Dnipro-1 head coach Oleksandr Kucher commented on his side's 0-3 defeat to Czech side Slavia in the first match of the Europa League 3rd qualifying round.
"Of course, we didn't do what we planned to do today. We had to play the ball, enter the zones. For some reason, the guys got scared, started to just kick forward and give the ball to the opponent, and because of this we conceded the first goal.
There was some confusion in the first minutes and a lot of mistakes. It was hard to play today because the guys still haven't recovered from the effects of poisoning. There was also a long two-day journey, and it was obvious that the players had not recovered. It was very difficult for them.
We understood that Slavia is very strong in physical terms, imposing a lot of struggle, and in this aspect we, of course, lost today.
The result, of course, was not in our favour - a very unpleasant score before the return leg. Now the main thing is to restore the guys first of all psychologically and physically, because we have a championship game in two days, and after that we will think about the return match. We need to have time to recover. We'll have a long journey again, and then we'll play right away," Kucher said at the post-match press conference.