Fenerbahçe upbeat but Benfica remain confident

Reto Ziegler and Joseph Yobo revelled in a hard-earned victory after Fenerbahçe SK came away from the Istanbul leg of their UEFA Europa League semi-final with a 1-0 win against SL Benfica. However, the Eagles' Pablo Aimar and Eduardo Salvio still have their sights set firmly on the final in Amsterdam.

Reto Ziegler, Fenerbahçe defender
Today we are really proud, not just for Fenerbahçe but for the whole of Turkish football. We totally deserved to win, after what everybody could see was a really good quality game on our part. Obviously 2-0 would have been a better score for us, but we can be satisfied.

We shouldn't get carried away – we have to keep calm. This was just one game out of two. In Portugal we'll need to play just as well in order to realise our dream, which is to make it all the way to the final. Benfica are a really strong team, especially at home. We have to respect our opponents. We have taken a good step towards the final, but the decisive game will be the return.

Joseph Yobo, Fenerbahçe defender
It was a joy to play in this atmosphere – this is something we need to thank our fans for. And of course we've got every reason to rejoice over the win, especially having kept a clean sheet. Everybody knows the importance of not conceding at home in this sort of competition. We had the chances to score more, but still the result is something to be proud of.

Benfica are a very good team – I give them a lot of credit – but today we deserved to win. Everbody can miss a penalty like we did tonight, but afterwards we showed character and did not allow ourselves to be discouraged. On the contrary, we fought really hard to get the victory.

Tonight they lost for the first time after not being defeated for 38 games. That is an amazing achievement and it shows just how good they are. We showed the will to win, and this is just what happened tonight. The next game will be very, very tough. We cannot and will not underestimate them.

Pablo Aimar, Benfica midfielder
It was quite a difficult game for us and I have to say the atmosphere in the stadium was absolutely amazing. We had a tough night as we couldn't really play the sort of game the coach expected us to play, but I believe we can still turn things around in the return. It isn't over yet.

Eduardo Salvio, Benfica forward
We cannot be happy with the result, but we are confident we can change the course of this tie at home, in front of our own fans. I can't really say what went wrong tonight, but at this level sometimes small mistakes can have large consequences. And this is exactly what we saw tonight, with a 1-0 which was the result of a defensive error. But we as a team are sure of ourselves and still believe we'll get through to the final.