After the match; quotes from players and coaches

Maksym KALINICHENKO (UKR), Budweiser Man of the Match
I’m not willing to speak about my own role. This is a team game and I’m very proud to be a part of this team, it is an honour for me. The whole team won, I’m proud to have received this award, but for me this just proves that Ukraine were the better side. I think we can win against Tunisia now and progress. It’s important not to speak just about the players who scored the goals. We are a unit and the entire team contributed to the victory. We’ve balanced it out (after losing to Spain) and we are back to square one – we have just as many points lost as won. We don’t have much experience of playing in a tournament at this level and our experience today is really precious. We have to move on from this psychologically – we shouldn’t get too carried away.
Sami AL JABER (KSA)
The Ukrainians fought more than we did. I don’t know if this will be my last World Cup but I hope to do better in the next game if it is. Being here in this World Cup is a good experience for the young players in the squad and I hope they benefit and take this team higher.

Mabrouk ZAID (KSA)
I am very unhappy because the Tunisia game saw us play at a better level. We lost this game because of mistakes from our own players. We will have to change the way we play for the match against Spain. I don’t know if the conditions helped Ukraine, but we did not play well. We hope we can still progress, but the results depend on other games now.

Andriy SHEVCHENKO
The goals were very important and came at important time. We knew before the game that we could not hide and even if the game against the Spanish was not that good, we are now much happier. We have got that out of the system now and we have levelled the goal difference. The atmosphere in the stadium was very good. I’m not 100 per cent yet, but I’m happy that I can train with the team but I am optimistic that I can get better soon. I’ve seen a lot of improvement in this team and we will prepare very well for the game against Tunisia and to get into the last 16. As for Kalinichenko, I was delighted to have him in the side. It’s great to have such a good, young player to play with.

Andriy VORONIN
Today we scored four, last time we conceded four. The first goal was very important and when we got on top we managed to conserve our energy. The Arabians did not have many chances at all. It was a very attacking game from us – we did not want to defend today.

Serhiy REBROV
We are back on the football map. I tried to find Andriy (Shevchenko) a lot because of our understanding. His performance was a really good one and Ukraine can do a lot at this World Cup. I think this is as good as we have played for some time. A lot of people now know that Ukraine are not only Shevchenko, there are more good players than him in this team.

Marcos PAQUETA (KSA)
We didn’t know how Ukraine would play against us. They changed positions very cleverly from the last game. They used the right-hand side of field in the first half. We tried to change the position of our players further to the right but conceded a goal quickly.
We had expected to hold them for the first ten minutes but we could not do it. We suffered what Ukraine suffered against Spain in the first game, two goals in the first half and one right at the beginning of the second half that created havoc with the team. They scored three goals from dead-ball situations. We have to improve that aspect of our game.

It was wet, the ball was greasy on the turf and we struggled with that. We don’t have a lot of rain in Saudi Arabia so we’re not used to playing on a wet ground. It was just how Ukraine found playing in the heat in the first game. It’s not an excuse, though. What was important was their first goal right at the start of the game and the third right at the beginning of the second half.

Oleg BLOKHIN (UKR)
Against Spain the players did not listen to my instructions but I want to thank them today for bouncing back and correctly carrying out my instructions – don’t give them any space and don’t let them have the ball.

Our plan was to prevent them getting the ball in the midfield area and for the most part we succeeded in doing that and were able to counterattack really quickly. In their game against Tunisia we saw they had problems with dead-ball situations. We were able to take advantage because of (Maksym) Kalinichenko’s great delivery.

This game took a lot out of us after our loss to Spain so we have to get our strength back psychologically – the score was not important, our objective was to win. We want to get into the last 16 but our next opponents Tunisia have a great coach and are very strong, with players based at European teams.