team is happy but we try to stay focused for the return leg, there are still 90 minutes left.
Why is that interesting? Because the nineteen-year-old have made a grand total of one appearance for the Barcelona first team prior to the match, and that was in the Copa del Rey. Guardiola bringing him on after the match was one felt like a bit of a calculated insult to Madrid and their fans, but it was also a huge moment in the young midfielder’s career.
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