Yesterday, in the framework of the 19th round of the championship of Ukraine, Odessa "Chornomorets" played on its own field in a draw with "Shakhtar" Donetsk - 2:2. For your attention, the post-match comments of the head coaches of the teams.
Ihor Jovichevich, head coach of Shakhtar: "First of all, it was an expectedly difficult match. After the matches of the national teams, this always happens, because football players return in different degrees of readiness: some played for the national team both matches, some played one half or did not play at all. Until the players get back into the pace and rhythm of the game, the first match is always dangerous. Everyone is talking about this, and this is not demagoguery, but a simple fact. And there are matches where you drop points and we dropped points today.
But according to the game, I think that we did not close the score in the first half, when we had many more opportunities: in the first 20 minutes there were 4-5 moments that we closed in the best matches, knowing that in the second half somewhere fatigue will come to the fore and implementation will be suboptimal. We lacked the last shot, creativity and execution, especially, I will say it again, in the first half, although we did not control the game as much as we wanted, because it is difficult because Chornomorets is the only UPL team that offers one-on-one play all over the field, with high pressing. All the time one-on-one - it should be passing, dribbling. It's exhausting and you have to be fresh for a match like that. We didn't have enough freshness today to sustain that pace.
The opponent offers aggressive football, and in the first three games of the spring, "Chornomorets" showed what it is capable of. So here, many teams will still lose points, and Chornomorets is still competing for points.
But we have one point. They wanted to win here because of "I can't", although there were a little less moments in the second half than in the first. Let's draw conclusions, analyze, the team will rest - and there are still 12 finals for us. This is true because many teams are fighting for the top spot that everyone wants. But, okay, we're one point ahead and we'll get ready for Metalist.
And today is an uncomfortable match, I must admit. But, I say, not everyone plays like that. We go from match to match and think about how we will score points, which is very necessary for us, because we want to realize our dream."
Roman Hryhorchuk, head coach of Chornomorets: "It happened that we conceded in the first minute, but then we started to play the way we wanted from the beginning. It's good that it didn't upset us, and the team was very clear about what we agreed and worked on.
And I will say that today's game, both from the opponent's side and from our side, contained very, very serious football components. We are very happy with that because there were really signs of the real progressive football we want to play. Yes, there were mistakes, there was no complete picture, but I would call this game our achievement at the moment."
