Madrid youngsters hail team improvements

Real Madrid CF put their recent Liga defeat against Club Atlético de Madrid behind them with a resounding second-half display to see off the challenge of FC København and take command of the UEFA Champions League Group B standings.

Making his first appearance of the season since recovering from knee surgery, defender Raphaël Varane said he was happy to see his team improving while tournament debutant Jesé Rodríguez saluted the "sensational" goals in Madrid's 4-0 win. Olof Mellberg and Daniel Braaten, meanwhile, told UEFA.com there were positives to take back to Denmark despite their team's heavy loss.

Raphaël Varane, Madrid defender
I'm very happy. I went a long time without playing and I was on the pitch for the entire 90 minutes tonight which was a real pleasure. I worked very hard over the past few days in order to achieve this. I feel physically quite good and from now on I hope to play well.

I am pleased that we managed to score four goals while at the same time we put in a serious performance at the back; it was a good balance. The result of the other game doesn't matter. What is important is that our team looks to improve in performance while continuing to win. The morale of the team is good. We won tonight but we must look to continue playing well while winning matches.

Jesé Rodríguez, Madrid forward
I feel so happy to have made my debut in European competition and even more for having done so here in front of great supporters who always show their affection for the youth-team players. Above all, I am happy because we won. It was a good victory and I think we played a great game, scoring sensational goals. [Ángel] Di María, Cristiano [Ronaldo] and Iker [Casillas] played really well. We are all happy, which is important.

The players inside the dressing room are content. This victory will give us a lot of confidence while it's important that the fans are happy too. Things will start going better for us from now on. We will take things on a game by game basis all the while trying to win every match. This Real Madrid have a lot of young players which I think is something very positive, something that we have to take advantage of. For me, all of the playing time I get is important.

Daniel Braaten, København forward
We started out OK but then they scored a cheap goal. When they struck the second, they relaxed as they knew they had the game under control then. We tried to produce something but it's difficult with the players they have. If you give them even a small opportunity they put the ball in the back of the net. We were positive [at the break]. We had a big chance when we hit the crossbar just before.

We did our best today and didn't manage to match Madrid but that's the way it is. It was good to play here on a nice pitch and in a good atmosphere. When you play against great players you get to see what the top level is. I don't think we will win the group but we will go for second or even third place. If we aim high we will see what happens. We're in a difficult moment in our own domestic league so [our goal] is to work and look to improve.

Olof Mellberg, København defender
[The positive note we will take from here] is the feeling of being able to control [Madrid] for parts of the game. Once you switch off, however they punish you and that's just what happened on at least three of the goals. You can't afford to do that against teams like this. Our plan going into the game was to be solid and to try to get at them on the break and maybe at set-pieces too. We had our chances from such moments. We were a bit unfortunate not to score in the first half. In the end it wasn't to be.

It goes back to th small details in the final third of the pitch when you switch off and give away the ball; you can't afford to do that. If you compare this game to the [last one] I played here with Juventus you could say that we played in a similar manner but the difference was that back then we didn't lose focus at the key moments. We were not expecting to win this game so hopefully we can get points from the other games.