The Italian Roberto De ZerbiShakhtar Donetsk coach, was critical of the referee’s performance by ensuring that the first goal, an own goal by Ukrainian Serhiy Kryvtsov, should not have “counted & rdquor; since the french Karim Benzema, who is looking for the ball “was offside & rdquor;. “We did not play badly in the first half. The first goal should not have counted because Benzema was offside & rdquor ;, he said in the post-match press conference in which he compared it to the one scored by Mbappé against Spain in the Nations League final.
“It is not the most terrible defeat of my career, sometimes it happens to any coach. My team tried to play their football. We played well in the first half: we played with courage and controlled the ball. Although we conceded the first goal, it was not a poor performance. But in the second half, Vinícius scored an early goal and made things very difficult for us, “he added. “What I didn’t like was that we let go at the end, after 3-0. I asked during the break to be careful in case this happened and, as you can see, the players did not hear me & rdquor ;, completed a De Zerbi who expressed his anger on the bench throughout the game.
For his part, Israel’s Manor Solomon, a winger for Shakhtar, described the defeat as just: “We have to analyze this game and see what we have done wrong. Madrid has been the best team, has dominated and controlled the ball well. They have deserved this victory. It is not what we expected or what we wanted, but we have to move on, “he said in statements collected by UEFA.com.” I think they were also better in the first half, but not that much. The own goal was really tough for us. But it’s football, sometimes these things can happen. We are an offensive team, we always want to score and win any game. Tonight we also wanted to win. Even if it’s Real Madrid, we knew we could do it. But today everything went wrong, “he added.