Melikyan: We lost decently
Saturday, July 29, 2017
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The head coach of Stal shared his take on the meeting
- It turned out a good dynamic encounter. The fact that Shakhtar operates at high pace is known by everyone, but we’ve also shown that Stal are capable of showcasing some brisk modern football. As for the defeat ... I teach my young subordinates that they should know both how to win and how to lose decently. Today we have conceded adequately. You know that we have some fitness issues. This factor can’t be solved in a short time. That’s why in the end they lost in terms of speed and conceded a goal. My congratulations to Shakhtar on the win, and I wish them every success in the Champions League. Meanwhile, we’ve shown that we can showcase some team football and that we have mettle. Well, the fact that we lost is another issue. We are on the right track. And to those who didn’t believe in our young team we prove that we are ready to play at this level and deliver good performance at the same time. Whether we can achieve further results we’ll find out in due course.
- The opponents’ coach complained about the poor pitch. Did it hinder your performance?
- When playing against Shakhtar, you don’t pay any attention to weather conditions or the pitch quality. In any case, we would have had problems in the match against this team. And today the opponents created them for us. Some of them (those that I noticed) I tried to solve in the course of the game, and in the end we managed to prove ourselves. The only bad thing is that we made mistakes in the episodes when they scored against us. But in general, my lads did well. They decently proved themselves in the encounter with such a club. The guys’ attitude to what they do, their work on the field were more important to me rather than the outcome. And they’ve proved that they have a future.
- Did you congratulate Paulo Fonseca on the win after the final whistle?
- There was some misunderstanding. I wanted to congratulate the coach, but it didn’t happen. At that moment, Paulo Fonseca was with his players, and we didn’t see each other. But later we met, I congratulated him, just as he did to us ‒ on the good performance. We have with my colleague some excellent respectful relations.
- The opponents’ coach complained about the poor pitch. Did it hinder your performance?
- When playing against Shakhtar, you don’t pay any attention to weather conditions or the pitch quality. In any case, we would have had problems in the match against this team. And today the opponents created them for us. Some of them (those that I noticed) I tried to solve in the course of the game, and in the end we managed to prove ourselves. The only bad thing is that we made mistakes in the episodes when they scored against us. But in general, my lads did well. They decently proved themselves in the encounter with such a club. The guys’ attitude to what they do, their work on the field were more important to me rather than the outcome. And they’ve proved that they have a future.
- Did you congratulate Paulo Fonseca on the win after the final whistle?
- There was some misunderstanding. I wanted to congratulate the coach, but it didn’t happen. At that moment, Paulo Fonseca was with his players, and we didn’t see each other. But later we met, I congratulated him, just as he did to us ‒ on the good performance. We have with my colleague some excellent respectful relations.