Lionel Messi once again became the star of el Clásico with two goals, but in the end the goals weren’t enough to win the three points. “It was a great game, we would have preferred to win but we need to remember that Real Madrid are a great team,” he said. Asked about his second goal of the night, from a free kick, he said that “we like to practice these kind of situations and today I was lucky enough to score.” Talking about Barça’s recent string of injuries, Messi said that “we’re not having too much luck. We were missing some important players today, but we’re lucky enough to have really good players on this team and they all do an excellent job.”

Xavi Hernández, who played his 35th Clásico, said that “we’re in a good moment right now, we played a great game.” On the final result, the blaugrana midfielder noted that “we deserved much more and we always want more when we face our arch-rivals.” Talking about the current situation in La Liga, Xavi said, “the eight-point difference allows us to take on future challenges with tranquility.” He added, “what happened today was only a football match. We’re with the people. The people gave a great lesson in public spirit, we should all learn from them.”

Sergio Busquets emphasized that “the match was very equal. It’s a shame that it ended in a draw because we were the better side, now we can’t do anything about it.” But he also added that “there’s a lot of Liga left and we have really complicated away games on the schedule.”

Adriano talked about the team’s effort and the great job done in preparing for the match: “we practiced and prepared for tonight’s game at the Ciutat Esportiva. We trained so that we could stop Madrid’s most dangerous weapon, their counterattacks,” he noted. Asked about his role on the pitch, Adriano explained that he “played the central defender role because the manager thought it was the best thing to do seeing that Madrid are very fast.” He concluded by saying that “it’s a shame that we didn’t win. We know that there’s a lot of Liga still ahead and we still have our eight-point advantage.”

Pedro was pleased with the game, stating that “in the end it’s a good result because Madrid didn’t cut into out lead, and that’s very important.The two teams played really well, even though Barça were the dominant side.” He also calmed any worried fans, saying that “the knock on my leg didn’t turn out to be anything, it was really painful when it happened, though.”

Source: fcbarcelona.cat; Image credit: Albert Olivé – EFE