“Focused on both attack and defense”

Shakhtar coach Luis Castro shared his expectations of the Champions League sixth round match against Inter (December 9):

– How much pressure do you have for Borussia to defeat you? How will you face tomorrow’s game to come out of this group as the winner?

– None of these results will work for tomorrow’s game. We are totally focused on playing against Inter. Everything that has happened to this day does not interest us. We know that we are in a group where, until the last round, all four teams compete for the playoffs, and we are also working in that direction.

How are we going to go through Inter? Exactly the way they are going to happen to us. With total dedication and ambition in the game, with care and a lot of desire to be in the round of 16.

– Shakhtar play poorly against teams defending with a low blocking. It is difficult for the team to go through a saturated defense. Is there such a problem and how are you going to solve it?

– We understand that we have to play against a very difficult opponent who wants the same as us. We must be very careful in defense and do the necessary work in attack, reaching the opponent’s goal as often as possible.

My players feel safe psychologically, as well as in all other aspects. How we will play exactly, you will see tomorrow, so we will have to clarify some aspects of our game.

– Did you already know what to do with the total pressure from Inter?

– We already worked on this and prepared for the game. Like I said, we only have to work on a few details, the rest is done.

– In the game against Inter in Kiev, we saw that Shakhtar have big problems in defense. Have you already figured out how to stop Lukaku and Martinez?

– When you play against such a strong Inter, any team will have problems. We will wait a long time if we try to find equipment that does not have such problems. It’s not even a problem, but a lot of work for our advocates.

I’m focused on both our attacking game and our defense. After the draw, we knew very well that very few people gave us a chance to reach the round of 16. But there is only one round left and we are still fighting for the playoffs. All of this is thanks to the fantastic dedication and work of my players.

Lukaku and Martínez’s attacks interest us in the same way as our attack. Therefore, we were preparing for the game, focusing not only on defense. I can say one thing: tomorrow’s game will be different from the Europa League semi-final and the Kiev game. We know very well that we will face a very aggressive and intense Inter. It will be an intense and challenging game for which we are prepared. And the 0: 0 result in Kiev showed that we are not a weak team.