De Boer delighted after Ajax's first win

Krunoslav Jurčić, Dinamo coach
I told my players to give everything they could and I would be satisfied. We are not clinical enough in front of goal for this level of competition and the general consensus is that Ajax are better because of this. Our plan was to press Ajax in the early phases of their attacks, but our problem is that we haven't scored a goal. We had four or five good chances to score and we couldn't do it. We tried to win the match, we didn't and now we need to focus on the future.

Frank de Boer, Ajax coach
I am very happy as we dominated most of the time. They started pretty well and had two good chances to score at the beginning. They had one more after that because of Gregory van der Wiel's bad pass but he has been playing very well for a few years and something like that can happen. After that we got a grip on the game and at certain points we had 66% possession. We also created some chances in the first half but failed to take them.

It was also important to not concede a goal. That is important for the goalkeeper, the defence and the whole team but obviously the victory is the most important thing. At half-time I said we had to drop the ball in behind their defence more as that caused them a lot of trouble. I was disappointed we did not score one or two goals sooner.

We knew from the start that Madrid away would be a difficult task and that although we would like to take three points at home to Lyon, the Zagreb matches would be crucial to at least play in Europe after the winter break. We have taken a big step in the right direction, although obviously we also want to be in the Champions League after winter.