Juventus at ease, Trabzonspor unbowed

Pablo Osvaldo hailed attacking partner Carlos Tévez after marking his first Juventus start with the opener in Thursday's 2-0 UEFA Europa League round of 32 win against Trabzonspor AŞ in Turin. "He is a phenomenal player," he told UEFA.com. Meanwhile, Trabzonspor midfielder Didier Zakora was satisfied with the Turkish side's first-leg display, even if two mistakes cost them two goals.

Pablo Osvaldo, Juventus forward
Obviously you always hope [to score] but you can never be sure. I hoped I could play well and score, and fortunately I managed to do it. I'm also pleased with the result. We didn't have a lot of luck at times, especially Carlitos [Tévez] – it's like the ball doesn't want to go in for him in Europe. However, I think we deserved a second goal and in the end we got it. Carlitos is a phenomenal player, it's impossible not to feel comfortable playing alongside him.

The squad is eager to continue this European run for as long as possible. We have started well and we have to continue like this. Certainly [in Turkey] it will not be easy – they are a very organised side, especially in defence, and have quality players so it will not be easy to finish the job. However, the two-goal lead certainly allows us to be calmer going into the return match.

Martín Cáceres, Juventus defender
We had a very good first half, but in the second we risked conceding an equaliser. Fortunately we then scored the second and we can be a bit calmer ahead of the return leg.

We knew it was going to be a difficult game. The coach asked us to win 2-0 or 3-0 to have a good advantage to take to Turkey, so we are satisfied with the result. We still have to play the second half of the tie, but things have gone as we'd hoped. Trabzonspor – like all Turkish sides – are hard to beat so we will have to be very careful.

Claudio Marchisio, Juventus midfielder
We were a bit shaky towards the end, in fact we were looking forward to the final whistle, but then we scored our second so we are certainly pleased with the result. We played very well in the first half while in the second we were a bit tired. However, we have to give credit to Trabzonspor who caused us problems, especially with their full-backs pushing forward. They created a couple of good chances to equalise.

Didier Zokora, Trabzonspor midfielder
It's not easy because we were playing against Juve, one of the best teams in Italy, but we are happy because we played very good football and only conceded the two goals because we made two mistakes. The second leg will be hard because we need to score three, but this is football and I'm very happy with this game tonight.

If we had scored that one goal when we had the chance, maybe the game could have changed – but we didn't. We will go home and need to look at the positive and negative aspects and work hard to try to win against Juve.

Trabzon is a great footballing city because the fans think about football all the time – they eat football. Today the supporters were fantastic – they shouted for the players, sang for the players and gave us a lot of motivation. That was important because when you see that, you want to play well, play hard and give 100%.