Mircea Lucescu: We made major errors

23-05-15 21:03:47

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Post-match press conference by Shakhtar head coach.

- Dnipro have deserved to win today, they operated with greater motivation and desire. Meanwhile, we haven’t shown all those qualities. We played as if we were on holiday. When they scored the third goal against us, we lost the balance, while the opponents acted with greater confidence and aggression. We made some major errors, lost the ball in simple situations. Dnipro capitalised on that. Of course, Teixeira, Wellington and Hladkyi could have scored, but it wouldn’t change my opinion of today's match. It is hard for the players to grasp that they are playing not against the reserves, but against the strong opponents of Dnipro, who want to prove their worth. For this reason, Rakitskiy got a yellow card, letting his team down ahead of the next match. We will restore the players who haven’t appeared: Taison, Costa and Adriano. We'll do that in order to have the best line-up in the last two games of the season – against Karpaty in the Cup final.

- Mr. Lucescu, there are rumours that you intend to leave Shakhtar Donetsk.
- I have repeatedly answered this question, I wouldn’t like to come back to this issue again and repeat it. It is clear that we are in a difficult situation. And it is very difficult to motivate the players and keep them on a tight rein. But we all live in hope that we will return to our home, the Donbass Arena, and will play our games there.

- Today, the game was officiated by your favourite lineswoman, but this fact notwithstanding, your players and you seemed to have some criticism of the refereeing ...
- Our players were nervous. Therefore, I’ve got no criticism to any of today’s officials: neither to the ref, nor to the linesmen. You know, when something goes wrong on the pitch, emotions and vociferation come to the fore. It so happened today to Rakitskiy. We should think that we still have one more game. They shouldn’t be that nervous, Fred did the same mistake.

- When Srna left the pitch, who did you appoint as the captain?
- Adriano wasn’t present today, the captain’s duties were carried out by Teixeira. We field some experienced Brazilian players who have been at the team for long, when Darijo is absent. Had we had Kucher though, we would have given him the captain’s armband.

- What do you wish Dnipro in the Europa League final?
- I am very happy for Markevych. I wish that the strong team of Dnipro claim the Europa League title. Because Dnipro raise the standard of the Ukrainian football in general. Maybe, through Dnipro’s good performance and the points they claim we will get closer to the time when two clubs make it into the Champions League. That’s a success for everyone.

FC Shakhtar