Sarabia: 'A great opportunity'

Pablo, how is the team's morale since arriving in Portugal?
We’re adapting ourselves to the situation. It’s true that it’s unique because we’re playing all the ties in one location as single matches, which has never happened before. So we have to adapt. It’s true that these aren’t the best circumstances but the pandemic is still going strong, but we have to adapt and play our competition.  We’ve just played two finals that were very well contested, we’ve had to try to play our best football and stay united as a team. We’ve also had to use our experience at times. Now, we’re naturally very motivated and hopeful for what’s coming next, which is the Champions League. It’s the greatest competition and the one everyone wants to win; us as players, all of our supporters, and the club.

The atmosphere in the team seems to be as good as ever…
I think it’s a great group. I’ve said it before, when I arrived here I expected a different kind of team, a little bit more individual-orientated, but it’s been the opposite. When I arrived, I found a good team, nice people and good teammates.  It’s true that, as a group, we’ve been able to develop some good cohesion which I think is a very important part of forming a good group, because in the good times and the bad, that’s when you’ve got to show it.

What do you think of the new UEFA Champions League format?

It’s an unusual UEFA Champions League tournament because you normally have two-legged ties and now we’ll play only one game, but, little by little, we’ve been improving physically. It’s true it’s been a long period but we’re gradually getting better. We’ve been gaining in confidence, we’ve been getting minutes on our legs and our bodies in general, which will help us improve. I think this is a good time for us. We need to go step by step. Skipping steps would be a mistake, so we’re all thinking about Wednesday’s match. This is the match that matters now. It’s the most important game of the season.

What do you think of this Atalanta team?

They’re doing well. They’ve shown they can play, they try to apply pressure up front, they have great players who can score plenty of goals. What we’ll try to do with our weapons and our football is to neutralise our opponent’s strengths and demonstrate our own. It may be an open match. On the other hand, when you play only one game, matches tend to be more defensive because there’s less time and teams try to be more conservative. We’re going to try to win the match from the get-go, we’ll try to win from the moment we come out onto the pitch.

Paris Saint-Germain has the chance to qualify for the semi-finals for the second time in the club's history...

Yeah it’s a unique chance that we have. We’re going to try to make it a reality and make history for Paris Saint-Germain. I think now is an ideal time to do it. We’ve been focused on it for a while now. We have to be ready, to thoroughly study our rival and perform really well to be able to make history.