Leganes won 1-0 in Montjuic thanks to an early Sergio Gonzalez goal, leaving Borja proud.
It's three golden points to beat Barça 0-1…
The feeling is very good. Winning here is difficult. You have to do an exercise of endurance. Do many things well. You need your goalkeeper to be in good shape. Do a collective job tactically and make a great effort. I am very happy. I think that in the first half we did have three very good saves from Dmitrovic. We were defending more deeply. But in the second half we corrected that. We allowed Barça to move a little more in width and play less deep. We were a little more comfortable within the relative comfort that you can have defending this team that does so many things well.
Did the match go as you expected?
Yes, yes… that was kind of the idea we had. We lacked better decisions on the counterattack to launch a more concrete attack. In the last few minutes we had two very clear ones. You need to do a lot of things well defensively. They attack you a lot and don’t speculate. They go for you and they have a lot of mobility. Having Yamal open makes a lot of players accumulate close to them and other spaces open up. We knew it was difficult and that we would have to have one of our best days to be able to score here.
The team arrived in a difficult situation… and they came out of it very calmly.
It gives us three points. That's the most important thing. Beating the leader strengthens your spirit, what you work on every day. It's a way for the footballer to see his daily work rewarded. We know that we can be close to the bottom three. We've been here for 17 weeks and we've never been there. I repeat it a lot so that it's appreciated. But we have to keep going, let them enjoy it today. Tomorrow we'll train. And prepare for Villarreal, to finish 2024 in the best possible way. 2024 has been an idyllic year.
How did Barca's tactics work in your favour?
Especially in the second half, with a player further back, they had a hard time finding players between the lines and behind the midfielders. With Raba's departure we gained some air there. Lewandowski is a danger in any centre. We gained some air there. I value what this team does, because it is young people who are playing at a very high pace. It is a pleasure to see them because of the risks and the conviction they have. But today is a day to value my boys, to talk about Leganés, which is very commendable for what we have achieved.
How do you rate Altimira's season?
He had a great game in defence today. It's true that in the first half he was perhaps giving Balde too much space, for those passes and for him to think. He understood it, he corrected it and he had it much more controlled. It's his second year in the First Division with the minutes he played last year with Villarreal. He has good competition with Rosier. We have two very good full-backs. We are delighted with them. They must improve with each other.
What was Barça's weak point?
It's difficult to find them, unless you can dominate them and force them to defend for many minutes. For me, they are doing something very well. They put players in front of you, like Marc and Pedri, with good footwork, and behind you appear Raphinha and Dani Olmo, who are very vertical. But we knew that we couldn't defend very high. We had to defend more in the middle, work more on the striker in the central midfield... we needed people who could go from the defence to the midfield to defend them all.