Mircea Lucescu: We looked fairly good for league season start

18-02-15 02:16:01

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Post-match press conference by Shakhtar head coach.

- I'll make it shorter than Guardiola did. Everyone must’ve got tired, and it's too late ... I'm happy with today's game and the fact that all around me are probably happy as well. Given the conditions in which we’ve been working and living, alongside the fact that we didn’t play any competitive games for two months, our major objective is making a good impression. Plus having a fair chance for the return leg. We have it so far! As well as the time until March 11. Now we are going to play friendly matches at a training camp. Then the league season will resume. We will train so as to try to make it further. We played against a very good, well-organized team. Bayern came to Lviv with great enthusiasm after dispatching Hamburg 8-0. This made us be more attentive and organized defensively. And pay less attention to attacking. And when we still charged, our opponents had to foul. This resulted in yellow cards, alongside one sending-off. I just regret the fact that we didn’t showcase our game while having a numerical advantage. Instead of controlling the ball and beating the short-handed opponents, for some reason we started to play long balls. This applies to our defenders. Those passes were not always comfortable, so our attacking players had to pick the ball not in very comfortable conditions. Both teams showed fairly good football. I think we looked good enough for league season start.

- Shakhtar had a numerical advantage for as many as 25 minutes. It would seem that the stands were expecting more edge, though the number of dangerous situations did not increase at all. What’s the reason behind it? After all, there was a chance.
- Unfortunately, we made mistakes defensively, in particular Rakitskiy made several errors. This led to the fact that the opponents created chances every now and then. To an extent, we wanted to make it safer for ourselves. This is a problem from which we must draw conclusions. Yet the physical condition does not allow us to look the way we want for 90 minutes against the team who have already been playing league games, being a very good club in general. The freshness of Nem, who had been fielded towards the end of the game, was noticeable. Wellington looked light enough today.


- What did Bayern surprise you with?
- This is a team with their own style, and they do not change it depending on any specific players on the field. It is important that we managed to block their attacks and leading players. By and large, they did not create many chances. Had we had more practice and competitive games, we could have achieved a better result. Although I want to repeat it again: if Bayern make it past us, they will progress to the final of the competition. This is a very good team. If we add up the age of our defensive midfielders - they are 40 together, and Schweinsteiger and Alonso make it 63. They have 23 more years of experience, and that suggests something as well.

FC Shakhtar
Press Office