Axel Witsel: "I was happy I scored, but I'm disappointed now"

The author of Zenit's only goal vs. Basel said that despite scoring, he's left with a bitter feeling, and explained what made the match so aggressive.

— Why couldn`t Zenit score more goals and win today?
— We played really well today. We started the match very strongly, we put a lot of pressure on Basel, which was important. We had lots of chances to score, but it wouldn`t go in for us a second time. That was the problem today.

— You`ve been criticized by some people recently, but you scored a nice goal today. Did that help you?
— I felt good today. I scored a goal, which I was happy about. But the important thing was to advance in the tournament, so we`re really disappointed now.

— What can you say about the quality of the pitch today?
— We can talk about the pitch not being perfect quality, but it`s the same situation for both teams. The ball was jumping around a lot, so we had to work a lot harder to control the ball, but it was the same for the other team.

— It was a really nervous match, and there were lots of mistakes, and cards, and difficult decisions for the referee. Do you agree?
— I think the referee had to do something, because the Basel players were spending so much time on the pitch every time they got fouled. They were wasting time. They were ahead of us, and they were trying to keep their advantage. So that made the game more nervous. It`s really too bad that we couldn`t get more goals today, because we had really good chances to score.

— What do you think about the referee?
— We can`t say that it was the referee`s fault that we didn`t advance today. Football is just like this.