Igor Tsyganik: "Why did Akhmetov fire van Leeuwen? There is a wild conflict within the team"

Ihor Tsyhanik, a 1+1 media employee, spoke about the reasons for Patrick van Leeuwen's dismissal as Shakhtar's coach.

"Nowadays, all the issues and decisions regarding the coach are made by one person - the club's president Rinat Akhmetov. He made the decision to sack van Leeuwen immediately after the match against Antwerp.

Why was this decision made? The bottom line is that Shakhtar's performance was getting worse and worse with each successive match. There was a wild conflict within the team. The team did not accept van Leeuwen after Jovicevic, who built his relationship with the players in a friendly atmosphere and manner. And then came the dictator van Leeuwen.

The players themselves are overestimating themselves somewhere, because when they said they needed to run here, improve there and give more intensity, some of the players did not want to do it. I don't want to say that the team "melted" van Leeuwen, no. However, they did not have the same desire to play under van Leeuwen as they did under Jovicevic," said Ciganik on the Ciganik Live programme.