‘We showed great character’

The players gave their all right through to the final whistle but at the end of the day Bayern missed out on a place in the Champions League final. “Taking the 180 minutes as a whole Barcelona deserve to go through,” commented Karl-Heinz Rummenigge after the Reds’ 3-2 home win: “We bow out with our heads held high.”

Reaction to Bayern v Barça

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge: “I think we did very well as a team. The players put up a magnificent fight and scored three goals, but unfortunately conceded two as well. Taking the 180 minutes as a whole Barcelona deserve to go through, but we bow out with our heads held high. We’ve not been able to make the final in Berlin against what’s probably the best team in the world right now. But we made the semi-finals, and for the fourth time in a row too, so everything’s OK.”

Matthias Sammer: “We’re out and that’s frustrating. The team showed good and extraordinary character today and we can build on that. We weren’t able to compensate for the setbacks the way we wanted.”

Pep Guardiola: “We played well and we leave the stadium today with our dignity intact. Obviously we’re down because we wanted to make the final in Berlin, but we’d already lost this semi-final in Barcelona.”

Philipp Lahm: “We all believed in a miracle, but unfortunately it didn’t work out because we conceded the equaliser so quickly. We gave it everything we had. Obviously, we didn’t lose the tie today, we lost it in the first leg.”

Thomas Müller: “It’s nice to see we’re capable of matching them but there’s no prizes for that today. Even though we were 3-0 down from the first leg we could have got more out of it today. We’ve let in two goals and not made the most of our good chances.”

Luis Enrique (Barcelona coach): “I’m not upset about the result because Bayern are a very good team.”