Vilanova: "We were right to rest Messi"

How do you take this defeat on board? "I asked the players not to let their heads drop at half-time. Conceding a goal after the break was a huge blow. That really hurt the players because it meant that turning the tie around was impossible. You can't deny that Bayern went into the game in fantastic shape physically and the difference between the two teams was plain to see. But I did think we competed right up until the final whistle".
Missing Messi: "He played in Bilbao because he said he felt a little better. He made a difference to the side but at the end of the game he complained of strange pains - not an injury but he just didn't feel right. He trained yesterday and again today but he said he still didn't feel quite right. He is a very explosive player and so there was always a chance that he could end up with a serious muscle tear so we decided it wasn't worth risking him".
Will Barça need to make changes? "Every club makes reinforcements every year. I said the other day that we don't need to make many changes but just to recover the players we have out injured. Bayern went into this game at full strength while we have a number of players out injured. Even though we were dealing with setbacks, it's fair to say that you cannot win every time and we were already at a big disadvantage because of the result from the first leg".
Has Barça made the league a priority? "No, it's quite the opposite. This season we have rotated the squad more than ever. If you don't train well and have fitness problems, it's much harder to get back to peak fitness".
Taking off Xavi and Iniesta: "When we went further behind on the score board and suddenly found ourselves needing to score six, we took them off because Xavi has a few twinges and we need him for Sunday's league game. We want to sentence the league this weekend if possible".
Losing to Europe's big guns: Madrid, AC Milan, PSG and Bayern: "There are a lot of reasons behind that; there are many reasons why we struggled against those sides".
How do you feel about losing 7-0 on aggregate? "Losing can and does happen but losing 3-0 here and 7-0 on aggregate... I can safely say that this wasn't the result we were expecting. If we had been at 100 per cent it might have ended differently but the result from the first leg really weighed down on us. I don't even want to think about how we conceded those goals".
Bayern: "First of all, I would like to congratulate them. Barcelona and Real Madrid have taken on, and been knocked out by Bayern and Borussia Dortmund respectively - both of us have teams who are capable of competing against them but now, we must congratulate them".