Former Shakhtar Donetsk striker Andriy Vorobey shared his impressions of his former team's first match against French side Marseille (2-2) in the Europa League play-off for the right to reach the 1/8 finals of this tournament.
"Emotions of this meeting left ambiguous. The match was broken into episodes, in the end, I liked the result. But I also have a lot of questions for the players. As for the favourite of this pair - everything is 50%/50% as before. In brief about the visiting team, they did not surprise me in any way. Shakhtar have every chance to make it to the next round. That's in brief.
The goals happened due to individual mistakes of the defence players. Firstly, Azarov failed to counter his opponent on the flank, and then passed to Aubameyang.
Shakhtar's goals once again emphasised that the team's players have character. They kept their hands up and immediately went on the attack. You need to put pressure on the opponent all the time. Then there is a chance that he will make a mistake. That's what happened with Matvienko's goal. It was obvious that even when conceding goals, our guys were not worried.
I say sincerely - Marseille did not catch me by any means. They had no special constructive approach. Tactically, the team did not show any frills. Yes, there are individually strong players. Gennaro Gattuso is a novice coach, he is just at the beginning of his career. So far he lacks experience, he cannot reorganise the team's game in the course of the match. The game and Marseille's results in the French league only emphasise this.
Shakhtar's performance in this game was a bit chaotic. Maybe our guys adjusted to Marseille's scheme. I often saw that when Konoplya and Azarov ran forward, Stepanenko sat lower and was the third centre-back. We saw that Efim Konoplya several times went forward and was on the position of the nine, which we had not seen before. At those moments Bondarenko sat on the right defence. But we did not see any new ideas in attack. But this is only the first game.
Shakhtar and Marseille have absolutely equal chances of reaching the Europa League 1/8 finals. The away goals have not given an advantage for a long time. "Shakhtar play all matches away, and I think they are used to it. Yes, in Marseille the hosts will have a crazy support from their fans. It is clear that the players of this team will rush into the attack from the first minute. It will be important for Shakhtar's players to contain the opponent's initial onslaught. For about 15-20 minutes, the French will be running wild. And then we will find our moment and score, I hope. I saw their recent match with Metz, and they make mistakes at home. This is not the team not to pass them," Vorobey said.