Midfielder of the Ukrainian national team Ruslan Malinovsky commented on his decision to move from the Italian Atalanta to the French Marseille and shared his impressions of the first two matches for this team.
Ruslan Malinovsky“This is a very long-awaited transfer. First of all, because I wanted to play more. Recently, at Atalanta, I did not receive enough match practice. I felt that Marseille could give it to me. It was clear that the club was very interested in the transfer. And I am very pleased that it was possible to implement it.
I'm glad to be here, because Marseille is a very big club in France. During these few days that I have been here, I have already managed to appreciate how high everything is at this club. High-quality organization of all football processes, excellent Velodrome stadium, incredible fans. There were more than 60 thousand of them at the home match. It's amazing. When a team has such support, it says a lot.
I also like the football that Marseille is currently showing. At the same time, the team is led by Igor Tudor, a very ambitious, young mentor who has already proven himself in Italy. And I saw interest in my transfer not only from the club, but also from the coach. All these factors were key in my desire to move here.
My first game was away, so not that exciting. I was required to help the team keep the result, which we did (Troyes - Marseille - 0:2). But in the home game (Marseille - Lorient - 3:1), when the stadium was full and the atmosphere was simply unreal, I was a little worried in the first half. In the second half, it turned out to be more calm and, as a result, played better. There were some minor mistakes, but I'm okay with that. Of course, in the next games you need to play more reliably, but for this you still need to get used to the team, because it is not so easy to immediately interact with partners and show fantastic football, but I think that I will quickly get involved and everything will be fine.
Yellow card in the first game for Marseille? At first I smiled because I did not understand what had happened. Then I saw the yellow one and it became a little funny to me what they give a yellow one for ... It's good that it's not red in the first game (smiles). I was the first on the ball, I knocked it out, I already slipped across the field and hit the player. This clearly did not draw a yellow card. But nothing terrible.
As for the specifics of the French championship, it is more focused on "physics", as for me. In the match with Lorient there was a very low block - they run out very well on counterattacks. In this regard, you should be very careful. Plus, in the games against Marseille, all opponents are very motivated. This is a big club and everyone wants to beat it, so they play much better than with other teams. But in general, the championship is still difficult to characterize, I only played two games, there are many more matches ahead, and only later I can draw conclusions about the difference between the championships of France and Italy," said Malinovsky.
