APOEL Nicosia vs Shakhtar Donetsk preview - Srna: Shakhtar playing for pride

Posted Tuesday, December 06, 2011 by PA

Shakhtar Donetsk captain Darijo Srna believes his team will be playing for pride in the dead rubber against APOEL Nicosia in Champions League Group G.

With the Ukrainian club unable to qualify for the knockout stages - or even qualify for the last 32 of the Europa League by finishing third - there is little to play for in Cyprus.

But Srna wants to see his team rise to the challenge by putting on a good performance.

He told the Shakhtar club website: "The mood is odd, because we never had an experience of going into our closing Champions League with nothing to be decided.

"We can't even make it to the Champions League knock-out stage in spring.

"We perfectly understand that we are going there to defend the honour of our club, our crest and our supporters.

"There's just one match left and we want to win it. Besides, this encounter with APOEL is valuable experience-wise."

Srna also believes Shakhtar have not had a lot of luck when it comes to decisions going against them in their Champions League games.

He added: "We had some weird things happen to us from the very start: suspensions, penalties, our clear goal against Porto was just ruled out.

"We changed the players, the defence line. But most importantly, lady luck didn't shine on us any more. But that's the way the ball bounces. And we have to leave it behind and look ahead.

"We've only two paths to take left: the league and the cup. Everybody saw our reaction to the defeat by Porto: we have beaten our opponents in two games with a 10-0 aggregate win."

APOEL have been the surprise packages of the Champions League this season having qualified for the knockout stages ahead of the game with Shakhtar.

APOEL needed only a point in their previous fixture against Zenit St Petersburg and a goalless draw for Ivan Jovanovic's side was enough to make them the first team from Cyprus to reach the last 16 of the competition.

With APOEL having drawn against Shakhtar when the sides met in September there could be more to celebrate in the game for the Cypriot side.