DANTE POLVARA

Dante Polvara celebrated his new Aberdeen contract with an excellent display in the Aberdeen midfield against Eintracht Frankfurt, topping it off with his first goal for the club in the first half.

“I didn’t get on the ball as much as I would have liked to, but it was a great moment to score my first goal for the club. Getting goals was one of my aims for this season because that’s an important part of my job if I’m going to help the team.

“As Bojan played the ball forward, from behind me I heard Nicky call for me to leave it, so I let it run. He managed to get on the end of it and stuck it through some legs somehow and when it reached, fortunately I had the composure to tuck that one away.

“It’s just disappointing that it didn’t get us a positive result in the end. I felt we had a good game plan, we executed it well, but it’s frustrating that after playing so well against the favourites for the group, we’ve come away with nothing.”

STEFAN GARTENMANN

Stefan Gartenmann produced an impressive European debut for the Dons in Frankfurt, but that was little consolation for him as the side were narrowly beaten by the German team.

“We are disappointed in the dressing room. I think we should have had a point tonight. We deserved that, but it wasn’t to be. What we did out there shows that we have the quality to play in this stage and hopefully we can use that to go through to the next stage of the competition.

“You could see that Frankfurt were stressed at the end, they were in panic for the last 15 or 20 minutes. That says a lot about this team, and we can really build on this performance because there were a lot of good things in it.

“We knew we couldn’t be running around, one on one, for 90 minutes, so we wated to be solid defensively and then to take advantage of the counter-attacks, like the one we scored from.

“There were also periods when we went high and had some good chances, but it was all about finding the balance. We did that and you could see that Frankfurt didn’t know how to play us, they were lacking ideas on how to get through us.”

Stefan also had a word for the 3,000 travelling fans who followed the Dons to Frankfurt.

“Seeing the support we had, and with this badge on your chest, it is not hard to motivate yourself. It gives you goosebumps and lifts us all as a team. Now we must become a winning team, and I hope that starts on Sunday.”