Guardiola – Chelsea are stronger than us and should be congratulated!

The Barcelona managed Pep Guardiola saw his team have the lions share of possession (and 20 shots on goal!) but still lose to a very well organized Chelsea team. Pep Guardiola refused to agree that Barcelona deserved to win the game just because of their statistics.

On the spread betting market (check out Trade Forex to find out more about that), Bracelona were hot favourites to have more of everything, but Chelsea got the one thing that Barcelona didn’t, a goal!

“That’s football,” Guardiola said. “It’s not a question of it being fair or unfair but merely to congratulate Chelsea. We’d win every game if it was just about possession of the ball, because our average is more than our opponents’, but the most difficult thing is putting the ball in the net. It won’t be simple in the second game. They’ll have 10 men behind the ball and will defend: they’re stronger than us; they run, run, run; they jump more than us. But we have to try and take control and discover a way of scoring the goals. We knew this would be a challenge and wouldn’t be easy. Chelsea are a team with a lot of experience.

“This was their sixth semi-final in nine years and it’s not easy coming to Stamford Bridge even if people are saying Barcelona are much, much better. But only winners are remembered. Maybe we’ll need to be a bit more adventurous and take a few more risks in the second game. Now, the favourites are Chelsea. They have had a good result but we still have 90 minutes to create as many chances as possible and take them.”

And it is up to Chelsea to continue to stop Barcelona putting the ball in the net! The last time they me in this competition the Blues kept Barca out for 180 minutes only for Iniesta to score in the 94th minute of the second leg to deny Chelsea a place in the Final.

This time we will keep them out just a little bit longer and be in the Final where we belong!