On Monday, 11 December, in the match of the 17th round of the Ukrainian championship Dynamo Kyiv with the score 2:0 defeated another capital team, Obolon. The meeting took place in Kyiv at the Dynamo stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy. Here is the post-match press conference of the head coaches of the teams.
Oleksandr SHOVKOVSKY, Dynamo head coach:
- Only seven minutes have passed since the match ended and you became a full-fledged head coach of Dynamo. What happened during this time?
- It's been seven minutes. (Smiles). We gathered after the end of the match, the club president came to the team and said a few words. After that I also talked to the guys.
In principle, there was nothing like that. I congratulated the guys on the victory and thanked them for the period of time during which I worked with them as acting head coach. I wished them to have a fruitful holiday, wished health to their relatives, friends and loved ones, wished that everyone was healthy, that peace came to our country as soon as possible, that we ended this war and ended, of course, with our victory.
Besides, I voiced to the team those moments that helped us to get these four victories in the last four matches - desire, understanding, responsible attitude both to the training process and to ourselves, as well as the motivation with which they worked at trainings and in matches.
- When will Dynamo come out of the holiday and where will the off-season training take place?
- The team will be on holiday for almost a month, but it doesn't mean that during this time the team won't do anything. All the guys have received individual assignments, and in the second half of the holiday they will prepare themselves, so that by the beginning of the training process they will not have to start from scratch.
After the holiday the team will gather on 12 January, two groups will undergo medical examination. The first week we will train in Kyiv, then we will go to the training camp in Turkey.
- For what term did you sign a contract with Dynamo?
- We haven`t even had time to discuss it yet.
- Will Dynamo be reinforced during the upcoming off-season?
- We have some developments, but it's too early to talk about something.
- Should we expect any changes in the coaching staff?
- Serhiy Fedorov, who recently worked in the coaching staff of Dynamo U-19, will join us.
- What prevented you from playing today's match more calmly?
- I have recently warned the team that we have very difficult matches with Obolon, it is the Kyiv derby. Therefore, the guys go on the field especially motivated. And the fact that this is the last match of the year also affects. We set the team up for a tough game, we explained what the opponent plays at the expense of, what his strengths are. We should have opened the scoring in the first half, we had chances, but we did not realise them. After that we started to get a bit nervous, we lacked patience. We will work on it - we need to play more calmly, confidently, not afraid to take the initiative and show ourselves. But we also need to understand the game, understand where we have an advantage and how to use it.
In a short period of time it is difficult to make significant changes in the game, so I tried more to make changes in psychological terms, so that the guys came out of the emotional crisis they were in. But, of course, we changed the game a little bit at a time. If we would have realised at least one of our chances in the first half, I'm sure the game would have been much calmer.
Valeriy IVASHCHENKO, Obolon head coach:
- Dynamic, good game, but, of course, it was spoilt for us by the suspension at the beginning of the game. In the course of the match we had to rebuild, and we made adjustments to the game. But the guys were good in terms of their commitment and intensity, despite all the moments that were in the game today.
- Your team played quite tough today. Was that your set-up for the match?
- Why tough? Football is not a ballet. You have seen that Dynamo players played hard at times. This is football. We did not even argue about the first red card, there are no questions there. But in the episode with the first goal in our goal there was a foul on Prokopenko, it is perfectly visible on the video replays. But the referees in this situation for some reason started to look at the VAR, whether there was offside, and did not even pay attention to the foul.
We are all emotional people, and after that somewhere the guys got angry. This is also a normal thing for football.
- What is the reason for such an abundance of cards in today's match?
- There is heat, there is a game. In those moments, when in England they let you play, in our country it is interpreted as a foul, which requires a yellow card. I do not know what this has to do with, we should ask questions to those who give out these cards.
In addition, for some reason the interpretation differs from one side to another. I don`t know what it has to do with it either.
- Your player Sukhanov said after the cup match with Dynamo that the set-up for the game lasted 15 minutes. How long was the set-up for today's match?
- In this case even 15 minutes is a lot. We have played enough matches with Dynamo this season, we have learnt the opponent well. Besides, the guys don`t need to be motivated for matches with opponents of such level, they know everything themselves. Yes, there were not easy conditions for preparation for this match, but we got out of the situation as best we could. Again, I have no questions to the team: even in these weather conditions, despite the game in the minority the guys tried to play football.
Oleksandr POPOV from the Dynamo Stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy