Last Thursday, Shakhtar Donetsk lost to France's Rennes in the return leg of the Europa League 1/16 finals, 1-2, the same score with which they beat their opponent in the first meeting. And in the penalty shoot-out the Pitmen clinched a ticket to the 1/8 finals of the tournament. We bring to your attention the post-match comments by the head coaches of the two teams.
Igor Jovicevic, Shakhtar head coach: "We knew that it would be a very difficult match, that we would have to be patient. And the character that we showed is not a one-off, and it's no longer an exception, but a lifestyle of this team. And I take my hat off to them - huge respect to them. I get so much pleasure when I see them fight! And this is not demagoguery, not empty words we play for Ukraine.
The first half in particular was very hard. We did not want to adjust, but the opposing team forced us. Especially Doku - there are very few players like that on the market in general. He played against us himself, you could say. He takes over, escalates, creates a quantitative advantage - it's very hard to play against him.
The second half, I think, we played at a good level, at that solidity. These are our first matches in the Europa League, and I can find no words except to thank the team for the fact that we died now in a sporty way, "broke" some legs...
I don't know, it's such a reward from God for our hard work that we show. And I wish you could be as proud of us as we are of you. It's mutual love. And on we go. We should rest and wait for the draw.
We deserved to go to the next round with our behavior, character, manner of play, patience. Not everyone can beat Rennes, seriously. We are talking about a very good team, which is much better than us in terms of budget. And I saw what it looks like. And you have to be patient. And every one of our guys played as hard as it took to win the game. Or go into extra time and win on penalties."
Bruno Genesio, head coach of Rennes: "It's unpleasant and hard for us to accept defeat, because we were one step away from the 1/8 finals of the Europa League. Life is cruel, so you have to know how to lose too. We have to get back to normal, but it's hard to do now. To the young players I would like to say that I am proud of them, they should continue to play at the same level and with the same efficiency. Especially the closing part of the season, which will not be easy.
We lacked efficiency in attack, although the first 15 minutes were fine. We created chances, but in certain situations we lacked technique and aggressiveness to dominate. Indeed, we kept the game under control, scored an own goal and took the game to overtime. Let me repeat: sometimes life is cruel.
And the penalty shootout - it's roulette. After so much playing time under pressure the penalty shootout is not just a technique exercise. Even Maradona missed the mark. For me, soccer is what you do on the field for 95 minutes. We even managed to stay in the game after two misses. Still, for me, the penalty shootout is not a game, but a distracted way of determining the result and a lottery. But if we talk about the match, I think we played very well.
We have a good team, I hope the fans enjoyed the game, but we must understand that sometimes everyone makes mistakes. We are sorry that it happened this way. We wanted to and could have passed on, but now we lacked a master
