Dortmund not done yet, says Lewandowski

Robert Lewandowski told UEFA.com he was "very happy" to have hit the winner in Borussia Dortmund's 1-0 Group D victory against AFC Ajax on matchday one, while defender Mats Hummels revealed his gratitude to the Polish international after his penalty miss almost cost the hosts the points.

Robert Lewandowski, Dortmund forward
It was an important win and I'm very happy to have contributed with my goal. The first match in the group is always particularly important, so it's good we got the three points. 'Kehli' [Sebastian Kehl] laid the ball off perfectly. I wanted to shoot straight away, but then I saw I had to wait. When the ball went into the far corner, it was a great feeling.

Last year was our first time in the Champions League. This time we're a better team with more potential. There's plenty more to come from us. I'm delighted to have been chosen as man of the match but ultimately it was the team who won.

We've got a tough task ahead [at Manchester City FC]. They have a very good team with a lot of stars, but we can win this game too. We're Borussia Dortmund and we want to progress. Hopefully we can get a similar result in Manchester.

Mats Hummels, Dortmund defender
It was a tiring game, but it was also a lot of fun, so it was no hardship working hard and fighting to the end. We want to show that we can do better than last year. I think we've done that to an extent, even if this is just the first game. We wanted to put ourselves in with a chance of qualifying, so victory today was imperative.

I know that players miss penalties now and again so that's nothing I can't deal with, but when I take one as badly as I did tonight, I get hugely annoyed with myself. I'm furious at how easy I made it for the goalkeeper.

Robert Lewandowski had a number of good moments despite being given a tough time by the Ajax defenders. He gets a special pat on the back from me, of course. We haven't achieved anything yet, but we're in a better position than we were this time last year when we drew our first match. Next up, it's off to Manchester and we want to take something from that game too.

Roman Weidenfeller, Dortmund goalkeeper
It was a tough game, but we knew that Ajax are a great team who can play very good football. We had to be patient in waiting for our chance, but when it came we seized it by scoring the winner.

It was difficult at the start because Ajax played so well, especially considering they were away from home, but we defended well. Now we want to prove ourselves away from home with a good performance at Manchester City. We want to show we're capable of competing with the top teams.

Robert Lewandowski is very important for us. Obviously he scored the winning goal, but there are lots of cogs in the machine and he's only one of them.

Daley Blind, Ajax defender
It's very disappointing to concede such a late goal, but I think we can be proud of our team. We're a young side and we played the way we want to play. We had a lot of possession and we created chances too. If we'd scored one of them then it would have been a different story. I think we did well.

From that moment [when Kenneth Vermeer saved Hummels's second-half penalty] everyone felt we had a chance. We fought until the final seconds, so it was very frustrating to concede as we did.

It's a very difficult group. We just have to play our games in the way we want to play. If we do that, we can make it difficult for any team. I think we showed today how Ajax play football. Aside from the possession and chances, we were also good in defence.

Kenneth Vermeer, Ajax goalkeeper
Of course we're disappointed. We played well, so to concede a goal three minutes from time was frustrating. We thought things might go our way [when Dortmund missed the penalty] and things were going well, at least until the end.

The only way we can qualify is to win our next games, but we know we're up against some tough teams. We have to play our own game and try to get results.

I'm really enjoying games like this in the Champions League. They're the best games a footballer can be involved in.