Cyprus calm despite Bosnia and Herzegovina win

• Dimitris Christofi scores twice as visitors come from behind to win in Zenica
• Forward describes victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina as "a huge result for us"
• Cyprus coach Charalampos Christodoulou asks fans to "push us on"
• Safet Sušić admits "nothing worked" for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Charalampos Christodoulou, Cyprus coach
Whatever I say about the players and their performance will be too little. The boys have been doing themselves an injustice all this time. Whatever happens in our group, we remain outsiders. We will see what happens game by game. We played a tough team in a hostile venue, but the players were not affected despite going behind. We created chances to score even more goals. Bosnia also had their opportunities and we needed some luck, but we deserved the three points.

We knew that we could compete even though we were nervous against a fantastic side with quality players early on. The goal just before half-time gave us strength and belief and in the second half, our tactics to hit them on the break worked. The most important thing for me is that the team played for each other and were united in helping each other.

Now is the time for fans to come and embrace the team because we have a tough game against Israel. These players and this team are on the right track but we need our fans to push us on. This is a massive win but we need to take each game at a time. We are the outsiders but if we continue to play like this then we can achieve more. We would love the fans to come and welcome us at the airport. That would give us great joy!

Dimitris Christofi, Cyprus forward
The most important thing is to win but we need to be realistic and to remember who were are. We need to thank God who was with us and [Antonis] Georgallides also needs congratulations for saving the penalty. It was great to score because I needed it also.

We'd hoped to keep it tight at the back and score a goal. In the end, we surprised everyone and got a huge result. We defeated big opponents and our victory is totally deserved, but we haven't become a superpower overnight. We need to remain calm and to enjoy this win.

Antonis Georgallides, Cyprus goalkeeper
I made the right decision [to dive the right way for the penalty] but the most important thing was that we won. All the players deserve credit as well as the coaching staff. It helped that we had lots of time together to prepare for this game. All the players are great characters and that helped too. We need to take everything one step at a time. We will enjoy this win tonight but tomorrow we get back to work. We are the outsiders and we have hard fixtures ahead.

Constantinos Makrides, Cyprus captain
This was a big win and all the players worked hard. Congratulations to everyone in the team and coaching staff. We now look ahead. Bosnia are a great side and they pressured us with their quality and fans. We were a bit nervous in the beginning but we believed more in the second half. Our equaliser helped us mentally. It's always good to start with a win but our feet are on the ground.

Stathis Aloneftis, Cyprus winger
It's three points but it's still just one win, even though it's against a good side away from home. This was a good psychological win for us, which is an important side. We need to knuckle down and get back to work because now we have Israel.

Safet Sušić, Bosnia and Herzegovina head coach
We didn't deserve to win. We played well for the first ten minutes and got an early goal. After that, simply nothing worked. It looked like we were satisfied with an early lead, and having a one-goal advantage against a team like Cyprus is just not enough. Then we didn't use some good chances to get another goal. It was a bad day.

Edin Džeko, Bosnia and Herzegovina captain
We started well, scored at the right time and had several opportunities to get another, but it didn't work. We conceded both goals easily, and after that nothing was going right. We hit the post, we didn't score the penalty. This was obviously not our day. In the second half we didn't play well at all. We were all on one side of the pitch and couldn't organise ourselves.

We were hoping to win and this defeat made things a bit harder for us – we have three tough matches ahead of us.

Miralem Pjanić, Bosnia and Herzegovina midfielder
I feel sorry for my team and our fans. I took the penalty and didn't score, and I take responsibility for this loss. It is true that this is just the beginning of qualification, and that we still have time to fix things, but I'm sorry it ended up this way. Right now I can't explain why we played so badly.