Camacho confounded by Benfica exit

José António Camacho's SL Benfica team exited the UEFA Champions League despite an impressive draw with AC Milan as Celtic FC struck a late winner against FC Shakhtar Donetsk elsewhere in Group D. The coach bemoaned their inability to take their chances despite outplaying "the best team in the world" as well as the "best player", Kaká. Milan, on the other hand, are now through and Carlo Ancelotti has already turned his mind towards the weekend Serie A encounter with Juventus.

José António Camacho, Benfica coach
I think the fans recognised the team's good work because they played to win. We did well in this match, but in football there's a law: who scores wins. We faced the best team in the world with the best player in the world and yet we deserved to win, had lots of chances and knew how to come back after being one goal down. We're a bit unhappy. For what we did in this competition I think we should have had more of a chance to go through, so for me football has not been fair to Benfica. Now we have to keep on track and battle for a place in the UEFA Cup or, if we fail, to be here again next season. We played well against the best player in world, we had many chances like we did against Celtic, so these two matches were our best - we outplayed Milan for long periods. If the Champions League were starting now we would surely qualify. We are much better now.

Carlo Ancelotti, Milan coach
Milan have qualified and now we'll try to win the group. That's what matters. We had little chance to control the match after taking the lead. We did then have some trouble but managed to hold on despite a good performance from Benfica. In the second half we were under a lot of pressure from Benfica, but now our minds are only on Juve. Ronaldo got injured in the warm-up, that's why he didn't play, but I believe he can play on Saturday. The team were not tired, but by the end we were happy with the draw.