Thiago Silva hailed 10-man Paris Saint-Germain's mental toughness as they bundled Chelsea out of the Champions League on Wednesday.
Having
drawn the first leg 1-1 at the Parc des Princes, the tie seemed to be
drifting away from the visitors when they had star striker Zlatan
Ibrahimovic harshly sent off in the first half.
Gary Cahill put
Chelsea ahead with nine minutes to go only for former Blues defender
David Luiz to power home a header to send the tie to extra-time.
Eden
Hazard restored the home side's lead with a penalty after 96 minutes
but Thiago Silva – who gave away the spot-kick with a needless handball –
redeemed himself by nodding home another equaliser to send PSG through.
"Congratulations to the whole team. At 11 against 11 it's difficult, but 10 is even more difficult," the Brazil defender told BeIn Sports.
"We
played a very good game, we were very sturdy. We have many quality
players that can really hurt the opposition but today we earned it [the
win] mentally."
The Ligue 1 champions will go into the draw for
the last eight next Friday in confident mood and their captain believes
they have shown promising signs.
He added: "A message sent to
others? I don't know. We just think about ourselves. If we play like
that, we can win it. Our goal is to win the Champions League."
Thiago Silva's defensive colleague Marquinhos, meanwhile, was pleased PSG had learned from last year's defeat to Chelsea.
"We
did not let go until the end and did not make the same mistakes as last
year. This time, we came to play and that's what we did. We must remain
calm because the Champions League is not easy."

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