Praising the team, he said "I am very proud of my boys as they have turned around a situation that no one expected them to turn around. We just said after the first three games that we would carry on fighting in every match until the end.
"It would have been a big blow for everybody at the club to have come from so far and got so close but then lost out again. The turning point was maybe scoring in the final minute of the Kiev game, which gave us our belief and then we had the fantastic 5-1 win at Inter Milan.
"There is reluctance from some people to give us credit in the Champions League but we are ranked fifth in Europe and we have earned that over the years."
Our opponents in the next round will be one from: Bayern Munich, Deportivo La Coruna, Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo, Stuttgart, Sparta Prague and Porto.