Mourinho bullish despite cup setback
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Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho remained upbeat this Wednesday despite his side's latest disappointment in the Copa del Rey knockout competition.
Real Madrid could only draw the first leg of their Cup tie 0-0 away to third tier side Murcia, despite fielding a side that included players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe and Karim Benzema.
Although Mourinho's men controlled the game for the full 90 minutes and enjoyed several good scoring chances, they were denied by a mixture of poor finishing and good goalkeeping from Murcia's Dani Hernandez.
With the return leg to be played in the Santiago Bernabeu in a fortnight, Real Madrid are still overwhelming favorites to progress to reach the next round and Mourinho refused to criticize his players.
"I am content with the team, because they wanted to win. I only criticize people who don't take things seriously and this was not the case," he told Wednesday's edition of Diario AS.
"The result is not what we wanted, but it leaves us with a 0-0 to take back to the Bernabeu and with the attitude the players showed, it should not be a problem. We will win the home game and we will go through," he said.
In contrast Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola sounded a not of caution even though his side won their cup game 2-0 away to Ceuta thanks to goals from Maxwell and Pedro, but Guardiola insisted his players would have to be attentive for the return leg.
"If we had scored a third goal it would have seen off the tie, but we didn't so there is still work for us to do. If you don't do the work in games like this then you are in trouble. We still haven't sealed our qualification to the last 16," he warned.
