Doumbia thrilled to reach last 16

CSKA Moscow’s Seydou Doumbia has expressed his delight at advancing to the Champions League knockout stages with a 2-1 win over Inter Milan.

Doumbia opened the scoring shortly after the half-time break at San Siro, with Esteban Cambiasso restored parity soon after for hosts Inter.

However, Vasili Berezutski struck in the 86th minute snatch all three points for CSKA, with the win sending them through in second place.

“I’m really happy because I’ve been waiting for this moment – we fought tooth and nail until the very end and finally managed to qualify,” Doumbia told Uefa.com.

“At half-time I took a peek at my phone to see what was happening in Lille and I saw that the other sides hadn’t scored yet; it was still 0-0.”

“So I said to myself: ‘Right, you’ve got to give it everything you’ve got for the next 45 minutes because you never know.'”

“I was so happy when we scored that second, but I didn’t want to get too carried away because we didn’t know what was happening in Lille.”

“We had to see our match out and then see what happened in the other game. But when it was all over and we realised we’d gone through it was a magnificent feeling.”

The draw for the Champions League round of 16 takes place on December 16.