“Following the draw against Nafta, the Dragons’ head coach, Jugoslav Trenčovski, assessed the team’s performance, highlighted the reasons behind the drop in intensity in the second half, and spoke about the upcoming break and preparations for the end of the calendar year.”

“We cannot be satisfied with just one point. We should have known how to protect our first-half lead. The players gave everything they had, and their effort cannot be faulted, but we started the second half with too little energy. We lost control of the game and its tempo, allowing the opposition to enjoy more possession. We were then forced to make a few additional substitutions due to injuries.”

“Derby may have left us emotionally and physically drained. But as a team, we have to keep moving forward, earn points, and win against opponents like these, even in difficult away matches. Nafta are a very strong team, so it was certainly a challenging away fixture. Perhaps we were emotionally exhausted after the derby and lacked energy, but we have to give more. We could also take another step forward when it comes to motivating the players. Nafta also scored following a somewhat fortunate deflection. That’s football. Sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“The upcoming break will also give us an opportunity to play a friendly match against Lokomotiva Zagreb. The game will allow us to test different tactical ideas, while also giving more playing time to players who have featured less so far. As the international break will be slightly shorter, we will continue training as usual to ensure that we finish the final three matches of the autumn part of the season successfully.”