Ander Herrera dedicated Manchester United's Europa League victory to the victims of Monday's terrorist attack.
United beat Ajax 2-0 in Stockholm on Wednesday evening less than 48 hours after 22 people were killed and dozens more injured in a terror attack following a concert at Manchester Arena.
Herrera, who was named man of the match, admits it was difficult for the players to focus on Tuesday before they flew to Sweden for the showpiece match.
"We were really, really sad," he said. "When you think about life and football, you have no choice.
"It was difficult to train yesterday, really difficult for us but the manager told us that the only thing we could do was win this for them and that's what we've done.
"It's just a football game, it's just a trophy, but if we can help or if we can support them with this just one per cent it's enough for us."
Following the match, Manchester United posted an image on their official Twitter account of the players in the dressing room with the trophy and a banner which said 'Manchester - a city united'.
Rivals Manchester City also posted a poignant Tweet shortly after full-time, stating simply: #ACityUnited.
Jose Mourinho also paid tribute to those who lost their lives in the terror attack.
"It means a lot for me, for the club, for the boys and for the supporters too," he said.
"If we could, we would obviously change the people's life for this cup immediately, we wouldn't think twice.
"Does this cup make the city of Manchester a little bit happier? Maybe, but we just came to do our job."
Mourinho agreed with European governing body UEFA's decision for the match to go ahead, but said the victory would always be associated with sad thoughts about what happened in Manchester.
"It was really hard," said the Portuguese, whose pre-match press conference on Tuesday was cancelled.
"That's why yesterday we didn't want to have the press conference because we had to prepare ourselves to do our job and to try to forget events that are obviously much more important than our job.
"But the world goes on, it doesn't stop and we have to do our work.
"I agree with the UEFA decision to play the match, but if we had questions, like your question, that made us return to this tragedy, obviously it takes happiness from our achievement."