Lucescu enjoys 'deserved result'

Victorious FC Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu felt the win for his side was a 'deserved result' and lavished praise on his midfielders as they gave the Ukrainian side the platform to take the Group D points. It left his opposite number, SL Benfica coach José António Camacho, disappointed and thinking his improving team just need the rub of the green to start turning their promising performances into results.

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
It was a deserved result. We played well and created lots of chances. We started well, controlled the play and from the early stages we were dangerous. These are three important points and a boost for the next match against AC Milan. Benfica's play was all about Rui Costa, Angel Di María and Cristián Rodríguez, and we forced them to play long balls to Óscar Cardozo. The final minutes were hard because they attacked in numbers but we could still have scored on the counterattack. I know the merits of Benfica and Shakhtar and I always knew we would come out on top. Our midfielders Jadson and Fernandinho played well and it's wonderful to see how they are now after three seasons with us.

José António Camacho, Benfica coach
In football, whoever scores wins. We played to score but they did so on a counterattack and won the game. Benfica have a good attitude but we need time to improve. We are building a team to win and we are giving it our best; we just need the ball to run to give us the confidence we need to be better. The dressing room has to know that we have work to do and if we beat Celtic [FC] we are back on track. If we score, everything will change. That's all we need - it doesn't matter how many strikers we have. We played some decent football and although at times we had five, six, seven men in the area, the ball refused to go in.