Alexander Chizhevsky: "Against the background of this Dynamo, Benfica looked like a team from another planet"

Well-known Ukrainian footballer Alexander Chizhevsky in the past in an interview "TEAM1 ” shared his impressions of the Champions League qualifying play-off second leg match between the Portuguese Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv (0:3), which took place last Tuesday in Lisbon. Recall that on the sum of two meetings (0:2, 0:3), the Ukrainian team dropped out of the tournament.

- To be honest, I was unpleasantly surprised by the game of the Kiev team in yesterday's confrontation. I don’t even remember the last time Dynamo was so helpless. Without exaggeration, against the background of this Dynamo, Benfica looked like a team from another planet.

- In what particular components did the advantage of the hosts catch the eye most of all?

- In all! But if specifically, then in speed, both in moving around the field, and in making decisions. Therefore, it is not surprising that with the high pressure taken by Benfica, it seemed that the guests simply did not know how to get out from under it. By the way, this led to the childish mistakes of Viktor Tsygankov in the first fight and Alexander Sirota in yesterday. Just a shock.

- Did Tsygankov's absence in Lisbon have any effect?

- To a certain extent, he could add mobility, creativity, to the actions of Dynamo, but in general, this is not some kind of panacea. I don’t think that if Tsygankov had been on the field yesterday, he would have been able to achieve a positive result. Unfortunately, Benfica's class turned out to be much higher.

- After the final whistle, some experts argued that the psychological state of the people of Kiev was negatively affected by the fact that they had not been at home for a long time and had not seen their families...

- These are banal excuses. I believe that the club management has done a lot to ensure that the team is properly prepared for the European Cup battles. It's just that this is the current level of Dynamo players. You know, the weight of such matches is precisely in the fact that you are convinced of what you are really worth. And for the formation of a combat-ready team at Dynamo, there is still a lot of work to do.

- Yesterday in Lisbon, Dynamo players turned out to be fighting boys... In this situation, what advice would you give to Kyiv football players?

- You should try to forget about these sensitive defeats as soon as possible, of course, first carefully analyzing the mistakes made. And given that there are already quite a few players with international experience among Dynamo players, it will not be difficult to draw the right conclusions. In the end, Mircea Lucescu will definitely say his weighty word. And purposefully prepare for new challenges already in the Europa League and the Premier League.

Vasily MIKHAILOV