Paris St. Germain chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi says that he's not surprised that the French club knocked Chelsea out of the UEFA Champions League because he saw the confidence in the players' eyes before kickoff at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night.
PSG drew the second leg 2-2 after extra-time for a 3-3 aggregate score to go through to the quarterfinals on away goals. "I was confident before the match... I told them that I was confident we would reach the quarterfinals," he said.
"Really, I saw it in the eyes of the players. We played really well, with 10 players for more than 95 minutes. We deserved to win."
Al-Khelaifi said the victory was an important one for the ambitious Ligue 1 champions and one of the biggest since Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) took control of PSG in 2011.
"This is one of the biggest results [since QSI took over] for sure," he said. "To qualify for the quarterfinals here, at Stamford Bridge, was very difficult. It was not easy, for sure. But honestly, the players, the coach, we proved that we can make it and we were really good."
Al-Khelaifi added that by defeating the English Premier League leaders and the 2012 Champions League winners PSG showed that they had a great chance of going all the way this season, regardless of who they draw in the quarterfinals.
"We are a big club and can beat the big clubs," he said. "I think that if we can win at Chelsea in the Champions League, then we can go very far indeed."
Information from Jonathan Johnson was used in this report