Mircea Lucescu: "The youngsters we transferred to the first team still do not meet the standards of Dynamo Kyiv"

Head coach of Dynamo Kyiv Mircea Lucescu spoke about his team's current problems and commented on the current war situation in an interview with Romanian newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor.

- How are things in Ukraine?

- It's hard. Very hard. I continue to live at the Dynamo club base outside the city, we train, but the matches, as before, are held without spectators..... I am in Kyiv only at games and on some business.

It was a hard situation, but I could not turn round and leave. I had a contract - that's first of all. And, secondly, I really did not want to show weakness and did not want to be thought that I gave up. Therefore, I stayed to help the club, I was honest with Dynamo Kyiv.

- You have a respectable age. Do you think someone would point a finger at you if you said: "There is a war here, I cannot continue to work"?

- Yes, I have that age, but I didn't want to leave anyone in doubt about my attitude. Some would think that after a coaching career of more than 40 years one would give up. But that's not my case - no way! So I did not and do not take my age into account. When the war started in Crimea and Donbass, I did not leave Shakhtar Donetsk either.

- Apart from the fact that there is a war in the country, what other problems are there in the sporting context?

- 11 experienced players left our team, and in their place came the pupils of the club's Academy. We have not made any acquisitions, like, for example, Dnipro-1. And those young players, whom we transferred to the adult team, still do not meet the standards of Kyiv Dynamo. We are now the club with the largest number of players from the club Academy in Ukraine.

We will see what will happen. So far, our advantage in the Ukrainian championship is that we have three matches in reserve.

- How is life in Kyiv in general now?

- The situation has calmed down a bit. There have been no attacks by missiles and drones for a long time. Now all the events of the war are taking place near the borders of Ukraine, and for some reason the attention of the whole world is focused on the situation in Israel. But in any case, the situation and chaos in Kiev has subsided. I would even say it looks like normal life. Everything is open, people are on the streets.

But it only seems that the war is not felt. All people's thoughts are still with those at the front. And about how long this calm in Kiev will last. Besides, the silence that is at matches is terrible in itself and reminds you of everything all the time. You close your eyes and all the horrors committed, all the atrocities go through your head. So it's complicated.

- How's your health?

- If I'm here at my post, it means I'm still working. And how long that lasts... Let the world know that I'm not giving up, I'll keep training as long as I can.

Translation and adaptation - Alexander POPOV, Dynamo.kiev.ua