Koke Resurreccion believes that Atletico Madrid were deserved winners against Zenit St Petersburg, in part thanks to their second goal in particular.
Atleti played out an entertaining 3-1 win at home to the Russians in this Champions League group stage opener, with goals from Joao Miranda, Arda Turan and Leo Baptistao.
“Above all I am happy for the win and for the team. It was a difficult match,” reflected Koke to UEFA’s official website.
“It took us a lot of effort trying to get into the game in the beginning. We managed to score from a dead-ball situation afterwards but they then pulled level.
“It was hard but we managed to score two more to win the game.
“[Zenit] played a great game. At the start they sat back but eventually went for it, just as we were doing. Thankfully we found that second goal which had a touch of luck about it.
“That was an important moment. We work on these set-piece moves during the week. We have players who are great headers of the ball and we try to take advantage of that.”
Adrian Lopez started in place of the suspended Diego Costa in attack.
“We realise just how important a player Diego Costa is to us but today Adrian played in his place and he had a great game.
“The entire team worked a lot and continued to run and run. We played the way we know how to and we are leaving here happy with the result.
“We are taking things on a game-by-game basis which is working out very well for us. Now we are focusing on the Liga.
“When the time comes to think about Porto, we will do so.”
