Barcelona captain Carles Puyol has insisted his side will not get carried away after a 4-0 win over Stuttgart cruised them through to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League. The Catalan giants went through 5-1 on aggregate and remain on course to defend their European title at the Bernabeu in May.

It was an impressive performance by Pep Guardiola's side, for whom Lionel Messi netted a brace and Pedro Rodriguez and Bojan Krkic also got on the scoresheet, but Puyol is adamant they will remain grounded, knowing how easily things can go awry in this competition. Highly-fancied trio Real Madrid, Chelsea and AC Milan have all been dumped out at the last-16 stage this season, while aside from Manchester United, no previous Champions League winners had managed to get to the quarter-finals the following year since the 2003/04 competition.

"The euphoria is normal, but we have our feet on the ground as it's already been shown you can have one bad day and be eliminated," said Puyol.

Winger Pedro added: "We are getting closer (to retaining their title) but it's difficult and we have to take it step by step. All the remaining teams will be difficult, we respect them and we have to be focused."

The euphoria is normal, but we have our feet on the ground as it's already been shown you can have one bad day and be eliminated.
Barcelona's Carles Puyol

Barça go into tomorrow's draw for the last eight along with 2008 winners and last season's runners-up Manchester United, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Lyon, Bordeaux, CSKA Moscow and Bayern Munich.

Barcelona's president Joan Laporta said: "I'm very pleased. It was important to get through to the quarters, the team deserved it. We are on the right path.

The important thing is that we are continuing forward with high hopes and that we can make our dreams come true. We have very difficult opponents ahead of us.

"We cannot think about the final, on Friday we will know who we will face and we will continue working as we have until now. They will be some hard-fought quarter-finals."