Igor Jovichevich on the draw with Metalist 1925: “We can take this game to our asset”

Shakhtar head coach Igor Jovicevich summed up the results of his team's yesterday's match against Metalist 1925 Kharkiv (0:0) in the 1st round of the Ukrainian Championship

“We made Metalist 1925 defend in our own half of the field, although this is a team that loves the ball as much as we do. They have a lot of Shakhtar pupils, the coach himself is a miner (Valery Kriventsov, - ed.), — and this is the culture of the pass. Last year they also showed good football, and the match against Shakhtar at Olimpiyskiy was one of the best. And we made them defend all the time today. And, indeed, when you spend all the time in a positional attack 50-60 meters from your goal, then a rare counterattack can go through.

The opponent was really close to a goal, but in general, I think there is a feeling that we did a lot more with the ball, offered more: we moved the ball, moved the opponent, manipulated the opponent, used the space and had enough opportunities to win the match. However, this did not happen. The guys gave all their strength in this hot weather, and, as for the first match, we can bring the game to the asset. Of course, a point is a point, and we wanted to win. But the main thing is that no external factors happened that could destroy this historic event - the first match after 9 months. We are happy that everything is in order and we can safely return home, ”Jovicevic said.