Mircea Lucescu: Mkhitaryan showed careful game, forcing Barcelona players to make mistakes

PanARMENIAN.Net - Shakhtar Donetsk head coach Mircea Lucescu gave his take on the second leg match vs Barcelona.

“First and foremost, I would like to congratulate Barcelona with making it through to the semi-finals and wish them success in future games. I would be very happy if they won the Champions League. Then our elimination from the competition would have valid grounds. Naturally, it was not about qualifying for the last-4 after this game. We should have done better in Barcelona, but we made too many mistakes in that game. Today, it was necessary to show a decent performance that we could be proud of. As for the game, it was a spectacular match-up. Although we fielded a number of new players, we succeeded in forcing Barcelona to defend, with creating a great number of scoring opportunities, something that other teams have failed to do this season. We had a good run in the Champions League, and I would like thank our players and our fans. The game against Barcelona will certainly help us prepare for new games of this level,” Shakhtar official website quoted him as saying.

The head coach gave a high assessment of Armenian team halfback Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s performance, who showed a careful game, forcing the rival team to make mistakes.