Penalty homework earns Carroll dream results

Roy Carroll enjoyed a dream debut as Olympiacos FC earned a 1-0 victory in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League round of 32 tie against FC Rubin Kazan. The Northern Irishman, making debut for the Greek champions after Balázs Megyeri was sent off for bringing down Gökdeniz Karadeniz, produced a fantastic penalty save, with his first ever touch for the club, to deny Bebras Natcho's well-placed spot kick.

Roy Carroll, Olympiacos goalkeeper
It was nice; it was a dream start for me. I wasn't expecting to come on and save a penalty but that's what I had to do. The players have all done really well and we have managed to keep a clean sheet so it's not all down to me. Balázs made a wonderful save before that.

I managed to get down very well but with penalties, keepers do have to take a guess. The coaches were talking to both keepers before the game and telling us where he might try and put a penalty, so it's good that the coaches are doing their homework and keeping us informed.

I thought we could have scored some more goals as we had a few chances before we scored. The weather conditions were very difficult but the guys played really well today.

David Fuster, Olympiacos goalscorer
I thought we were the better team, especially in the first half, as we managed to create a number of chances which we were unable to convert. Towards the end of the game we started to attack more and got the goal, so we are going home with the result we wanted.

It was difficult to adapt to the cold weather as it's really strange for us to play in such freezing conditions. In the end we managed to get the result we needed and I thought it was fully deserved.

Roman Sharonov, Rubin captain
I think our main problem was a lack of match practice. We have been training ahead of the game and preparing, but this is no substitute for playing matches, which Olympiacos have been doing. We were preparing for this match at our training camp in Spain so the weather and the synthetic pitch were new for us as well. There is still the second leg to go and we still have a chance of making it through to the next round.

Cristian Ansaldi, Rubin defender
I thought our opponents had the better of the first half, but we were much improved after half-time. However, it was difficult for us after we conceded the goal as time was running out. We shouldn't blame our defeat on the weather conditions. Both clubs were in exactly the same situation and the loss was down to things that happened on the pitch. I think a draw would have been a better reflection of the game.