Pereira points to Porto's 'great spirit'

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
I have to say sorry to our fans for the results we've recorded in this Champions League. We made quite a good start in the first match in Porto, but we after we let in the second goal and lost two players because of red cards, it all went completely wrong. We couldn't do anything right. That was the case today as well; we had an advantage in terms of ball control and scoring chances. We hit the post twice and if we could only score, the match would have been totally different. There are years when luck is just not on your side.

The strong character of Porto players probably had a big part in this result. They still had chances to reach the round of 16, while we lost ours even before this game. Of course, we can talk about our squad problems now, but the players who took the field today could have done much, much better. Porto were under huge pressure as well, but they played a good match. On the other hand, they created nothing in attack before Hulk scored. Usually luck is on the side of the brave. I suppose Porto were braver than us today.

Vítor Pereira, Porto coach
We said before the game that we would fight for the UEFA Champions League and we want to continue in the competition. We depend only on ourselves, we want qualification and those will be our thoughts at home against Zenit. The praise goes to the players who played with a great spirit. We know what we want and we will fight for it.

Today we saw a very consistent FC Porto that knew what it wanted. Then the players' talent did the rest. Hulk played in the middle today because his capacity to explode and his quality enables him to play as a winger or in the middle. Today we felt that it would be best to play him in the middle. We weren't at our best but sometimes a team needs to hit the bottom to be able to rise again. Real teams and men appear at these moments.