Pallotta reflects on Champions League run

With a bit of time to reflect on the events of Wednesday night, which saw the Giallorossi come up agonisingly short of a place in the final in Kiev, here are the main comments from the owner...

On overcoming the doubters...

"I’m incredibly proud of this team all the way through, if you just look at the beginning of this Champions League, everyone said we were in the Group of Death and we end up winning it. I think we surprised people, we got through and got through with Barcelona and then with Liverpool the guys always fought back no matter what."

On the pain of losing to Liverpool...

"Anguish? I’ll get over it [but] that’s an understatement... given I watched the second half of the game in the coach’s room, on a real-time basis and on a replay basis I watched a lot of interesting non-calls, they were missed. That’s why I was so upset that something has to be done..."

On calling for the introduction of VAR...

"I know that refs are going to make mistakes and I know that these guys realised they made some major mistakes and are probably pretty bummed about it, but at the same time you can solve some of those issues with VAR. In games like this, it just has to be used. It’s different in a basketball game, you have 120 points you are scoring, there’s different things going on here and there. On a goal that is so important, at the end of the day we lost on a 7-6 aggregate and there’s a couple of obvious chances and a red card that’s just difficult to take. But it is what it is."

On Liverpool...

"Liverpool is a spectacular team, great players, great coaches, great organisation, tip my hat to them, wish them well. We have three more games in our league, we want to get back again in the Champions League as we have been consistently doing for the last 5 years."

On fighting the big boys in Europe...

"Yes, I am pretty happy with the guys. Let’s be realistic, Real Madrid probably has 3-4 times our revenues. Bayern at least double, if not three, Liverpool has more than double our revenues, so we fought a hard battle with three semifinalists with a different budget from ours, that’s why I think we deserve high consideration.”