March 17, 2011 - 10:58 AMT
Mourinho: Real Madrid produced "perfect" performance

José Mourinho said his Real Madrid CF team produced the "perfect" performance insecuring a place in the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 2004. The Merengues's convincing 3-0 second-leg defeat of Olympique Lyonnais was their first in eight attempts against the French club, whose coach, Claude Puel, lamented the "stupid" goals the visitors gave away, UEFA.com reports.

“We are Real Madrid, it is normal to be in the next round. That was not the case in recent years. Lyon are a great team, one of the best in this [season's] Champions League, but we deserved to win. We produced the complete match. We deserve to be in the next round. We controlled the game. Now we have to wait for the draw but we know there are only great teams [left]. I wouldn't like to play against Inter or Chelsea for emotional reasons. If I have to face those that were once my people I will do, but it will require me to be more psychologically ready than if I was facing a team that is not in my heart. If we had not qualified it would have been a failure because Real Madrid are always thinking about going further than the last 16,” Mourinho said.

“Congratulations to Real Madrid. We could not match them tonight. They put pressure on us from the outset and kept us down. We failed to raise the level of our game. Our start in the second half was good but it ended with us conceding two stupid goals. We helped them do what they do well − utilise space. We were not relaxed. We were unprecise with lots of moves. We were nervous. I felt my team were very tense and this influenced their game,” Claude Puel, Lyon coach commented.