After yesterday’s victory in the Ukraine, a number of the players spoke to the press about their performance against Shakhtar and the upcoming clásicos against arch-rivals Real Madrid. The comments from Valdés, Villa, Alves, Piqué, Busquets and Pedro are all below.

Víctor Valdés

“I’m happy with how things are going. I think the team is better than in previous seasons and we’ll face forward to what lies ahead.

“We are very happy. We came here with a good lead but it’s a tough ground to play at, as we saw, against a Shakhtar team that fought to the end.

On the upcoming clásicos with Real Madrid, Valdés said: “We will face [these games] with the greatest desire and enthusiasm, as always. It will be difficult and intense, but fun.”

“There are no placid games at the Bernabéu. We’ll go out as strong as we can.”

Dani Alves

“Now we can relax. We’re in the semi-finals, which is what we wanted.

“There’s a thrilling April ahead. We have fought for this and now football has thrown up an incredible challenge.

“The most important game is always the next one, which is Saturday’s. We’ll have to play well to win.

“We know that Saturday will be a difficult game. But it’s also going to be a very nice game.

“Mascherano was superb at centre back.”

David Villa

“Right now we’re thinking about the league match. And when that’s over, we’ll start thinking about the [King's] Cup.

 “I think Madrid have a considerable lead [against Tottenham], but anything can happen in football.

“Having a month like this is a dream for any player, playing so many beautiful games in a short time is something we all aspire to, I’m happy to be at Barça and work for the team.”

Gerard Piqué

“We have taken an important step forward. It is always hard to get to the semi-finals.

“It is always nice to play like we did today. It gives us confidence.

“The team is feeling great.

“Mascherano is a fast, intelligent player, he can adapt to any position.”

Sergio Busquets

“Where I feel most comfortable is as a defensive midfielder, but if I have to help in defense I will.

“[This] is what we’ve worked for all season.”

Pedro Rodriguez

“We reached this stage strong [as a team], we have difficult matches from now on, but we are prepared to do something good, getting to the semi-finals is very difficult, today we will enjoy it, but afterwards we will continue working.”

Sources: fcbarcelona.cat, sport.es