Marica plays down Romania win, Greece reflect

• Romania captain Ciprian Marica quells euphoria after Greece win
• Defender Dragoş Grigore grateful for "birthday present"
• Greece coach Claudio Ranieri "not angry" with his side

Ciprian Marica, Romania captain
We clinched three very important points, but it's only the first match. We are not any nearer to qualification. We have to make the most of our home matches. We will celebrate tonight, but let's not get carried away.

Dragoş Grigore, Romania defender
It was the best birthday present I could have had. I am very happy also that we made our coach happy, considering there was all this talk about his job lately. We are very good in defence and that's why we held on for victory despite playing with ten men for the last 40 minutes.

Alexandru Chipciu, Romania midfielder
I was sure we would win after seeing the Greek players on the pitch at the beginning of the match. They were not at their best and were misplacing lots of passes. Five minutes after Marica was sent off, it became evident that our defensive tactics were spot on and that we would hold on for the victory.

Victor Piţurcă, Romania coach
This was a very important victory against probably the best team in the group. We knew they were tired because of the World Cup and they were also missing four or five very good players.

We were unfazed by the sending-off of Marica. We were focused and Greece did not play that well, so we won the match. My players realised they had to put on a great display tonight to win here and that's what they did. We played like a team and that's what counts. And when you see that some of our more influential players had a good game, it's no wonder we won.

Kostas Manolas, Greece defender
It was a bad day at the office, but we will learn from it. We didn't create chances and nothing really worked for us. Our qualification is not in danger, though. There is a long way to go and now we need to go to Finland and win. We have proved in the past that, when the going gets tough, we get better.

Panagiotis Tachtsidis, Greece midfielder
I believe that this new team of ours will eventually succeed. We need to be patient and results will come. We didn't do what our coach asked us to on the pitch – nothing worked.

Claudio Ranieri, Greece coach
It was a bad match, but a draw would have been a fairer result. They had already played six matches and we'd only played one game. We made a lot of mistakes because we weren't ready. I thank my players and they showed they had the will to do something more, but sometimes they didn't play for their team-mates.

I'm not angry. It was the first match and nothing has really changed. Greece and Romania remain the favourites in the group.