Juventus confidence growing by the game

Angelo Alessio, Juventus assistant coach
We are happy with victory, with qualification and with first place. It was an important, and tricky, game. We were fully aware of how strong Shakhtar are, so we knew we needed a great performance tonight and we did just that. The key to beating Shakhtar is limiting the impact of their forwards. Willian, Alex Teixeira and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are all great players, but as a team they depend a lot on the individual skills of their forwards, so you have to defend well against them if you want to beat them.

Now I hope we can avoid Real Madrid in the round of 16 – the other teams we could possibly face are all more or less at the same level. In the 3-0 win against Chelsea we really gained an understanding that we were good enough to do well in Europe and tonight the level of confidence we reached two weeks ago in Turin was crucial to earn another important victory. We risked almost nothing today, playing with a great mentality.

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
I would say the team who wanted it more won in the end. However, it was an even game and I am pretty satisfied with our performance. Juventus played with more aggression and determination as we 'failed our exam with the professor'.

We did our best, I tried to motivate my lads, but it was not enough. We are still happy to qualify, because we need to play more matches against high-quality, respected sides. However, we are not afraid of anyone in the draw, but maybe just a little worried about Barcelona.