The German tactician said that Wednesday's game was a must-win for the defending champions and that his players were up to the occasion.

"Of course we wanted to cap off the season with a victory over Barcelona in front of our fans. The team's attitude was phenomenal throughout the ninety minutes," Schuster told a post-game press conference.

"When the title is already in the bag players may lose a little focus, but that wasn't the case. They took on the match as if it was a final and I want to congratulate them for a job well done," he added.

Real Madrid showed no mercy as they thumped Barcelona, courtesy goals from Raul, Robben, Gonzalo Higuain and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Schuster admitted that luck played an important role in paving way for the victory.

"Our first two goals really hurt them. We spoke about it before the match. It was important to score first in order to bring them down.

"We were fortunate to score twice in the opening minutes, which also allowed us to control the situation and not permit Barcelona to get comfortable on the pitch."

Meanwhile, Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard conceded that Real were by far the better team.

"It is clear that we played a bad game," he explained.

"We have not shown much strength as a team. In games like this, you have to battle and that means attack and defend together and we did not do that well."

Rijkaard dismissed talks of the defeat being humiliating for the Catalan giants.

"I do not want to talk about humiliation or ridicule," Rijkaard continued. "We were just not able to do what we wanted.