Karanka: "These players have the character and mentality of champions"

Assistant coach Aitor Karanka addressed the media after facing Sevilla at the Bernabeu. "There are fewer games left and we had to win today after Wednesday's upset. I'll say it again: this team deserves to win the title. Regardless of winning the league title or not, these players have the character and mentality of champions. They were tired and sad today, and we could have played better, but we won. We did what we had to do." "It's obviously important to win the Spanish league for everyhting it entails and for how hard we've worked for it. The sooner we win, the better. It would be nice to win at a great venue like San Mames against Athletic Bilbao because they are having a great season. We're all only thinking about winning the game we need to celebrate as soon as possible." "We only have a Plan A here, and we'll stick to it until we take the points we need. We also only had a Plan A last season under different circumstances, so it focused on scoring more goals and helping Cristiano increase his tally." "Winning La Liga is the objective of every team. Winning such a demanding league championship, which has so many games, is more than important." "Our men are in fantastic form and we know how tired they are. The exhaustion they had after facing Barcelona and Bayern in such a short time is eclipsed by their confidence. They performed very well on Saturday and made a great effort on Wednesday, so today's clash was sort of like a reward. What matters is the mentality, character and drive they all have to take three points in every game." "We made our substitutions according to how the match was unfolding. Granero came off because we didn't want him to be booked again. Xabi Aonso was tired and had a muscle strain, and Di Maria was also feeling the efforts made on Wednesday, so we had to replace them all. Albiol is a great professional. This year may be difficult for him because he isn't playing much and he's finding it difficult to play for Spain, but he's always been ready to perform when we've needed him, be it as a centre back, as a right back or as a centre midfielder. The players on this team are always ready and he is a good example of that."