BENITEZ: THANKS TO TRAVELLING KOP

Jimmy Rice 22 February 2007 Rafa Benitez sent a heartfelt message to the travelling Kopites who helped inspire his team to victory in the Nou Camp: "Thank you."

The Spaniard reckons the noise created by the Scouse hoards played a big part in Wednesday night's historic victory. He said: "It's always important to win away. We have a lot of supporters coming here, and I could hear our supporters during the game. At the end I wanted to say thank you to them. But we must remember there is work to do. "The job is not done. It's clear we have a good chance of going through, but we need to be careful. "Barcelona are really good at playing the counter attack and have very good offensive players. We need to do our best against them in the second leg." While many were pondering on the irony of Liverpool's goalscorers, Benitez admits he didn't even realise Craig Bellamy's strike went in. "I didn't see Bellamy's celebration. I thought the keeper was going to catch the ball and I was thinking about what to do in the second half, so I didn't realise it was a goal at first. "But I am really pleased with Craig and the team. Riise also scoring a goal was just a coincidence but you have got to be happy with that. I am really pleased that both scored and that they got the goals that mattered. "The training camp in Portugal was really helpful for us. The commitment of the players was good before and after the problems, and even if that hadn't happened I'm sure we'd have done the same tonight because the atmosphere in the squad was really good."