Dynamo Kyiv head coach Mircea Lucescu has confirmed that his team will play their home matches of the Conference League in Bucharest at the stadium of local Rapid this season and also explained this choice.
Mircea Lucescu. Photo - Y.Yuriev"The fact that we will play in Bucharest is already official. It was my initiative. For two reasons.
Firstly, last season the option of playing home European Cup matches in Poland proved to be very difficult, because the distances we had to cover were too great. But in the case of Bucharest, the distances are completely different. From Bucharest we will fly to Chisinau, and from there it will take 4 hours by bus to Odessa, and 9 hours to Kyiv.
Secondly, I bet on Rapid fans, who love football and will not miss the opportunity to attend our matches. Last season in Krakow we had no fans at all.
We have been playing without fans for a very long time - in Ukraine there are no fans at the stadiums now. So we must cling to any opportunity to play with the support of the stands. Finally, there are a lot of Ukrainians in Bucharest. And the stadium "Rapid" creates an extremely pleasant and favourable atmosphere for football. In addition, this is my home.
We will play all home matches of the Conference League in Bucharest. Including the matches of the group stage of the tournament, if we manage to get there," AS quoted Lucescu as saying.
