Ludogorets coach Ante Shimunja gave a press conference today at noon. He wants the champions to qualify for the stronger tournament. The "Eagles" have a playoff in the Europa League ahead of them. In the event of a loss, the team continues in the groups of the Conference League. "We have the highest goal. Two very important games with Zalgiris are coming up. Now we only think about the first match with them, we can't think about the second or third step before we take the first one," announced the Slovenian.

"We rested after the rematch with Dinamo Zagreb. We have had good training sessions, we are mentally at a high level, after carrying out a similar analysis of the meetings with the Croatians. We have seen our mistakes and are trying to fix it. We want him to improve in the next match," continued the Slovenian.

"We have a lot of problems before the match with Zalgiris. Our players got 3 red cards in Zagreb and one got a man from the bench. It's good that there are no new injured players," Shimunja said.

"I know when Ludogorets played with Zalgiris. They are a totally different team. The only thing that is the same is that now they play at home on an artificial pitch. I expect a very difficult match with them. They want to play on the counter-attack when they are away. We have to be very careful in this segment. We will try to take advantage of their weaknesses. We want to start strong, we need a tactical culture, we need to be disciplined. We want to play as Ludogorets can play. Without three players, we have to change something. However, the ideas and principles must remain the same," concluded the coach of the champions.

Igor Plastun is one of three players who played for Ludogorets against Zalgiris in 2017 when the two teams met in the Champions League qualifiers. Except him, the team included Georgi Terziev and Sisinho, who was out of the group for both games.

"It's hard to make comparisons. Zalgiris is a totally different team. 2017 is history. They have a good team and classy, ​​fast players. They played good games against Malmö. We have our goal and we will follow it," Plastun said.

"These few 2-3 days off were relaxing days for us after the relegation by Dinamo Zagreb. We also relaxed mentally. We did very good training. We must be fresh for Zalgiris and have a good match and result," said the defender.

"There were many things surrounding the two matches with Dinamo Zagreb. They are in the past. Our goal is the Europa League group stage. Now we have to show that we deserve to be in this tournament," the Ukrainian added.