malmö off the mark with defeat of shakhtar published: wednesday 21 october 2015, 22.45cet malmö 1-0 shakhtar donetsk malmö got off the mark with an impressive display, markus rosenberg's first-half goal condemning shakhtar to a third straight defeat.
malmö off the mark in group a with a 1-0 win over shakhtar donetsk markus rosenberg, back at the club where he started his career, scores only goal nikola djurdjic's second-half penalty saved by andriy pyatov shakhtar bottom of the section without a point or goal in first three fixtures the sides meet again at arena lviv on 3 november
malmö are up and running in uefa champions league group a following a 1-0 defeat of shakhtar donetsk in southern sweden.
malmö coach åge hareide had called on his players to be less "star-struck" than in their first two matches, which they lost 2-0 to both paris saint-germain and real madrid, but mircea lucescu's team had fared even worse (0-4 and 0-3). malmö, despite a slow first 15 minutes, had clearly heeded the words of their coach and were soon on the front foot.
pa konate set the tone with a rampaging forward run which ultimately teed up markus rosenberg, who calmly side-footed back across andriy pyatov.
shakhtar were briefly thrust into life – olexandr gladkiy, fred and darijo srna all going close, though without testing johan wiland – but the hosts were buoyant. jo ınge berget so nearly doubled their lead with a fine first-time effort from nikola djurdjic's cross, pyatov pulling off a splendid stop to limit the damage and allow the visitors to regroup at the break.
come the restart, though, they were back-pedalling once more. djurdjic was again the provider – this time with a reverse through ball – and berget again the man with the chance to finish. he dinked over pyatov but also wide of the far post.
malmö's no23 was again to the fore moments later, srna dragging him down inside the area to hand hareide's side a penalty. djurdjic's attempted conversion was true enough but pyatov guessed right and palmed the ball away from danger – another reprieve for shakhtar.
they had not used up all their lives just yet, however. first, they were denied by a post after a vicious vladimir rodic free-kick from the left; then, with pyatov off his line and out of position having thwarted rosenberg, djurdjic's strike was too tame.
wiland, underemployed throughout, suddenly had to be alert at the other end in order to tip over yaroslav rakitskiy's deflected shot from range. alarm over; onwards and upwards for malmö. for lucescu, it was not how he would have wished to mark his 100th game in the uefa champions league proper.
key player: markus rosenberg
reaction åge hareide, malmö coach ı have to praise the players. ı rate this as a pretty much perfect game. shakhtar stood up well against both real madrid and paris, so ı am very happy that we could play at this level. we spoke at half-time and the players responded perfectly.
jo ınge berget is so important for us. he made life difficult for darijo srna and makes so many important runs. he has been fantastic for us all season. the crowd lifted us. they created that feeling they have done so many times before. ıt will be an exciting game in ukraine – for us a draw is enough.
mircea lucescu, shakhtar coach we had lots of chances in the first half but the home team defended well and then they had their first attack and scored. we had some good chances to make it 1-1, but the game did not go as we wanted. we lost the midfield.
our midfielders were not able to pass the ball from defence to attack. we lost the game there. ın the second half we were forced to play more physically, and they were stronger than us. ın the home game we need to win by at least two goals, but in my opinion we are the better team.
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