On Friday, 28 April, in an away match of the 23rd round of the Ukrainian championship Dynamo Kyiv defeated Metalist Kharkiv 3-1. The match took place in Uzhgorod at the Avangard stadium. The post-match press conference of the teams' head coaches is to your attention.
Oleksandr SHOVKOVSKY, acting head coach of Dynamo:
- Good day! I hope it will be a good day for the whole Ukraine. You all know what happened tonight (another massive rocket attack on Ukraine by the Russians, - editor's note). Football, thank God, continues, but we are all well aware that the most precious thing for us will be our main Victory, which we are all waiting for and wishing for so much.
- Share your impressions of your first match as a coach and compare today's excitement with the one you had when you took to the pitch as a player?
- As for the second part of the question, it is a completely different emotion. When you go out on the field as a football player, you are only responsible for your game, for your mindset. But with some experience, you understand how you can have an impact on the team, on your partners. At the same time, you must have confidence in yourself. In principle, you should have the same confidence when you are on the coaching bench.
But first of all I want to say that we have a head coach. Unfortunately, it just so happens that he has health problems at the moment. We all wish him a speedy recovery. We want the operation to go without any complications.
As for my first experience on the coaching bench as a coach, we were constantly in touch with our head coach. At the same time, there is a system of training that does not change. And it is impossible to change it. So everything went according to plan.
- Are you satisfied with the game of the team?
- Everything was good, normal. We controlled the game, but not everything worked. We had chances in the first half that we should have realized. We understood what our opponent would play with. Something of it worked for Metalist - we conceded a few sharp attacks on our own goal.
Then we scored two goals and everything seemed to be OK. But an unfortunate mistake, conceded goal - and the team somehow got confused. We will examine why it happened. Everyone makes mistakes. The problem is not that someone made a mistake: the problem is that the guys got confused. After conceding the goal, our performance started to feel a bit muddled, and it lasted till the third goal.
- How helpful was the suspension on the opposing team?
- You saw that from the very beginning of the match we actively interfered with Metalist playing the ball. And when we had the numerical advantage, it became much easier. We pressed the opponent against his goal and tried to speed up the game to limit their time, space and force them to make more mistakes. In principle, we succeeded.
But you have to show individual skill everywhere, in every area - defence, attacking, passing. More than once I told the boys that we will not be able to score if we don't score. And today, the first goal was scored thanks to long-range shots. And our second and third goals resulted from good combinations.
Perica Ognjenovic, Metalist actinghead coach:
- Basically, "Dynamo" had the advantage in the game today. But we planned it that way, we were waiting for our chances in counterattacks. But the suspension changed everything.
We always aspire to win. This is the result the team wanted today, but again, after the suspension we had a very hard time, because the rivals were Dynamo Kyiv.
- It seemed that the second goal scored by Dynamo somehow very easily?
- When you concede first, you start to take risks. So we did with the score 0-1. But when one team takes a risk, the other one can take an opportunity to build on their success. Especially if this team is Dynamo Kyiv.
Alexander POPOV from Avangard Stadium
