Dragons leave Istanbul with their heads held high

Olimpija’s fighting performance was not enough to create a sensation. In the 3rd round of qualification for the Champions League, the green and whites had to concede superiority to the Turkish giant Galatasaray, who advanced to the next round with a total score of 4:0. Mauro Icardi decides the match in front of 45 000 spectators.

Joao Henriques: “In two games, it was the details that made the difference. Individual quality made the difference, but all our boys deserve praise. They played very good matches, which means we are on the right track. We are developing, we are growing. We deserved to reach such historic matches. The Champions League is the toughest competition and we managed to reach the 3rd round. Galatasaray has quality, but I don’t think the defeat was deserved this time. Overall, we would have definitely deserved at least one goal. We will now continue our qualification in the Europa League. There are many quality teams here too, so we are looking forward to new challenges.”

David Sualehe: “We knew it would be difficult. We were up against some really big players and we would have had to play the game of our lives to advance. We gave it our all. The preparation was already excellent, but the defeat in Ljubljana was too much. We still tried, unfortunately we didn’t succeed, but the experience is very good. Valuable. You can learn a lot against teams like this and it will come in handy for us when we are looking forward to our next European opponents.”