Pellegrini lauds City's 'important achievement'
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Article summary
Manuel Pellegrini is delighted to see Manchester City through to a first quarter-final while Serhiy Rebrov feels the tie would have been different had Dynamo Kyiv played as well in the first leg.
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- City through to quarter-finals for first time after 0-0 draw seals 3-1 aggregate win
- Vincent Kompany and Nicolás Otamendi go off injured inside 24 minutes
- Manuel Pellegrini hails "very important achievement for the club"
- Serhiy Rebrov wishes Dynamo could have played like tonight in first leg
- Quarter-final draw streamed live on UEFA.com from 12.00CET on Friday
Manuel Pellegrini, Manchester City manager
I am satisfied because we have qualified for the next stage. We didn't want to force the game because we didn't need to. They had to take more risks than us so we just wanted to keep the ball and try to score. Dynamo didn't create many chances apart from one at the end. It was a tactical game but that was the game we had to play tonight.
It is a very important achievement for the club [to reach the quarter-finals]. Before we could not do it, we were very unlucky. It is not normal to play against Barcelona twice in the last 16. This is a club that is growing and continues to develop as a big club.
Unfortunately for Vincent Kompany, he has a calf problem again so we will see how it is tomorrow. Otamendi had a kick and hopefully can recover in the next couple of days. It is difficult for Kompany.
Serhiy Rebrov, Dynamo coach
Unfortunately we lost the match in Kyiv, but today we created some chances. We had opportunities to score and Manchester City had chances themselves. The lads that played deserved to be in the Champions League. This game was a good experience for our lads and I think we should say thank you to them, and look to the future with optimism and be stronger.
We were trying to play compactly and trying to control the game as best as we could. Especially in the first leg, we were not completely relaxed because Manchester City created some situations where we could have been sharper; also today, maybe because we were not playing at home and in front of the opposition fans, there was a sort of nervousness.
If we played in Kyiv the way we played here, probably the tie would have been more interesting.