Piqué acknowledges Madrid’s «deserved» win

Gerard Piqué acknowledged that Real Madrid deserved their 1-2 win at the Camp Nou: «We didn’t know how to play with the extra man. Before the sending off there had already been 5 or 10 minutes in which we lost control of the game, either because of tiredness or because we couldn’t find the way to attack them. Anything could have happened and in the end they won, deservedly», the Barcelona defender, who headed in his side’s only goal to open the scoring early in the second half, told Movistar+.

Piqué was still optimistic, however: «We have to turn the page now. We’re still on track for the league title, so we need to be calm», he explained. «We gave it our all out on the pitch, so nobody can reproach us that. It’s a hard defeat but we just have to take it in our stride and carry on. We’re in a good position for the two months of competition that are left. We mustn’t let our heads drop now.»

Another of the night’s negative points was not being able to dedicate a victory to Johan Cruyff: «We wanted to win, like always, and especially it being a Clásico. You have to know how to lose as well, though.»

In his opinion, the referee Hernández Hernández did «a good job».