Hosiner hails Austria Wien 'fighting spirit'

FK Austria Wien earned a UEFA Champions League group stage debut despite a 3-2 home play-off second-leg defeat by GNK Dinamo Zagreb and Philipp Hosiner put it down to "fighting spirit" and a little bit of luck after setting up Roman Kiesnast for the decisive goal.

When Dinamo went 3-1 up on 70 minutes, they led on away goals and were on the verge of being only the second team in European Cup history to lose by two in a home first leg and still go through. However, Kienast made it 4-3 on aggregate with eight minutes left and Dinamo captain Josip Šimunić was left with a mixture of despair and pride as his team transfer to the UEFA Europa League.

Philipp Hosiner, Austria Wien forward
During the game your head is empty. We were fighting for 180 minutes and showed good football. We're in the Champions League because of our passion, because of our fighting spirit. Dinamo have very strong players. They showed their strength much more than last week, Sammir especially was very good, together with their wingers, but after scoring two home goals we deserved to go through.

I had to react very quickly [for the decisive goal]. At first I wanted to make a cross. Then the ball came back to me, so I decided to give it a try. I know Roman pretty well, so I lifted the ball with a header over the defence and it turned out completely right. Roman did a good job to finish it off.

Florian Mader, Austria Wien midfielder
I think it is harder for the fans than the players. As a player you don't get to think that much. You can never give up. We have worked hard for this and now we are enjoying the success. I won't be able to sleep, we are going to party a little bit. We deserve it.

We knew that it wpuld be hard. We played better after scoring the second goal. We felt more energy in our legs, though in the end we were a bit lucky.

Josip Šimunić, Dinamo Zagreb captain
We showed our true face today and played a pretty good match. We conceded an early goal, but then we showed our character. We got into into the rhythm, got into our minds what we wanted to play, but unfortunately conceded the second. It should have been a different game after scoring the third. We should have defend properly, we didn't and were punished. That's the difference between the Champions League and Europa League. We lost the game, more or less, in Zagreb. The 2-0 from the first leg was probably a bit too much.

That's football, that's life. You have to deal with positive and negative things. Today negative feelings prevail. Nevertheless – I have to give a big compliment to my team. It's going to be hard for Austria Wien. But I have to congratulate them, as well as [their Croatian coach] Nenad Bjelica. I hope they do well and achieve a couple of good results.