The two managers spoke to the media following Thursday's game at the Pancho Arena.
Marko Nikolic:
I would like to congratulate Partizan on their win. We started the game well but then made massive mistakes. The sending off at the start of the second half was the final straw. We can be proud of our performances in Europe, but now the opponents deserved to go through to the group stage. I will not put our exit down to our defending, but we really did make massive errors today. We attacked at the start of the game, but Stojkovic saved well. I have said several times before that we are not in the situation to offer gifts at this level to our opponents. Sadly today we gave several. Partizan did well to take advantage of the chances. We behaved in several chances as if we were 13 year old amateur players. The match started as it did in Belgrade, with us creating dangerous chances inside the first 5 minutes, but then we conceded the first goal after 6 minutes. We had chances but they hit counter attacks against us and the mentioned mistakes resulted in the final score.
Miroszlav Djukics:
I am very pleased with the win. It was an important success for the supporters, the club and also ourselves. It was a hard game, but the players played with ease. Our tactics were good and we hit nice counter attacks. We managed to keep our opponents under pressure. The game in Belgrade was strange without supporters, and it affected our team. We now made up for it in today's game. Videoton FC are a good team, but our counter attacks got hold of them and we deserved to make it through to the group stage.
Author: David Rechnitzer