Gross grieved by Shakhtar setback

Christian Gross, Basel coach
Some defeats are not so clear-cut but Shakhtar were deserved winners tonight. We allowed them too much space and only at the start of either half did we conjure up the pressure we needed to win this match. Shakhtar showed us our limits, though it was not easy for us, playing without people like Marco Streller or Ivan Ergić. Nothing is lost yet, but we will have to play much, much better. We know that Shakhtar are technically very strong and they were certainly precise, moving the ball around well. A number of our players had problems finding their rhythm at this level, though, and were nervous. But I am not going to rip the team apart; we need to carefully analyse our mistakes and learn from them in order to do better in the coming games.

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
We expected Basel to put a lot of pressure on us with their great fans behind them, but in the first half we dominated. Basel did not provide too much to concern us, although in the second half they grew in strength and we made a few mistakes. I am a little disappointed about the goal Basel scored, but we played well and deserved to win. I am totally satisfied that we started the group phase with a win and now we want to pick up more points in our first home game against FC Barcelona. In order to do that we will need to perform strongly again, or even improve.