"I'm thrilled to be in the semis," said Pellegrini. "Our goal was to go as far as possible. Despite the early criticism, we took it step by step and here we are, in the semis for the first time in our history. We're all very happy."

"Now it's time to fight it out with Fiorentina and try to reach the final. We were a mature team, but in the first half, we might have been playing with the 2-0 lead in our heads. In the second half, we took the initiative and they didn't come close to our goal until that silly mistake we made. I'm happy for the team and the fans."

"We're all excited," said Pellegrini about his team's achievement. "I don't process it much, I'm not worried about praise or criticism. You look to the coach when something happens, and rightly so."

"I'm very happy with what we've done all year. We're in a Europa League position and in the semis, and we want to reawaken our ambition to reach another level that wasn't initially budgeted for. The team is getting stronger. We want to win this tournament and reach Europe for the league."

"We're all excited to achieve something that hasn't been done before. We want to reach the top of the table. We have a tough opponent in the semis, and we can't be satisfied with what we did. Despite the criticism at the beginning, as I said, we handled it the right way."