Shakespeare: I'm Immensely Proud

- Craig Shakespeare urged his players to take pride in their performance after being eliminated from the UEFA Champions League by Atlético Madrid
- The Foxes were 1-0 down from the first leg and went behind at Leicester City Stadium to a first half strike from Saúl
- Jamie Vardy pulled a goal back for the Foxes in the second half to make it 1-1 but they couldn't secure the two they needed to advance to the semi-finals, losing 2-1 on aggregate
- The manager urged his team to use the experience as inspiration to return to the competition in the future

Manager Craig Shakespeare urged his players to take pride in their UEFA Champions League journey after it came to an end at home to Atletico Madrid in the quarter-final on Tuesday night. 

Facing a 1-0 first leg deficit, the Foxes needed to score three after Saúl headed Atlético into a 2-0 aggregate lead, but Jamie Vardy’s second half strike gave them hope going into a frantic final period. 

Despite a host of chances, they could not engineer the slice of luck they needed to salvage the tie, which ended 1-1 on the night and 2-1 to Madrid on aggregate, so were left to reflect on a wonderful debut season in the competition that saw them as England’s only remaining team. 

Afterwards, the manager said: “I’m disappointed to go out but immensely proud of our performance tonight. I thought we ran an excellent team [close] in the form Madrid and we gave it a real shot. The players can be immensely proud of their performance, but we’re ultimately disappointed to go out. 

“I hope the benefit is that they want some more of it (Champions League football). They’re very disappointed but they can be proud of what they’ve achieved. As a Football Club we can be proud of how we’ve conducted ourselves but they should want more of this because the Champions League is the highest level. To do that we have to get back to winning ways in the Premier League.” 

Shakespeare admits that he knew the Foxes would face a challenge against experienced opposition, but that he had worked on several different approaches in the build up in the event of Atlético taking the lead. 

“We had planned different scenarios in advance,” he said. “I didn’t expect to make changes that early but we needed to be more of a threat in their half, especially in front of goal. We spoke about playing direct, playing Jamie Vardy off Leonardo Ulloa and playing with wing-backs. We’d worked and spoken about it, but I didn’t expect to do it that early. 

“The players attitude towards making that work was first class and you could see in the second half that we got the goal, but not the breaks we needed to get more. 

“I’ve said before that their (Atlético’s) history speaks for itself - finalists in two of the last three years. We knew what kind of challenge would be put in front of us but we knew from the first leg that we still felt in the tie. We had a right go tonight but ultimately we’ve just failed at the last hurdle.”