On Thursday, September 15, in the match of the 2nd round of the group stage of the Europa League, Dynamo Kyiv lost to Cypriot AEK with a score of 0:1. The meeting was held in Krakow, Poland. Your attention is the post-match press conference of the head coach of the Ukrainian team Mircea Lucescu.
Mircea Lucescu- What prevented Dynamo from achieving a positive result today?
- Psychological condition. We dominated the field, especially in the second half, and, in general, had a good match. We reached the completion zone, but could not make the last pass. Our mistakes do not lie in a technical or tactical plane, but stem only from a psychological state. Therefore, we started the match poorly, conceded an early goal and gave Larnaca the opportunity to defend and counterattack the rest of the match.
It is a pity that our goal was not counted, because, as far as I saw, there was no offside at that moment. Even VAR makes mistakes.
In the difficult situation in which we are now, we needed a victory, and we tried to do everything we could for this.
- Do you think that the first 30 minutes were decisive in the course of the match?
— We started the game very badly. Football players made elementary mistakes, gave inaccurate passes. In the moment preceding the missed goal, our player was forced to foul - this is precisely the psychological situation.
And this influenced the result of the whole match, because Larnaca knew how to keep the score. This team has a good selection of players, some of them played in Spain, Portugal, France. The opponents defended very well and skillfully interrupted the game. Once the goalkeeper held the ball for 16 seconds - this is too much. When I played football, I was given four seconds to throw the ball in.
After the goal we conceded, we tried to bounce back as quickly as possible, but, as I said, we made mistakes in passes. However, we have four more matches ahead of us. After the international break, some players will return to the squad and we will try to look better. However, it should be noted that today we showed good football. Summed up only the completion of the attacks.
- After the match with Dnipro-1, you said that you could leave Dynamo. Has your position changed now?
- This is a difficult question, because the situation is very difficult. At some point, I really thought about it. However, someone should be with the players and help them get through this difficult moment.
We must concentrate on the championship and the Europa League. As I said at the pre-match press conference, now we don’t have a base, we don’t play at home, we move every few days, and the families of the players are scattered around different European countries. Therefore, it is difficult for players to focus on football. Nevertheless, we must get through this difficult period, keeping Dynamo at a high level. We need positive results.
The situation repeats itself: in the match against Fenerbahce we conceded after a corner and a throw-in, against Benfica we gave the ball to our opponents. This happens not because the team is not playing, but because of mental problems. We have gathered young players, so perhaps they are more stressed than more experienced players.
