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Lyon look for more after Zorkiy cruise

Lotta Schelin wants a third straight title after Olympique Lyonnais' 9-0 victory at FK Zorkiy Krasnogorsk, whose coach told UEFA.com he had never "come across a side as good".

Lyon look for more after Zorkiy cruise
Lyon look for more after Zorkiy cruise ©uefa.com 1998-2012. All rights reserved.

Olympique Lyonnais took a further step towards a third straight UEFA Women's Champions League title with a 9-0 round of 16 first-leg win at debutants FK Zorkiy Krasnogorsk, with coach Patrice Lair hailing a "great all-round team performance" in freezing conditions.

The kick-off was delayed 30 minutes by a blizzard, but Lyon wasted no time in putting their Russian hosts to the sword, going in three up at the break thanks largely to two strikes from Louisa Necib. The France midfielder completed her hat-trick as Zorkiy tired in the second half, giving the visitors' array of attacking talent even more time and space on the ball.

Zorkiy coach Vladimir Vvedenski told UEFA.com: "I don't think I have ever come across a side as good as Olympique Lyonnais."

Patrice Lair, Lyon coach
I am very satisfied by today's result, although it was very difficult because of the weather conditions and to play in the snow is something we are not used to. However, I am very pleased with the effort my team put in. I thought the game would have been much harder. I am fully aware of how dangerous Zorkiy Krasnogorsk can be in attack. I was expecting them to take the game to us and knew we would have to defend well, because they are a team with the potential to score at any moment.

Today's performance wasn't about any individual, it was a team effort. The team played as a unit throughout the 90 minutes and we played well in both halves of the pitch. It was because of this that Louisa Necib had more space, but I certainly wouldn't single out any particular player as the whole team played very well.

Lotta Schelin, Lyon forward
I didn't find the weather conditions too difficult because we are always telling ourselves that anything can happen and we just need to stay strong and keep doing our thing, and we proved that today. It was really good for us to score three goals in the first half. In the second half we were given a lot of space and things opened up for us. We managed to score a lot of goals, which is great for confidence and great going into next week's game.

We are quietly confident of winning the UEFA Women's Champions League for a third successive time because we have almost the same team, while we have also brought in new players. We feel even stronger this year and we are not going to talk about anything other than winning this title again. We have a great chance of achieving this.

Vladimir Vvedenski, Zorkiy coach
They are an excellent side who were very well prepared for today's game, both from a physical and a tactical point of view. We are playing in the UEFA Women's Champions League for the first time, but unfortunately we weren't able to create anything today. It's a very good experience for us to play against a side as good as Olympique Lyonnais.

The girls were nervous coming into the game, because we have a number of players appearing in this competition for the first time. Maybe this had an effect on the final result, but then again these things happen and we need to learn from this. I don't think I have ever come across a side as good as Lyon, but I would like to point out that this is our debut in the competition and we have only been in the top domestic league for the last two seasons. Perhaps we are not ready to face teams like Lyon at the moment.

Ekaterina Sochneva, Zorkiy forward
It was really difficult out there, because Olympique Lyonnais are such a strong team in every aspect of their play. We are making our debut in the UEFA Women's Champions League this season and perhaps we were a bit unlucky to come up against such a strong side. We need to work on our mistakes and make sure that in the return leg we put in a good performance and don't lose by such a heavy score.

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