Nkufo promises more from Twente

Blaise Nkufo scored twice as FC Twente earned a shock 2-1 win at Fenerbahçe SK and told uefa.com: "We played against a big team and showed good character which is very good sign for the future."

Important signal
The 34-year-old Swiss international ended the hosts' six-match winning run with two goals in the last 15 minutes at the Şükrü Saraçoğlu Stadium to give his side an early claim to top spot in UEFA Europa League Group H. "Scoring two goals is important but what is more important is we have started the competition very well as a team," said the Zaire-born Nkufo. "We came here with a very good mentality. We played against a big team and showed good character which is very good for the future."

'A big word'
Coach Steve McClaren encouraged his side to "dare to play football" as they took on the Istanbul side, and while they did that admirably, Nkufo was not quite convinced that they merited all three points. "Deserve? It's a big word," he said. "But I think we showed good control. They were maybe better, you know, with a few combinations, but it's normal; they are playing at home. But we defended well and we also had chances to score the first goal, but we didn't. After going behind, it's always tough, but we kept going, and in the end we scored and we won."

Calm approach
Victory brought celebrations to the streets of Enschede, with players hearing reports of cars honking horns in jubilation back at home. Midfielder Ronnie Stam said he had received "18 text messages" within minutes of the final whistle, and said: "When you come here you don't know what to expect because you hear a lot of stories. The crowd was fantastic and the coach said that we had to silence them. You need to have the courage to play football, to hold the ball, to be calm and we did it. If you do that, you can play football anywhere."

'They just go forward'
Stam still believes Fenerbahçe are favourites to win the section, with the wonderful free-kick with which Mehmet Topuz opened the scoring showing some of their class. However, Slovakian substitute Miroslav Stoch – on loan from Chelsea FC – said Fenerbahçe's reputation only underlined the extend of Twente's achievement. "Even big teams don't win here, so it's a big win for us," he told uefa.com, admitting that his international team-mate, Beşiktaş JK winger Filip Hološko had warned him what to expect of Fenerbahçe. "He said they were a good team but you can play against them because they don't defend, they just go forward. We knew that and we prepared very well for this game."