Coach Kovačević: We wanted to go on vacation with a win with all our hearts, but we will come back even better and stronger

We wanted to end this beautiful week with a victory before the championship break, but unfortunately we didn't succeed. It is normal that this defeat hurts, but I am sure that we will come back even better and stronger," said Dinamo's coach Mario Kovačević after the city derby at Maksimir Stadium in which Lokomotiva defeated the Blues 2:1.

- I think we started the game well, dominated, left little space behind, we conceded both goals after our mistakes that we could have avoided. Later, everything became harder for us. We managed to reduce the score, later we put everything on attack, but we couldn't score more than that one goal. Congratulations to Lokomotiva on the victory. I can't say that my players didn't show a desire to win, but that's how the day was. We wanted to go on a break with a win with all our hearts, it didn't happen, Lokomotiva is a good team, we knew that... We need to rest now, but we will come back even stronger and better, I am sure - added coach Kovačević.

Did Lokomotiva surprise you in any way?

- I wouldn't say, we knew they had a fast transition, that they could cause problems on a wide space. We knew how they played. We dominated, we were the better opponent, but football is played for goals and Lokomotiva was better there.

This was Dinamo's fifth game in 14 days, most of the effort was carried by 15 players. Was there a possibility for some bigger rotations within the team for this match?

- It's possible... These four games were good, our plan was to start with this lineup and then make changes. It's not easy for players who play less to jump in right away. I say, we didn't want to change much, but when you look at the game, we dominated. And was there a lack of freshness... That didn't decide it.

Journalists asked if the players on Lokomotiva's bench were more "living" with the game, because they jumped at every decision of the referee, at every ball...

- We are Dinamo and we don't allow our players to jump at every referee's decision. I don't see any problem in that.

During the first Lokomotiva goal, the referees judged that there was no offside at the moment when Fabijan Krivak passed the ball to the scorer Aleksa Stojaković. But the impression is that the ball was deflected towards Stojaković by Dušan Vuković in the meantime, and then it was already offside.

- They already told me something about it, but I don't want to comment on the refereeing. I didn't do that before, so I won't do it now either.

How satisfied is Dinamo's coach with the current part of the championship?

– We are first on the leaderboard, but I cannot be happy when we lose two matches at Maksimir. We won the derbies and that makes me happy, but we need to win matches like this. This is already the second one, we will have to work on that – added coach Kovačević.