“Humble yourself, we haven’t achieved anything yet.”

PAOK beat Hearts 2-1 in the Conference League play-offs. Lucescu stressed at the press conference that his team must do so They showed the same humility and competitive spirit in the second match against the Scots.

Lucescu’s statements in detail:

On whether the match went as expected:”But the match was exactly what we expected. We responded well to everything almost perfectly, we responded well and we came off the field with an important win but we have to focus on the second game.

We have to have the same humility, the same spirit, the same competitiveness in Thessaloniki for this victory to matter. In the three qualifying rounds we faced three completely different teams. Hearts have this way of dealing with big balls and taking second chances on those big stages.

It was a game of physicality and strength but we were good and controlled the game for the longer part of the game, showing a good response. If there’s anything I’m not happy with, it’s because we didn’t keep the ball as well as we would have liked.”

For lack of possession: “The reaction and presence of the team was almost perfect. Not that I’m dissatisfied, I just wish we could have a little more. I would be much more satisfied if we kept the ball a little longer. We have to do that”. Be ready to respond to everything and accept what the opponent offers us.

I’m always worried about the next game, about the state of mind of the players, I’m worried because in football you have to be right in everything and be very focused. I expect our world in the second game to give us that important energy.

What I care about now is the next match. I’m not worried or disturbed by the behavior of our fans, as much as we look forward to it and expect them to give us sporting aggression and extra motivation to move forward.”

On the atmosphere of Tomba and whether it can attract players to: “I don’t think it can happen. We haven’t achieved anything yet, we’ll go into the second leg with a narrow margin after winning in Scotland.”

On the fighting spirit shown by his team: “The game required us to come into power. We had to respond to that kind of battle and we knew that. It went down to the second balls and we controlled most of the situations in and around our own area.

The match in Jerusalem was completely different because we had a player under the 40th minute, in Split we were playing against a team with different quality of football and in a full stadium.

In Edinburgh it was very different. You may not have expected it but we knew we had to be careful. If we had more possession of the ball, we would have more chances to score more. These are all elements that helped our team.”

For dynamic play: “It was a game that was getting stronger, I don’t know what to say about the cards. Those were the referee’s decisions, maybe we had a different picture of the stage.”