Shakhtar Donetsk head coach Igor Jovicevich told what he expects from the match between his team and Scottish Celtic in the 2nd round of the Champions League group stage, which will be held today in Warsaw.
“The current Celtic with a new head coach is doing a very good job in the Scottish Championship. They look convincing, they play dynamic, aggressive, combination football of an attacking type. At a minimum, it will be difficult for us to resist in desire, dynamics, struggle, martial arts, but we cannot give in.
We have a tough match ahead of us. In the game with Leipzig, we showed what our team is capable of, but they are young, and they are still building and shaping the mentality of the winners through such difficult matches. At least in this match, everyone should play like in the match with Leipzig, so that not a single player falls out, but shows his best game in his career.
We will play with an opponent who is in very good shape. I think there are several options to win this match both with the ball and without the ball. In the last match against Chornomorets, we had possession of the ball 70% of the time, but did not score three or four goals, and there were difficulties. And in the game with Leipzig, the possession was 39%, but we played a crazy match and took advantage of the space. The question is what we are doing and how effectively we are doing it during the period when we have the ball.
I repeat: we are waiting for a tough match, but we want to have fun and convince ourselves that we can play again at the same level as with Leipzig. There is a good atmosphere in the team, everyone is ready for tomorrow's match, but for everything to end positively, many factors need to coincide. We are ready and we can!
We are not the favorites in any Champions League game, the favorites are Leipzig, Celtic and Real Madrid. We are modest, we understand what we are capable of, but if there is energy from a fan, then nothing is impossible in football. We believe in victory,” said Jovicevich.