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Guardiola applauds Bayern's Vidal and Ribéry

Josep Guardiola called scorer Arturo Vidal "a great character" and Franck Ribéry "extraordinary" after Bayern München won 1-0 against Benfica, with Rui Vitória proud of his team.

Josep Guardiola applauds during Bayern's win against Benfica
Josep Guardiola applauds during Bayern's win against Benfica ©AFP/Getty Images

Josep Guardiola, Bayern coach
It was a hard game but I am happy with our performance. I know very well the quality that Benfica have. A big compliment to my team.

Ribéry was extraordinary today. Vidal is very important too – he is a great character, he has shown this during the last month.

In the quarter-finals the more important game is always the second leg, which we will play in Lisbon. It all depends on how we play in Lisbon. We could have lost this game. I have watched a lot of Benfica matches in recent days – they are really strong, they always try to get the second ball.

I was not surprised about their game, it is not easy to play them. They are good from set pieces. But we had some really good chances to score more goals.

Of course we want to win in Lisbon now. We want to score one or two goals there. There are no favourites – favourites are normally the team with the better stats but this does not count for anything. It all depends on the match next week in Portugal.

Rui Vitória, Benfica coach
The game went as we expected. I am proud of my players – we played really well here. Of course we had our problems but in the end we played quite well. Of course I am not too happy with the result, but overall we played really well and we followed our strategy.

©Getty Images

Four or five thousand fans from Benfica were here. They were very important for us, so thanks to the fans – I was very happy to have them here. Next week we will have around 60,000 behind us. We are looking forward to it.

To concede an early goal here wasn't in the plan. But nevertheless we played well and that early goal did not kill our confidence. We were able to cause some problems for Bayern and we might even have deserved a goal. Everything is still open, we have a second match next week and we will give it our best again.

I guess we did not surprise our opponents, but probably the Bayern fans. I guess they expected clear dominance and more goals from their team.

Of course we will miss Jonas [suspended for the second leg], but another player will get his chance. It is not about indviiduals, it is all about the team.

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