FCBARCELONA.CAT

14.01.2010 14:11

“We’ll fight for the League and the Champions”

David Puig

The elimination from the Spanish Cup still hurts, but club captain Carles Puyol insists that the team now have to concentrate on retaining their league and Champions League titles.

The team know that they have to pick themselves up and face the challenges of a tough league and European campaign following their Spanish Cup disappointment and Puyol summed it up this lunchtime, claiming: “we’re not happy about being knocked out, but we have to use it to make us stronger. Now we have to fight even harder for the league and Champions League titles”.

Down but proud

Defeats don’t go down well with Puyol and he was clearly still upset about the result in Seville: “nobody likes to go out in a knock out competition and it doesn’t make me feel any better knowing we lost to a good team like Seville. Nobody can accuse us of anything about last night’s game. We gave a good account of ourselves and we kept fighting till the end”.

“We’re proud of the boss”

Puyol also made it clear that for him Josep Guardiola was not at all to blame for the knock out: “he didn’t let us down at all. He prepared the game really well and we only just lost. I’ve always said that it’s the players who win or lose games. We are very proud of the boss”.

A rest for a change

Barca will now face a month and a half – until the Champions League gets under way again on February 23rd with just one game a week. The last time Barca went out of the cup so early was in 2005/06 when they lost to Zaragoza atteh start of February and then went on to take the league and Champions League double. Puyol commented: “I suppose the good side of the defeat is that we can have a bit of a rest after two very intense seasons, when we’ve had very few days off. Now we can prepare even better for the league and European games ahead”.