Aston Villa hosted Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of their quarter-final tie at Villa Park on Tuesday evening. And after a match dominated by the Parisians, the latter qualified on a 4-5 aggregate scoreline, having lost 3-2 to an English side with nothing to lose (Aston Villa/PSG video highlights). PSG midfielder Vitinha spoke to Canal+ Sport about the match:
Vitinha: “I’m happy to be in the semi-finals.”
Are you still happy tonight?
Of course, we knew that qualifying was the most important thing. Of course, we always want to win, but we have to stress that the most important thing is to qualify, because it’s not easy. We’re up against a good team in an incredible atmosphere. We started the game well, but then we made things difficult for ourselves. Unfortunately, we ended up scoring goals like that. We came up against a team who had nothing to lose and pushed even harder. We let ourselves down a bit, and when you do that in the Champions League… But we managed to get through and hold on to qualification right to the end, and we’re happy.
It’s not easy to be in the semi-finals, but we put in some good performances that made it look easy. We know it’s not easy and we proved it tonight. I’m happy to be in the semi-finals.
How did this slackening manifest itself?
You try to do things you can’t do. You do it two or three times and then they start to believe it. It’s normal, but we have to emphasize the way we held out until the end and got through this round.