The scoreline in Kazan and Inter Milan’s success in Kiev sees Barcelona drop to third place in Group F, which doesn’t allow the Catalonians to progress into the next round.

There are two rounds left to play and all four teams in the group still having chances to qualify.
Inter lead the standings with 6 points. Rubin and Barca have 5 points each, with the Russians being ahead due to the results of face-to-face matches. And Ukraine’s Dinamo Kiev are right behind with 4 points.

“I can’t take a dig at my men; we dominated possession, created chances, but the ball just refused to go into the net. But the result will surely come, with us playing this way,” Guardiola said.

“All the teams in the competition have equal chances of winning it. You never know, maybe it’ll be Rubin who’ll win the Champions League,” he added.

Barcelona has changed their approach towards Rubin after the game at Camp Nou stadium, and the draw in Kazan didn’t come as a big surprise for them.

“Kazan are Russian champions, and they are in the first place in the home league for the second year running. It’s no wonder – they have great players in the squad. Just look at Bukharov and Dominguez, who caused us a lot of trouble. It’s only because of ball and a good performance from [goalkeeper] Victor Valdes we managed to avoid defeat,” Carles Puyol, the Barcelona captain, told Sportbox.ru.

“We hoped the ending of the group stages wouldn’t be that tense, but our hopes were not to come to life this time. Well, there are to matches ahead of us and each would be equal to a final,” he added.

Barcelona will keep you warm in any cold

Winter has already arrived to the city of Kazan. Guardiola had a warm down jacket on him, but Rubin’s boss Kurban Berdyev was only wearing a suit, despite a temperature below 0 degrees Celsius.

“Playing against Barcelona, I wouldn’t have frozen even if I was wearing a shirt,” Berdyev said.

“Our aim was not to concede a goal. At first our rivals had some opportunities, but we managed to change our formation and organize a good defensive play,” he continued.

He complained that his attackers were not as successful as the defenders, with Aleksandr Bukharov missing two good chances, but concluded that he “enjoyed the game, which ended with a decent result.”

And unlike his coach, Rubin’s Ecuadorian midfielder Christian Noboa said he felt really cold, but it didn’t prevent him from receiving full satisfaction from the result.

“No wonder the game was very difficult, as Barcelona is the best team in the world. But we got four points in two games against them – which team can boast such an achievement? It’s a great result,” he said.