The Pitmen’s home match will take place in Hamburg on November 7
Head coach Shakhtar Marino Pusic believes that the Miners will be able to fight Barcelona in the fourth round match of Group H Champions League.
“There were important players in the starting line-up of the last game. Unfortunately, they are not here now. I am absolutely sure that those who replace Bondarenko and Konoplya will play well. Our team is getting better every day, I see the capabilities of different players, I create my plan in my head. To be honest, I immediately knew who would replace them. But I can’t tell you now.”
“You can’t call it a home game because we were traveling for hours to get to our destination. This, of course, requires adaptation, requires being strong in spirit – and I see this in my team. We are happy to be here, there is time for a short training session to prepare for tomorrow. But to be honest, it’s definitely not ideal when you have to travel for so long. This is my first experience, or even my second, because we were returning after the match with Barcelona. But this is the first experience with such a game ahead – it is special. But we’re not here to complain, we’re here to compete. And all this. We’re not here to complain about long journeys or that we’re wasting a lot of time or not doing extra training or anything like that. We’re not complaining, we came here to fight and play this match.”
“Like every team, we know the strength of Barcelona – they are a great club. In my opinion, one of the best in Europe. It’s always a big challenge to play against such a team.”
“We already met a week ago, we felt their strength, but also their weaknesses, so our job is to find them again, try to use the analysis and fight, as I already said. For us it’s a game, we shouldn’t lose anything. I just want my team to come out, let us fight, work on our aspects and fundamentals of the game again. We’ll see where it takes us, but I want us to be bold and do our best in this game.”
“I don’t quite believe when they say that a certain team is not at its best at a certain moment, because every time it is a different game. Barcelona has an amazing number of good performers and they can afford to make a lot of changes. But we are here to compete. I want to see the implementation of what we worked on in training. We’ll see how it all works out.”
“Any team can lose the Clasico, the chances are always 50/50. I wouldn’t say they’re going through a difficult period. It is possible to draw a difficult away game. They continue to fight for the championship and are now in third place. I know this is a very good team. It doesn’t change my opinion.”
The match between Shakhtar and Barcelona will take place on November 7. The meeting in Hamburg starts at 19:45. Let us remind you that in the third round match, Xavi’s team beat the Miners – 2:1.
Shakhtar are in third place in Group H of the Champions League. Barcelona are in the lead with 9 points from three matches.
Source: Sportarena
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