Shakhtar Donetsk head coach Marino Pušić summed up the results of his side's first match against French side Marseille (2-2) in the Europa League play-offs for the right to reach the last 16 of the tournament, which took place in Hamburg yesterday.
Маріно Пушич"Sometimes football is like that. Sometimes you don't get the result you maybe deserve. But it was a hard game for both teams, an interesting game for the spectators. And we still have the same result.
We knew in advance that such a confrontation would not be resolved in the first game, so we got a draw in the first leg, so we are boldly approaching the next stage. We showed how well we can play. I am confident in the second leg, even when we play away to Marseille. And it's great to play such matches. That's why you become a footballer, to play such matches. I experienced it as a coach, I know what it feels like to play away to Marseille. It is a difficult away game against a serious opponent, but we are ready. We will be ready to compete again and, of course, we will try to win.
We played our first official game in two months. In this case, the team is, of course, always at a disadvantage. Although we are in fairly good physical shape, we lacked this difficult level of official matches. And, of course, in combination with the state of the pitch, you have to make a lot of effort and expend a lot of energy. This means that during the game there will be a little more space, because we attack, they attack - so the game was uneven in certain moments, which was not always in our favour.
But I'm glad that we fulfilled our task in the physical aspect, which is certainly not easy for us. This gives us more opportunities and time to prepare for the next game. We have one week to train again and we have the experience of the first game, so it's good. It wasn't easy, I agree, but that's football and that's a fact now, so we can't change that. That being said, I can only be proud of my team, the work of the guys, how hard they worked, how disciplined they were, and especially their performance.
I'm not the kind of person who likes to talk about referees, because I respect their work very much, but today there was an obvious mistake - it was a clean goal that we should have had in the first half. Unfortunately, the decision was not in our favour, although it should have been the other way round. It's good that it is what it is. We need to move on," said Pušić at a press conference after the match against Marseille.
