The head coach of Donetsk «Shakhtar» Marino Puzhich commented on his team’s defeat to Munich «Bayern» (1:5) in yesterday’s match of the 6th round of the main stage of the Champions League.
Marino Puzhich«Of course, 5 conceded goals is too much, but at the same time, as I have already said, it is a game against a wonderful team. In my opinion, we showed a lot of good things. And my philosophy will never change, even if we conceded 5 goals.
So we will try to play, we will try to play with all the attacking midfielders, we will attack as we did this evening. So don’t expect us to release many defenders — that has never happened. This is a logical part of the game.
As I said before the game, you need to be almost perfect to win against such an opponent. I can say we were almost that in the first half, almost. But the inexperience in certain moments and details was decisive in this game. Although even after such a mental blow in the first half, we started the second half very well, and I believe we had two excellent chances from set pieces and corners. And, of course, that’s the game.
Then we conceded the third goal, a penalty. Do you think there was a penalty? I don’t think so. So it was a gift from the referee, unfortunately. And then it was already too much. But even after that we tried to play, attack, create something. We had certain moments. And, of course, the game was very open, face to face almost all over the field, which is not easy in a match against Munich's «Bayern». And we conceded these two goals. This can happen, for the statistics.
I am satisfied with what we have shown in this Champions League campaign overall. Could we have scored more points? Yes, we could. At the same time, I must note that we have a very busy schedule, and playing against top teams is quite difficult. I’ll say this: the experience we gain in such games greatly influences the players. It’s sometimes experiencing certain disappointments, but also self-development. Overall, I can be satisfied with this part of the tournament. I repeat, considering where we come from, what our football life is and what we have to go through, as a team and a club, I can only say: good job, guys! We need to learn from mistakes, and we will become stronger after experiencing all this. There are still two games ahead, this is not the end yet, although getting to the next stage will be very difficult, we must be realistic. But we played many good matches in this campaign,» said Puzhich.
