Mourinho taking nothing for granted
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
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José Mourinho has seen too many "incredible things" to take for granted Real Madrid CF's second leg at Galatasaray AŞ while Fatih Terim accepted Madrid's dominance.
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José Mourinho, Madrid coach
I think we played seriously – we were very respectful to Galatasaray. We know they have a good team and fantastic strikers, so we played very well defensively. From my point of view we defended better than we attacked. We could have scored more goals, and we let some attacking positions go to waste, but defensively we dealt with the opposition very well.
If we score a goal [in the second leg] they have to score five, but in football I have seen so many incredible things that nothing can surprise me. Istanbul is a really difficult place to play, they will fight really hard against us. We have to go there very seriously, it is the only way to go through. They will do everything to do something historic and I know Fatih Terim will try. The history of football is full of miracles. Why can't they dream? I know this is not over and I will try to convince my players that.
As for [Didier] Drogba and Wesley [Sneijder], I was with them at the end. They are family. Not during the 90 minutes, but they are family.
Fatih Terim, Galatasaray coach
Despite all our hard work and training, we did not expect to concede goals like that. You need to minimise mistakes in these games. Real Madrid were the dominant side and I accept that. The match in Istanbul will be difficult. We would have liked to return home with hopes intact but that did not happen. My players did their best.
Turkish football should know this – in such high-level games you have to score when you have the opportunity. We need to stop thinking and acting emotionally. If we had converted our chances, we could have left here with a goal or two. A first-half goal for us would have made all the difference.
But we faced a massive team who are aiming to win the UEFA Champions League. You just have to congratulate them. The quality between the sides wasn't equal – and sometimes you just can't achieve what you want to. We'll try hard next week but Madrid are close to the semis. It's not easy to play against Real when you have a three-goal disadvantage, but we'll try to do our best.
