Head coach of Pakhtakor Tashkent Maxim Shatskikh in his interview to Dynamo.kiev.ua summed up the results of today's control match with his former club, Dynamo Kyiv (1:0), at the training camp in Turkey.
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Maxim Shatskikh- What do you think of the current Dynamo, based on this match?
- In principle, the team, of course, is young. Although there are some veterans, who have remained from the old times, the line-ups. This Dynamo have high speed. You can see that everyone is trying very hard to combine. But everything takes time. In particular, the coach managed to give the players all their ideas.
In general, I think the game turned out quite interesting. Both teams showed good speed. But Dynamo and Pakhtakor had a different game. We are at the end of training camps, and we played 90 minutes with one squad, and our rival in the second half put on a new squad.
- Do you know many of this Dynamo squad at all? Well, of course, I do not ask about Sidorchuk and Garmash.
- Almost everyone, as the majority of the guys from this Dynamo squad were at the club academy. Those Dubinchak, Vivcharenko, Tsarenko, Popov. And many others.
- Who did you particularly like from Dynamo today?
- It is hard to single out just one. After all, the game was dominated by team actions, and no clear leader caught my eye.
- Pakhtakor led the game in the first half. Was that the plan?
- We never adjust to anybody. We play first number one in the championship, as well as in training camps. Maybe we managed to play better in the second half, but it`s strange that the pitch was watered before the game and not at half-time. It affected the game.
- 1-0 over Dynamo Kyiv - something inside you tickles from such a result? Even if we are talking about a sparring.
- I`m personally twice or even three times more pleased with this victory than any other one. But I did not set the team up for a special match, did not tell them that they need to win by hook or by crook or something like that. Absolutely not. We had a very short setup for the game, reminded the guys the key things and came out to play. There was never any pumping about the fact that we must win.
But, of course, everyone was pleased to finish the match with such a result. After all, Kyiv Dynamo is the benchmark of Ukrainian football. Just as Pakhtakor is the benchmark of Uzbek football. It is pleasant. And most importantly, against such an opponent we saw what we wanted to see from the guys, from the team. We saw how we endure, how we move and in what direction.
- Our commentator said during the match that Pakhtakor refused to play against Russian teams at this training camp. Is it really so?
- Of course! It is not even a question! That was our original plan from the start - neither to play with Russian teams, nor to live together. Our club management is well aware and fully shares and supports my personal position, as well as the position of the coaching staff on this war against Ukraine, this absolute nastiness.
Alexander POPOV
