Suwon had lost the first leg against their domestic rivals 1-0 last week, but turned the tie around with a 3-0 victory in the second leg at Suwon World Cup Stadium on Wednesday, with Kim Gun-hee netting a brace and Waguininho rounding off the scoring in added time.
On the back of the result, the Montenegrin, who is the AFC Champions League's all-time second highest scorer with 32 goals, spoke with t_he-AFC.com_ about the game and his thoughts on the latter stages of the tournament.
Hi Dejan, congratulations on the victory. How are you feeling after qualifying for the quarter-final?
I feel really, really tired. Yesterday was the hardest game this year. We knew how hard it was to overcome a result like 1-0 because when you don’t score away it’s twice as hard.
I think as a team and individuals we did so well and in the end we made it. We had a little bit of luck but I’m more than happy and I think we can do some great things this year.
You were disappointed about the first leg performance, but it seemed Suwon raised their level for the game last night – what do you feel was the difference?
The first game was below our level and we played like we didn’t believe we could get something there, like hoping we could get a 0-0, but this is not Suwon’s style or that of a team that wants to do something in the ACL.
We had one or two meetings and everyone was open about what they thought about our tactics. We had a deal to do our best in this game and said if we could not play well, let’s at least give 100 percent and run and fight for each other.
Maybe we didn’t play so well with the ball in the game but we fought as one and that was the main reason we overcame the first leg result.
Your young striker Kim Gun-hee had a great game and scored two goals – can you tell us about his potential?
He’s unbelievable. He’s physically really good and knows how to play football. He’s a good character and never gives up. He wasn’t scoring goals and he suffered a little but last night he was perfect and I’m so happy for him.
But I’m so sorry because this was his last game for Suwon in 2018 as he’s going to the army team (Sangju Sangmu FC). I’m sorry he’s leaving because we need a player like him.
I’m happy that he finished like this, in front of our fans with a big win that was because of his goals. I hope he will continue to do a good job at Sangju and come back to Suwon to be a key player in the future.
Two big teams, Guangzhou Evergrande and Shanghai SIPG, have been eliminated – are you surprised by some of the Round of 16 results? And do you have any preference of who you face in the quarter-finals?
I’m not surprised because I played against Kashima and I watched Tianjin’s games against Jeonbuk. This is the AFC Champions League and it has the best teams from all the countries, so you cannot think you are better than somebody else. The teams have shown the quality there is in Asia.
I think the Chinese teams have had a disadvantage because they have played so many games in the last two or three months. Everybody knows how important the foreigners are there but maybe they were a little tired and not so fresh, so they couldn’t perform as well as they did at the beginning of the season.
Some big teams are out of the ACL but again this just shows that the competition is good and any team, if they have a good squad and rotate well, can do better than teams with just good individuals.
If I could choose, I’d choose just not to play Jeonbuk because they are a really high-quality team. Secondly, they are from Korea and I don’t want to compete with a Korean team, I want to play against other sides.
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