Lille's Garcia looks on the bright side of defeat

03 November 2011 03:16

Lille coach Rudi Garcia was in upbeat mood despite his team's 2-1 defeat at Inter Milan which left them bottom of their Champions League group.

Lille have just two points from four games in the group and are three points behind both CSKA Moscow and Trabzonspor, with Inter now unreachable at the top of Group B.

And yet if they win both their remaining games, they will qualify for the knock-out rounds.

"Two wins are not just necessary but will also be sufficient and that's good news," said Garcia.

"What we lacked was the ability to accelerate in the last 30 yards but that's not surprising because we played three days ago and Inter played 24 hours earlier.

"That didn't put us in the best condition," added the Frenchman.

But Garcia admitted there could be no doubt who was the better side after goals from Walter Samuel and Diego Milito proved too much for the French champions despite Tulio De Melo's late consolation.

"We've played two matches against Inter and had two defeats. It's one step too far even though we did the same match (as them).

"We're too slow, we're not effective enough, we didn't respect our marking plan and Inter went 1-0 in front. They love leading.

"We had a plan to let them come at us so we would have more space to exploit but I didn't see enough effort to search for the spaces and get forward when it was still 0-0.

"De Melo's entrance (from the bench) gave us presence on the pitch because without him we could cross balls into the box all night in the air without ever winning one."

Now Garcia's focus is very much on their direct competition.

"We're capable of being better than the teams in the second and fourth pools (Lille were in the third) but we have to win in Moscow," he added.

"Our destiny is still in our own hands, it won't be easy but it's what we have to do if want to get to the knock-out rounds.

"My three forwards behind (Ireneusz) Jelen worked hard but they didn't manage to find space behind Inter.

"It's about details, if you don't mark at a defensive corner then you pay against a team of this class.

"Two points from four games is very poor but we'll bite into the two games that remain because we still have a chance."

Source: AFP