Henning Berg, head coach of Cyprus's Omonia, commented on his team's 1-0 victory over Almaty's Kairat in the first leg of the second qualifying round of the Champions League. The Norwegian specialist highlighted the players' performance after Loic Nego's red card, according to the website infohub.kz.
The Cypriot club opened the scoring in the 13th minute through a goal by Panayiotis Andreou, but played with ten men from the 33rd minute onward. Despite the numerical advantage, Kairat could not equalize.
"We are happy to have taken the lead. We played with ten men and kept a clean sheet. The red card changed the course of the match. It was an unfortunate moment for Nego; he was struggling and is disappointed. These things happen in football. The other players held up well and preserved the lead," Berg said, as quoted by Kerkida.net.
Omonia's head coach admitted he was most pleased with the dedication of his players, who had to play most of the match a man down. According to him, the team's performance was also affected by the heat and lack of match fitness early in the season.
"What I liked most was that the team managed to hold onto the result while playing with ten men. We didn't always finish our attacks well. Among the reasons are the heat and the fact that the season has just started. We could have controlled the ball better, but at this stage of the season it's not easy, especially when down a man. The players knew that in the return leg we would start 11 vs 11 again, so they gave their all," the specialist noted.
Berg added that Kairat's performance largely matched Omonia's coaching staff's expectations. Before the red card, the Cypriot team created dangerous chances by exploiting space between the opponent's lines.
"Kairat showed a game close to what we expected. While we were at full strength, we had good moments when we managed to play the ball between the opponent's lines. We expect the next meeting to be difficult, but we are ready for it," the coach concluded.
The return leg will be held on July 29 in Almaty. The winner of the tie will face the winner of the Levski vs Universitatea pair in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. If defeated, the Almaty side will continue in the Europa League qualifying rounds. Earlier, Kairat's head coach Rafael Urazbakhtin summed up the first leg.