Streller: Basel showed their nous in Salzburg

FC Basel 1893 recovered from an early Marek Suchý red card and Jonatan Soriano's eighth goal of the continental campaign to win 2-1 at FC Salzburg and reach the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals, Marco Streller putting it down to their experience and a post sending-off reshuffle.

The victory for last year's semi-finalists came thanks to Streller and Gastón Sauro turning in corners, and the striker said that when down to ten men, making the most of set pieces was vital. As for Salzburg, a campaign that before this last-16 tie had consisted of ten perfect wins and 28 goals is over, Florian Klein admitting that for once "we just didn't take our chances".

Marco Streller, Basel forward
We have experienced a lot in European matches and this might even be the decisive factor. This team cannot be beaten so easily because we have been playing successfully together for long a time and have even managed to achieve something against big clubs. But if you're playing against a team that has won everything so far, then it is not easy if you have to play with ten men.

It is a bit difficult to deal with – knowing they are very dangerous in attack – to start with, but after we had a player sent off and we changed our system it worked out pretty well. Our qualification is deserved, especially after this second leg.

[The post red-card reshuffle] wasn't planned like that, but it certainly helped us a bit and we had the chance to reorganise and set up well and be dangerous on counterattacks. And we knew that set pieces are important if you're playing with ten men. You need a lot of energy and if you're playing on the counter with those long sprints and long runs, those are difficult, especially at my age. So you have to focus on set pieces.

Florian Klein, Salzburg defender
Of course there is a reason: we just didn't take our chances. We could have led 4-0 or 5-0 – we should have. The last time we had so many chances and didn't take them was against Fenerbahçe [in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round]. It's bitterly disappointing if you can't manage to do it as we planned to, because we would have deserved it.

We feel great disappointment, but we can't score five or six goals in every match. It has become almost a rule for us to score so many goals, but today we had our most important match and we didn't manage to do it. So it's disappointment because we played a fantastic match again, like all season. We didn't deserve this defeat.