Well-known Ukrainian journalist Artem Frankov shared his prediction for the match of the 1st round of the Europa League group stage between Turkish Fenerbahce and Dynamo Kyiv, which will be held today in Istanbul.
Artem Frankov“Most recently, in July, these teams met in the Champions League qualification, and Dynamo won a heroic victory, managing to crush the opponent in extra time in Istanbul.
How much has changed since so much water has flowed under the bridge!
Fenerbahce head coach Jorge Jesus continued the development of the team by buying five more players “under the foundation” and switching to playing three defenders, as Benfica played under him a year ago. Not without new failures. For example, in the Turkish championship, the team started with a home draw against the very weak Umraniyespor, and also barely saved in stoppage time - 3:3. In the fourth round, the removal of Ener Valencia and, in general, an extremely faded game led to a defeat from Konyaspor.
The shuffling of the composition continues, which sometimes looks endless and chaotic. But it is worth noting that Joao Pedro, who did not play against Dynamo, made 1+1 on the tour against Kayserispor (2-0 win). However, it can be assumed that we will not see either Pedro or Joshua King at Shukru Saracoglu from the first minutes, but Valencia, who is resting due to disqualification, and who replaced Rossi, will play. Serdar Dursun and/or Emre Mor are with them.
Jesus has the widest personnel maneuver, except for the center of defense: Gustavo Enrique, Luan Perez (two more newcomers compared to the July matches; add to them the left edge of Alioska, well known to the people of Kiev from the Macedonian national team) and Attila Salai look almost uncontested; only Mauricio Lemos can take this position, but against Kayserispor he was not even in the application.
Dynamo has also changed. Of the newcomers, we have already seen Kabaev, who came from Zarya and was called to solve the problem of the left flank of the attack - unfortunately, so far this has only led to terrible failures of the defense along this edge. The Kievans had a terrible, incredibly terrible start in the championship, conceding three goals from Dnipro-1 and just from Zorya.
But there is a faint hope that in the Europa League the motivation of the players will be higher, and educational activities will have an effect - after all, in the second and third rounds of the Champions League qualification, we saw a different team: far from ideal, perhaps not more cool, but an order of magnitude more motivated and focused on their professional responsibilities.
This is the kind of Dynamo we want and demand to see, only such a Dynamo is capable of adequately resisting an attempt at revenge by an unconditionally strengthened rival,” Frankov said.
