Blanc hails 'special night' for Paris and Zlatan
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Article summary
It was a "special night" for Zlatan Ibrahimović according to Paris coach Laurent Blanc who also had praise for Ángel Di María while Åge Hareide was left frustrated by Malmö's many errors.
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Article body
- Laurent Blanc hails a "special game" as Zlatan Ibrahimović makes his homecoming
- Paris boss salutes impact of goalscorers Ángel Di María and Adrien Rabiot
- Malmö's Åge Hareide frustrated by his side's mistakes
- Coach brands home performance "not good enough"
- Final Group A games: Paris v Shakhtar, Madrid v Malmö (8 December)
Åge Hareide, Malmö coach
Of course I am disappointed. We made so many mistakes both in front of their goal and ours. We have to minimise the errors because otherwise they hurt us. We need to take advantage of the chances we get. We have to score when we get opportunities. Paris are clinical when they get the chance. That was the biggest difference today.
We knew how good they are, but we cannot make so many errors. We were not on our feet at the beginning and they scored after three minutes. Of course it is difficult and not good enough.
Laurent Blanc, Paris coach
This was a special game with Zlatan Ibrahimović's return, the pitch and the weather. We did terrific work and in the first 15 minutes we showed Malmö that we were very serious and determined. We showed enough passion to win. It was a good night. We have made a good start to the season. Now we have to fight until the Christmas break and after that we have to play even better. We have lost one game, that hurts and it has cost us this group's first place.
It was a unique game so Thiago Silva asked me if Zlatan could be captain and we all agreed. It was special for him and we wanted to show that we understood that and supported him. We took Zlatan off because we wanted to give the crowd the chance to salute him since we had already won the game.
Ángel Di Maria has been terrific. Hopefully he can keep up the good form and continue at this level. I think he can do that. He is a key player and has proved he can score goals. Adrien Rabiot was very good in his first year, but for some reason something happened that has made him struggle. He has tremendous potential and we are about to see that. He is developing into a key player.
