FCBARCELONA.CAT

19.04.2007 00:34

A present for Maradona

Messi was not hiding the fact that he was delighted with his goal tonight, but insisted that the team still has work to do and needs to keep looking to the future.

Lionel Messi was thrilled with his goal in Wednesday’s night’s cup win, but is not sure that all this euphoria is necessarily a good thing. Although he claims to be “calmer than ever right now” he adds that that now “we need to move on”. Asked to talk through his goal, he said “there was a lot of empty space and tried to work my way forward, as I always do. I made it into the area and I saw the chance to finish off the move. I looked to see if ‘Samu’ was about, but there were two defenders on him, so I decided to have a go myself”. The comparisons between this and the famous Diego Armando Maradona goal in 1986 have come about just at a time when the Argentinian star is suffering medical problems. Speaking of his compatriot, Messi said “Diego has always been there for me and right now I have no doubt that he will be back out again and will get better”.

The following are some of the comments made by the other Barcelona players

Iniesta

“My congratulations to him. Leo has evident qualities and he has shown that again today”.

“In five minutes things got difficult, I don’t know how to put it, but when you were 3-0 up, winning 3-2 is frustrating”.

“Nothing is sorted, until the game is over we can’t claim to be through. We have a good lead but we will have to work to do over there”.

“Very similar, he starts off in a similar position and even the dribbler at the end was the same. It was a work of art”.

Deco

“We are happy because apart from a great footballer, he is a great friend too. I have seen some great goals like Ronaldo’s against Compostela and Maradona’s against England, but this was the best I have seen”.

“It is very similar, but I think it was more difficult, the early dummies are more difficult and then to still have the strength to do what he did, it’s even more impressive”.

“No doubt we have some brilliant players in ‘Samu’, ‘Ronnie’ and ‘Leo’, who has a great future and they’re saying he could become the best in the world”.

“The tie is not over yet because Getafe have shown that they can turn it all around in just two minutes”.

“They will be stronger there but we will make sure we go through”.

Jorquera

“A great goal, we knew that Messi can do anything but the goal today was quite spectacular”.

“Before the game we’d have taken the 5-2 but after half-time we should have managed to keep a clean sheet”.