Peseiro: Shakhtar are favourites

- Braga met with Shakhtar four times. And each time they failed. Will it be additional motivation for you and what do you expect from the upcoming meeting in general?
- Tomorrow we are playing against pretty strong team featuring very good players. That’s our motivation. And, knowing all the strengths of the opponents, we will try to show our best qualities to achieve a result.

- This morning, the president of Braga said that, without a doubt, Shakhtar are simply unbeatable. Will you be satisfied with the second spot in the group?
- Yes, we understand that Shakhtar are very strong team and, in our opinion, they are the favourites. But in football, anything may happen. Therefore, we will prepare to win only and, of course, we want to achieve it. The opponents have all the right qualities to succeed. Unfortunately, they haven’t made it further in the Champions League, losing to Young Boys. For us, meeting with the Swiss would be better than taking on the Donetsk side now. But we are not going to talk about that any more. We got quite a tough group and we will try to advance further. No matter whether we do it from the first or second spot.

- Is the fact that Paulo Fonseca well knows Braga Shakhtar’s advantage?
- What do you want me to tell you... Yes, Paulo Fonseca knows Braga and its players well. But what happens on the pitch tomorrow will count. You should never look back into the past. Yes, we perfectly understand that he knows certain things about our team. But our guys are equally well aware of his ideas. So tomorrow will be absolutely level competition, with us striving to win it.

- You have lost four times to Paulo Fonseca’s outfits. For the last time - in the Portuguese Cup final. Will it be an additional motivation for you?
- First of all, tomorrow will be no meeting between the coaches, but the two teams instead. History is something you cannot change. We must move on, progress and try to beat them. Of course, it is a kind of motivation for me. Yes, my teams lost four times, including the defeat on penalties in the Cup final. But again, it’s not worthwhile looking back. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

- How different are the current Shakhtar from the Braga coached by Paulo Fonseca? Or, on the contrary, they are similar?..
- We all need to understand that absolutely identical teams don’t exist. That might be due to completely different players who are not ready to practise certain style. But, nevertheless, I know that Paulo has his own idea. As far as I understand, he wants Shakhtar to adopt it. But he needs some time. Mircea Lucescu has been here for so many years, and now Fonseca needs to rebuild everything.

- Won’t tomorrow happen the same thing as in the match against Benfica, when the team were very well motivated, they got off to a flying start, finally suffering a defeat?
- We always try to play well, giving our all from the off. And, of course, we want to win tomorrow to approach our next game in the Portuguese league in a good mood, with positive emotions.

- What personnel issues do you have before the upcoming meeting?
- All those who came to Lviv, are ready to take to the pitch. And we believe in those guys.