Mourinho content with draw

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho has labelled his side’s 1-1 Champions League draw at CSKA Moscow on Tuesday as ‘not a bad result’.

Real had looked like taking a 1-0 lead back to Madrid for the second leg on March 14 after Cristiano Ronaldo’s first-half strike, but Pontus Wernbloom bobbed up to level for the hosts at the Luzhniki Stadium in the third minute of injury time.

While Mourinho was not impressed with conceding such a late goal, the Portuguese coach remains confident the La Liga leaders will progress to the last eight.

“It’s not a bad result,” Mourinho said. “Without having done anything out of this world we had chances to score a second goal. I’m not happy but I’m not all that sad.”

“Tonight’s result means we must step up for the second leg. Our opponents made things difficult for us but didn’t do all that much to threaten an equaliser.”

“That said, they played a very hard and serious game. Their goal will give them a lot of joy. I’d be happy if all our away legs finished 1-1.”

Mourinho was reluctant to blame his defenders for the late equaliser, after Alexey Berezutski headed a deep cross back into the penalty box, for Wernbloom to drill home.

“There are goals that come from a loss of concentration at dead-ball situations that are often easy to identify but I’m not sure if that was the case today,” he said.

“I was quite far away and couldn’t tell you at this moment.”

CSKA Moscow coach Leonid Slutsky was pleased with the efforts of his men, in light of the fact they were without Japanese star Keisuke Honda and Pavel Mamayev.

“We executed our defensive plan pretty well but failed to perform decently up front,” Slutsky said.

“The game was broken into separate episodes and one of them resulted in us scoring. We lacked a man in the centre of the park who would direct our game.”

“We were without Honda and Pavel Mamaev, and Wernbloom became one of our heroes. He scored and performed brilliantly overall.”

“We went all-in in the end and brought on some attacking players, increased the pressure on Madrid’s defence and finally converted our last set piece.”

“Madrid still are the favourites but the outcome of this match gives us hope for a good result over the two legs.”