"We had the impression that the match was over after half an hour and we paid for that. I said that we will pay for our errors, and we committed errors today,” explained Tata Martino, who warned on Friday that “any error from now on out could cost us dearly.” He added: “Their goal at the end of the first half hurt us and we lost confidence. Their second goal made us desperate.”
The FC Barcelona manager is aware that his team very well could be dethroned from the top of the tale. “Now we’re playing in a completely different competition,” said Martino. “We will try to regain the ground that we will most likely lose this weekend. We still have to play against our direct rivals. I’m concerned and I want to bounce back from this as soon as possible.” He added: “We cannot give up.”
Killing games off when given the chance
Barça fought hard to equalise in the second half, but to no avail. “There are matches where we managed to fight back. Today we tried, but we lacked ideas,” said Martino. He added: “When you have the chance to finish a game off you do it, you can’t give your rivals a chance – that’s what he did and Valencia took advantage.”
Martino also expressed his condolences to the family and friends of Luis Aragonés: “The footballing world has suffered a huge loss.”
