Champions League, Thursday February 26 2004
Olympique Lyon coach Paul Le Guen was pleased with his side's first-leg 1-0 win over Real Sociedad at Anoeta in the Champions League, particularly as it was their first win on Spanish soil.
Le Guen believes it is an important result to take into the second-leg in France, but he was disappointed that they failed to add to the single goal as they had many chances to extend their lead.
However, he is aware that they still have a job to do in the return leg, but admitted that they have a slight advantage having scored a vital away goal.
"We played a solid match and there were a lot of reasons to be satisfied with our performance," he said. "We are taking a good result back to Lyon and are on our way to achieving our objective of making the next round.
"But it is a shame we couldn't have scored another goal and made it 2-0 because we had plenty of chances to extend our lead.
"We started a bit timidly. We didn't settle into our usual game until after the goal, but after that we played some good attacking football and also defended intelligently and that was the key to our victory."
"We certainly haven't finished the job. And I know that Sociedad are capable of playing some great games and getting good results. Things are slightly in our favour but we will be in for another hard game," he added.
Sociedad coach Raynald Denoueix conceded that his side weren't able to recover from Gabiel Schurrer's 18th minute own-goal which saw them lose their first game in Europe since 1975, but believes they can still turn things around in the second-leg.
"The truth is that it is very hard to face up to a game when you receive an own goal as a result of a misunderstanding between two of your own players and that ended up affecting us for the rest of the game," he said after Sociedad's first home defeat in Europe since 1975.
"We tried to play our own game, but weren't able to as we found ourselves up against a very strong team. Now we have to turn our attention to the second leg, and although things are in their favour I believe that if we can get an early goal we can stage a recovery."
http://www.itv-football.co.uk/News/story_101685.shtml
Olympique Lyon coach Paul Le Guen was pleased with his side's first-leg 1-0 win over Real Sociedad at Anoeta in the Champions League, particularly as it was their first win on Spanish soil.
Le Guen believes it is an important result to take into the second-leg in France, but he was disappointed that they failed to add to the single goal as they had many chances to extend their lead.
However, he is aware that they still have a job to do in the return leg, but admitted that they have a slight advantage having scored a vital away goal.
"We played a solid match and there were a lot of reasons to be satisfied with our performance," he said. "We are taking a good result back to Lyon and are on our way to achieving our objective of making the next round.
"But it is a shame we couldn't have scored another goal and made it 2-0 because we had plenty of chances to extend our lead.
"We started a bit timidly. We didn't settle into our usual game until after the goal, but after that we played some good attacking football and also defended intelligently and that was the key to our victory."
"We certainly haven't finished the job. And I know that Sociedad are capable of playing some great games and getting good results. Things are slightly in our favour but we will be in for another hard game," he added.
Sociedad coach Raynald Denoueix conceded that his side weren't able to recover from Gabiel Schurrer's 18th minute own-goal which saw them lose their first game in Europe since 1975, but believes they can still turn things around in the second-leg.
"The truth is that it is very hard to face up to a game when you receive an own goal as a result of a misunderstanding between two of your own players and that ended up affecting us for the rest of the game," he said after Sociedad's first home defeat in Europe since 1975.
"We tried to play our own game, but weren't able to as we found ourselves up against a very strong team. Now we have to turn our attention to the second leg, and although things are in their favour I believe that if we can get an early goal we can stage a recovery."
http://www.itv-football.co.uk/News/story_101685.shtml
