Real Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini admits they struggled with Dinamo Zagreb's intensity for their Europa Conference League defeat.

Dinamo won the first-leg of their clash 1-0 thanks to Bruno Petkovic's penalty.

Pellegrini said: "We never expected it to be an easy match. We came in as very diminished and they are a good team, they defend well with the ball, they have very good technique.

"We played a very uncreative match unfortunately. They only got to us once on goal, they had the penalty because the ball hit his hand. We also had a couple of chances, one from Fekir, two or three, but we were very uncreative in attacking a team that plays very well with the ball because they are very technically good.

"We tried but we lost a lot of passes in the first half. We couldn't break their defense, they weren't in any hurry to play. It was difficult for us to recover it too.

"Intensity must be given by having the ball. They handle it very well and it is very difficult to take it away from them. It is a match that happens and we have to go there to try to continue in this competition, which is quite complicated due to the number of casualties that we have."