De Zerbi: “We lost too many balls in midfield”

Shakhtar Donetsk manager Roberto de Zerbi spoke to the media after his team lost 0 - 5 at home to Real Madrid in the Champions League group stages on Tuesday night.

De Zerbi spoke about what went wrong for Shakhtar, and how hard it is to play against Real Madrid.

“It is not the worst defeat of my career,” de Zerbi said. “This sometimes happens to any coach. My team tried to play their football and we played well in the first half, with courage and we controlled the ball,”

“It was not a bad performance,” de Zerbi continued. ”However, in the second half, Vinicius scored a goal very early and made things very difficult for us,”

De Zerbi also said that it was hard to defend Real Madrid’s counter-attacks given how easily his team lost the ball in midfield.

“When Real Madrid plays like Real Madrid, it is difficult for any team.” de Zerbi explained. “They played an outstanding game and although we were not bad in the first half, we lost too many balls in midfield through Solomon, Tetê, Alan Patrick and Real Madrid had many opportunities to counterattack,“