Valeriy Kriventsov: "It was impossible to lose to Gent".

Head coach of Luhansk Zorya Valeriy Kriventsov summarised the results of his team's match against Belgian Gent (1-1) in the 1st round of the group stage of the Conference League, which took place yesterday in Lublin.

"It was the first match of the tournament, so, taking into account only forming the standings, it was impossible to lose categorically. The team fulfilled this task.

"Ghent" is now the leader of the Belgian championship. The team demonstrates active, aggressive, fast football, for which we were ready. We studied the opponent, watched about 9 matches, tried to study their style of play as best as possible, and also considered individual players. We were set to play active football, but at the moment, we were not ready for open football with such an opponent today.

We can consider that the result is positive for us, the guys worked actively in defence, which did not let the opponent to play much at our goal. There were enough good chances to realise, but today the match was quite shaky - we could lose, and we could win.

At the end of the match my requests to the team were to meet the opponent as high as possible above our gates, as well as to conduct counterattacks. I counted on the fact that the substitutions could refresh our game, strengthen our attacking potential, but this, above all, was not enough for the final positive result. However, in the end, the result was good, I'm happy with it.

Of course, we hoped and counted only on the victory, but the game makes its own adjustments. At the moment it was hard for us to play open, attacking football with Gent. That's why the result is what it is", - said Kryventsov at the post-match press conference.