Mircea Lucescu: “I wanted to leave Dynamo after the matches against Benfica”

Dynamo Kyiv head coach Mircea Lucescu admitted that at the beginning of this season he thought about leaving his current club.

“In all matches, we played the same way, the problem was with our players - they were constantly on the road for 7-8 hours. The trip became a trip. It was very difficult to get used to it. It was difficult for us, these trips ruined everything for us. And we lost to Benfica, which was in excellent shape at the time of the matches against Dynamo.

After the matches with Benfica, I confess that I wanted to leave Dynamo. At my age, it is not easy for me to continuously travel 10 hours on a bus. I used to fight for titles, but I got into a situation where I could not control what was happening. But I stayed. Decided it wasn't okay to leave now. Especially considering what the Ukrainians and, in particular, the players of my team are going through now.

Then, in the Ukrainian championship, we lost several important points. And at the same time, it was clear that the players had no reaction to what was happening. It was relaxation, superficiality. Often we lost at the very end of the match - at the 93rd and 94th minutes. The same thing happened in the Europa League with Fenerbahce and Rennes. I had a serious talk with the team and said that we should return the points lost due to stupidity.

We believe that at some point we will get rid of this barbarity and return to normal life. I will never understand what makes people support this war. When the world is beautiful. And in war everything is uncontrollable. So it was in 2014, when I went to Kyiv and played matches with Shakhtar after the occupation of Donetsk. Then I was constantly on planes, now I am on buses.

Now we, at least, have returned to Kyiv, and we can train normally. Unfortunately, we have lost all legionnaires. Other UPL clubs reinforced their squads with Ukrainian players who played in Europe. we didn't do that.

In Kyiv, everything more or less calmed down, air raid alarms began to sound less frequently. There is an opportunity to fully train, but we still play without fans in the stands. We play for those who stay at home. But with electricity, water supply is now difficult. The light goes out almost everywhere, for a long time. But even in such conditions, football is part of the life of society. This is the sentimental part, people need something like that,” said Mircea Lucescu on Radio Sport Total FM.