Schuster smiling after Minsk success

Real Madrid CF coach Bernd Schuster delighted in his team's pressing and passing as an early Raúl González goal in inclement Minsk gave them a 1-0 win at FC BATE Borisov and a UEFA Champions League first knockout round berth thanks to Juventus holding FC Zenit St. Petersburg 0-0 earlier on Tuesday. BATE chief Viktor Goncharenko admitted his disappointment but is still proud of his team's progress over the last six months.

Viktor Goncharenko, BATE coach
I am a little bit disappointed with the result, though if anybody would have told me six months ago that I'd be disappointed after a 1-0 defeat by Madrid, I would probably never have trusted that man again. I want to thank my lads for today's performance and our supporters, who came to the stadium in this weather and gave us fantastic support. I did not see a major difference between the first and the second half. Madrid took one of their chances, we did not. In spite of the fact that the group is decided it is too early to come to any conclusions. Let's do it after the Juventus game [on Matchday 6].

Bernd Schuster, Madrid coach
Many factors were against us tonight, but nevertheless Juve had helped us and we managed to win and secured ourselves a place in last 16. This is very positive moment as we can focus on the Liga now and not think too much about our final fixture against Zenit. We played very effectively against Recreativo de Huelva [on Saturday] and again today, and kept our goal intact. We played well in pressing our opponents. The first half was especially good as we managed to defend far up the field. Besides that we were very good in moving the ball. I can see that we are playing better with every match. There were some scares about snow we saw during the day. It is possible to play in such temperatures. We started our warm-up a little earlier today and that paid off as we scored an early goal.