Ivanov relieved after close call

Russia coach Oleg Ivanov breathed a sign of relief as his team edged to victory in their opening UEFA European Futsal Championship Group B fixture with Serbia. The underdogs came back from two down to make it 3-3 before Cirilo completed a hat-trick and put the 2005 runners-up level on three points with holders Spain. Serbia's Aca Kovačević bemoaned defensive errors but remained upbeat.

Aca Kovačević, Serbia coach
It was a very hard and tight match, but maybe our players weren’t prepared for this game. Nevertheless we tried our best. The most important thing today were the two defensive mistakes we made, which allowed Russia to take the points. The group is very well-balanced and we’ll do our best to get a place in the semi-finals.

Oleg Ivanov, Russia coach
Today's match was very complicated with lots of goals. Serbia showed why they qualified for these finals. Maybe the fact we scored the first goal so early made our team relax too much. As we all know, if we don't score goals we risk being caught out and that's what happened today. We missed several chances in the first half and then Serbia scored their first chance of the second. It was a very hard-fought win for us and now we'll aim to perfect our game for the next matches. This win is very important mainly because it was our first match of the tournament. Cirilo is a strong forward who is capable of deciding a match on his own. He provides us with more tactical options and we are profiting from that. Now we must deal with Ukraine.