Simeone savours Atlético's collective success

José Mourinho, Chelsea manager
Until the penalty I don't think they were better than us. We controlled the game well but we then entered a critical minute when their goalkeeper made an unbelievable save from John Terry and they got the penalty. Until then, there was only one confident team on the pitch. They had a goalkeeper who made the difference and an intelligent striker. After that, they were deserved [winners].

After [Atletico's second goal] there was only one team with high morale, knowing with half an hour left they had control. For about 60 minutes we had the game, but semi-finals and important matches are made of details and this was a very important detail. Congratulations to them because they are a very good side and what they are doing in the Spanish league is fantastic – they're a real team.

Real Madrid beat Bayern because Madrid were better and Atlético beat Chelsea because they were better after that decisive moment. They are through. I hope both teams enjoy the final and that there will be a great champion.

I can't be critical of a group of players who are trying everything. We have problems with injuries, suspensions and players who can't play in the Champions League. It's disappointing to lose but I am proud of them. I prefer to say we did everything that was possible for us and if we had scored to go 2-1 up we would have been on top of the game.

Next season will be better than this season; that's our objective, the objective of everybody. Our young players will be better, hopefully we will have a couple of players to improve our team and we will try to do better next season.

Diego Simeone, Atlético coach
We did everything within our power to get through to the final and we deserve to be there, as do Real Madrid. Fernando Torres got the opener but we knew that one of our goals would count for double and so we had to fight to score it. We had to work so hard in order to find ourselves playing the type of game that suited us, which came from the second goal onwards.

Tonight was the result of a big collective effort. We generated that possibility of us reaching a beautiful final. It was a smashing game in the first half, tactically speaking, until the first goal opened it up. They had the first chance but we managed to equalise relatively soon afterwards.