Mircea Lucescu: "We made errors due to lack of game practice."

After the match with Borussia, Shakhtar head coach answered the reporters' questions.

- It’s a pity that everything ended like that. While I think the result fully corresponds to what was happening on the pitch. Borussia showed themselves to be very powerful, fast and well-organized team. Let’s not forget that the first goal against us was scored after Chygrynskiy and Fernandinho slipped, so Lewandowski had nothing else to do but score that goal in the dying stages of the first half. And towards the end of the game the opponent again capitalized on our error.

First, they should not have cleared the ball towards the corner, knowing that Borussia are very strong in this component of the game. Plus they didn’t figure out Hummels, who scored and Andriy did not make a save, standing on the goal line. So, after our errors the score levelled. We started the game not very confidently, and in view of the fact that we didn’t have any official matches for two months, we probably did not know our current form.

However, we calmed down then and came a very beautiful goal by Srna. By and large, we started to boss it. But it was obvious that Borussia looked particularly good in the middle of the park – the opposing players, who were there, controlled the game very well. The end of the match, its dying minutes have shown that we have not learnt yet to fight for the positive result that we produced. And we were quite happy with the 2-1 score. We have three weeks before the return game. We will try within this time to rediscover our top form to make use of our chances in Germany.

- We made mistakes... I compare the opponent’s defensive mistakes and ours. We scored goals on the basis of our advance agreements. Owing to the preliminary study, we knew how Borussia play, and used those moments. While they scored against us after some children errors: in one case two defenders slipped and made it possible for Lewandowski to net it, then again, in the other case they did not closely mark Hummels in the dying minutes, and he fired home. Those are different errors. Let's hope we still have time. And Hubschman today looked completely different from what we are used to see. Kucher will probably feature in the lineup as well. I am confident that we will be better than today.