Ketsbaia enjoys anniversary waltz

Temuri Ketsbaia felt his Anorthosis Famagusta FC side rose to the occasion of the 48th anniversary of Cypriot independence to create their own slice of history with a first ever UEFA Champions League win courtesy of a 3-1 success against Panathinaikos FC. The coach insisted that luck played only a small part in the victory but both he and visiting coach Henk Ten Cate pointed to the home side's two goals in the opening 15 minutes – an own goal by José Sarriegi and Siniša Dobrašinović's second – were the major factor in the result. Debutants Anorthosis now have four points from two matches, along with Italian giants FC Internazionale Milano, while the Greek outfit have yet to open their account.

Temuri Ketsbaia, Anorthosis coach 
Congratulations to the players for this victory. It is a historic day for the country today and we marked it with another historic day for us. The whole of Europe will talk about Cyprus and Anorthosis tomorrow. After we made it 2-0 we retreated – we did not have a clear mind to hold on to the ball. The players worked hard on the pitch but we also had luck and you need luck to defeat such a big team. What counts for us is that we did not allow our opponents to create chances, then we scored the third goal in the second half and won the game.

We now have enough time to rest and relax, and when the games start again we will be stronger. We have four points now but it doesn't mean we have achieved something. We will try to play like this in every game to try to win points. We do not care what others say about us; if we win points then they can say what they want. We had luck today but not everything is based on that. We scored three and they scored one so I don't know if it was all lucky.

Henk Ten Cate, Panathinaikos coach
The first goal was very bad because we had to give up our game plan after eleven minutes and they could play their favourite game. Four minutes later, it was even worse because we gave away the second. If you are losing 2-0 after 15 minutes you have to leave your game plan and do something else. Our plan was to defend with more people and to play our own game but we couldn't do that. We had to change everything and put more bodies forwards. We were the better team in the first half – we had some chances and scored a goal – but in the second we didn't create enough. They put more bodies in front of goal so it was very hard to go through the middle. We had to attack from the wings and with so many tall players in the box it was easy for them to defend.

I didn't underestimate Anorthosis; I didn't tell my players to head the ball into their own goal. We lost and I'm disappointed at that. It's not my style to apportion blame personally – you win as a team and you lose as a team – but it was personal mistakes today that cost us the game. The way we gave away the goals was not how you win games. We did not do well with the set-pieces – that was the only thing wrong because during the game they did not create any chances.