Owen Coyle believes his Wigan side showed they can be a match for a lot of teams in Europe as they recorded their maiden victory in continental competition.
The DW Stadium played host to European football for the first time and the FA Cup winners responded with a deserved 3-1 win over Slovenians Maribor.
Coyle said: "Maribor are a very good side but from start to finish I thought we were outstanding.
"The football we played, we passed and moved the ball at a real intensity culminating in some terrific goalscoring chances. Not that there is any negative, but there's no doubt we could have scored six or seven goals."
Nick Powell had the honour of scoring the Latics' first European goal in the 21st minute, albeit thanks to a horrible mistake from Maribor keeper Jasmin Handanovic, and Ben Watson made it 2-0 before half-time.
Wigan should have scored many more goals, with on-loan Manchester United man Powell in particular guilty of a number of bad misses.
And it looked like that could cost Coyle's men when Maribor captain Tavares pulled one back on the hour mark.
With 90 minutes almost up, Scott Carson then had to produce a terrific save to keep out a sweetly-struck effort from Tavares before Powell made the game safe with a fine individual goal.
Coyle said: "We felt we conceded a sloppy goal, although we know the quality of (Jean Philippe) Mendy and Tavares, and then Scott Carson makes a great save at 2-1.
"Apart from that, I don't recall them having too much and we really should have put the game to bed and been very comfortable. But when you don't there's always the chance there can be a sucker punch.
Source: PA
