Joaquín makes Milan amends for Málaga

After missing a second straight penalty, Joaquín's heart sunk, but the Málaga CF winger said he kept his head to dispatch a ball from Manuel Iturra and give his side a famous UEFA Champions League Group C victory against AC Milan. Urby Emanuelson, who laid on the best of the visitors' first-half chances for Stephan El Shaarawy, believes the Italian club's work ethic and class at least augured well for the return fixture.

Joaquín, Málaga winger
What we have done today is historic. Beating Milan gives us huge amounts of joy. We barely gave them a scoring chance and the victory was totally deserved. That's the seven-times champions of Europe we've beaten but to do that we knew we needed to keep clear, cool heads. Tactically they played well and they have strikers with real quality. But we were very serious-minded in defence, quick and fluid up front. That's characteristic of our play right now – good first touch, stretching other teams and thankfully we got that goal which we needed for three well-earned points.

Keeping focused and calm after missing a penalty isn't easy, particularly as that was my second miss in two matches. Your heart is beating at a thousand miles per hour, but you stay cold-blooded, you work and I was sure that another chance would come my way. Fortunately I took it. I gave the ball to Iturra and kept on my run. He was looking the other way but I yelled, he heard me and gave me a ball so good that the goal was half scored. It was fantastic.

Javier Saviola, Málaga striker
Beating a team like Milan, who have won this competition seven times, is one of the great things in football. We knew that we are in great shape right now – perhaps this is the best spell in the club's entire history. Seeing our fans this happy on a night like this gives us huge happiness. It's special, really. The more that things go well and the more joy we bring to our fans the more content we are.

I think this team is responding to the demands of the moment, playing to a good standard and all I can see across the club right now is happiness. This is a good group of top professionals who have maintained their humility and who like to work hard. You see that when we play. Those of us who start the matches know that whichever team-mate comes on he'll do just as good a job and work just as hard. That's terrific.

Urby Emanuelson, Milan winger
Yes, there is some satisfaction in having made Málaga work hard. Also, if you look at the game, I don't think we deserved to lose. There were some good things in it for us. We also had some chances to score, but we are going through a difficult patch right now. We need a little bit of luck.

The next game at home against Málaga will be very important and I think we can beat them. We know that in difficult times you have to fight for everything. That's what we did tonight – we played as a team, fought for every ball. We were lacking a bit of luck and they only got a 1-0, but I say again that we can beat them at home and that would be important for us.