Diego: "This is a really important step"

Raw transcript of Diego's press conference. Just in!


"I'm not worried for our missed chances, because if we are saving those goals for the next matches, everything will be OK (smiles). I congratulate their goalkeeper because he had a great match. I'm happy because we won, we created chances and we showed some good movement up front. We ended up suffering because we couldn't finish most of our chances. When you do that, you're likely to suffer at the other end".

"We didn't miss our chances on purpose. Their goalkeeper should take all the credit. When we trained these last few days, you should have seen how all of my strikers were finishing. MESSI, TEVEZ, Pipita, Kun, PALERMO...all of them".

"The system I used today was the system I needed. VERON had a little problem and that's why he had to be replaced. But he is OK."

"We are very different with BECKENBAUER. I will never be similar to him! (laughs). I think we are in the right path. I wish my players can take all their strength they get from our fans in Argentina and here at the stadium and use that as an advantage. As something extra they can bring to the pitch."

"We spoke about this many times. I want MESSI being near the ball and that's what we saw today. As long as he has fun playing near the ball, we will all have fun. To take the ball away from MESSI when he is as hungry as he was today is even more difficult to take this apple away from me! I'm starving!"

"Fear in football does not exist. This is a game. We can win, draw or lose, but there is no fear at all. We fear no team".

"The match was set up like it happened. If we were more clinical up front, the match would have been very different and the game would have been more open for us".

"It would be like trying to guess. I'm not a magician. I'm a coach. I can't see the future. This is a really important step we took today. But we need to take it one by one. I think our players did a good job today".

"Lack of accuracy makes you drop your guard a little bit. If of all the chances we created, we would have scored three, we would be speaking about a brilliant game. I told my players, if you forgive your rivals, you will eventually pay. Today, we forgave them in the first half and then we were forgiven by Nigeria in the second. We need to talk and we need to finish off matches as quickly as possible".

"A lot of emotions. I spent some time with my grandson before the match started. I was throwing kisses to my daughter. In 2006 I was just another fan. Today it was special. I want to thank everyone for their support. This is beautiful. This is so new to me. You have to make decisions really fast and you have to avoid making mistakes".