The Paris Saint-Germain head coach joined his captain, Marquinhos, in talking to PSG TV about Les Parisiens’ elimination from the Coupe de France at the last-16 stage.
CHRISTOPHE GALTIER
“Yes, it was a tough game. We were obviously expecting huge pressure because that’s how Marseille have been playing since the start of the season, and we soon saw that there was a lot of intensity and man marking. Both teams quickly split into two in the first half. Even though we conceded a goal from a penalty and they had chances, we also had some in the first half but were occasionally unlucky or came up against a quality ‘keeper. One way or another, we managed to equalise. Then, in the second half, as soon as we conceded their second goal, Marseille switched to a low block and played on the transition, and at that point, given the number of bodies that Marseille had in defence, we really struggled to put moves together. We had very few chances and very few shots against a very compact defence.
"So, it’s obviously a huge disappointment for my players, for the club and for the fans, but it is what it is. We knew that there would be some happy people and some sad people tonight, and we’re on the wrong end of that this evening. Now, we need to look ahead. In three days’ time, we’ve got another important game away to Monaco, so we’ll see how everyone’s doing, recover well and focus on our upcoming games.”
MARQUINHOS
“It’s hard to take, but we have to do so and move on quickly. We know that each game is different, so it’s pointless to link the result of this game to others coming up. We need to go again straight away. Against our biggest rivals, this was a cup game that we needed to win, and we weren’t able to. We need to move on from this, stick together, stay calm and digest this as quickly as possible. It’s pointless to add more things on top of it. We know that there’ll be a lot of outside noise, but we need to stick together, keep working and improve on a lot of things. For a while now, we’ve known that we can do a lot better, but we just need to move on, stay calm and wait for this storm to pass.”