Viking were better on the scoreboard and I must congratulate them on their victory, emphasised Dinamo coach Mario Kovačević after the Norwegians defeated Zagreb 3-1 in the Champions League play-off return leg and advanced to the league phase of the competition. Dinamo will continue the season in the Europa League.

– We started the match quite well, had chances, scored a goal, imposed ourselves... But then that mistake happened with the penalty. We recovered, but in the last five, six minutes of the first half they pressed us. When we dropped our intensity a bit, you could see how dangerous Viking are. That was a warning for us. We said that in the second half we must press their defence and midfield, but we made incomprehensible mistakes for that second goal. There we were already in a 'knockdown', we quickly conceded the third goal too. It was difficult to come back after that. Although, we had some situations, and I believed that if we scored that one more goal, we could have come back. Unfortunately, we missed our chances, Viking defended well and I can only congratulate them.

On this occasion, we lacked concentration, but also a bit of luck.

– I just told the boys in the dressing room to keep their heads up. Unfortunately, we appeared naive, mistakes cost us... But it's incredible that they punish every single mistake we make. It's hard to get a good result like that. We must fix that. We did many good things in these two matches, and when all this settles down a bit, we'll be even more disappointed.

Dinamo will continue their European season in the Europa League.

– We certainly need matches like these to become even better. We will have excellent matches in the Europa League, the minimum goal is again to reach the knockout phase, but I deeply believe we can achieve a better result than last season. We will do everything for that step forward.

The team is emotionally drained, but there's no time for too much thinking as Saturday already brings a league match against Istra 1961 in Pula.

– We're glad that a new match comes quickly. We'll see what and how we'll do, we have enough players to change what needs to be changed and to take this match seriously – concluded coach Kovačević.

Maksimir midfielder Luka Stojković shares his sentiment.

– I congratulate the opponent on a deserved victory, we are very sad that we didn't make use of this opportunity. Such a beautiful start to the match, a goal, several chances and then a questionable penalty... There's real regret that we didn't make use of this. These are two very different teams in terms of playing style: us who want to play a lot and them who rely on long balls, and their approach was decisive on this occasion. We conceded goals from some of our mistakes, partly due to lack of luck... But from tomorrow morning we must think about the next opponent, about Istra, we're going all out in the league – added Stojković.