He played a part in both of Barça’s opening goals, and he did it with his usual class. After the game, however, he shied away from the well-deserved protagonism. "I always put the team first and I saw that we all worked really hard," he said after the game in the Barça TV program “El Marcador”.

"The most difficult, but the best, is yet to come"

The 3-1 win, much closer than the superiority that Barça demonstrated throughout the tie, was enough to breed optimism about the months ahead, when titles will be decided: "The outlook is good. We are where we wanted to be. The most difficult part is yet to come, but it’s also the best part. We have to enjoy what we’re doing".

"We had an idea how Arsenal would approach the game"

Arsenal, a team used to playing the ball, had to change their style of play against a very ambitious Barça team: "We could sense that Arsenal would take such an approach. Almost every team who come to the Camp Nou do the same… Arsenal defended with six a lot of the time, because Nasri and Rosicky were forced to help out" Iniesta said.

Reaction in time

Iniesta admitted that the own goal by Busquets was "a blow, but we were able to overcome it". According to him, there were two contributing factors, the time remaining and numerical superiority, "When they equalised, you look at the scoreboard and see that there’s still time. Your views and feelings, if you're on the pitch, change, and more so when they went down to ten players, it’s when we tried to make the extra player count".

Iniesta also had words of praise for the Barça fans, who almost filled the Camp Nou (95,486 spectators): "We need the fans, especially at times like these, when things get complicated."