Dani Alves: “Playing next to Messi gives you a lot of tranquility

Dani Alves: “Playing next to Messi gives you a lot of tranquility"

The Brazilian defender, who played the entire 90 minutes, highlighted the effort put in by his teammates to pull out the hard-fought win at Los Cármenes stadium

Another match and another win for Barça. The Blaugrana fought back from a goal down at Los Cármenes stadium against Granada thanks to two strikes from Messi. After the match, Dani Alves said, “playing next to Messi gives you a lot of tranquility. It makes it easier to get things done.” The Brazilian added: “the fact that we packed the midfield allowed us to free up a wide defender and I took advantage of the space to go forward.”

Barça’s advantage at the top of the table is gigantic but Alves preferred to take a more cautions stance when asked about Barça's lead: “we have an important advantage but there’s still a lot left.” When asked about the upcoming Champions League match against Milan, he said, “coming into the match against Milan after getting a positive result is a good incentive for the away leg of the fixture.”

Fireproof Busquets

Another standout player from tonight’s match was Sergio Busquets. The Barça midfielder was nearly perfect on defence and he was key in Barça’s come-from-behind victory. “They defended the whole match and it was up to us to put pressure on them after they scored the opener. In the second half we kept the pace up and we were rewarded,” said Busquets. When asked about Adriano’s injury, he said that “we still don’t know anything about Adriano, when we arrive in Barcelona we’ll have a better idea. It’s an important loss to the team.” On Messi, Busquets said, “he improves on a daily basis, he’s the best in the world.”

Busquets, like Dani Alves, is now focused on the match against Milan: “we are very excited to play in the Champions League again. Our intention is to get a good result ahead of the return leg.”

Here are the statements made by Cesc and Jordi Alba after this evening’s match:

Cesc Fàbregas:

“We deserved more in the first half, we played a great game.”

“Scoring early in the second half was key.”

“After we equalised we continued to play with the same mentality and the second goal gave us a bit of tranquility.”

“Granada play very well. They are a team that leave you very little space when you attack.”

Jordi Alba:

“They’ve signed fantastic players and that was evident on the pitch.”

“Messi decided the match.”

“301 goals for Messi ... whatever anyone says will come up short.”

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