Popular journalist Ihor Tsyganik told the story of how Ilya Zabarnyi got into the Dynamo first team thanks to Mircea Lucescu.
- We were sitting with Ihor Surkis, and Lucescu took over the team then. And he said that he was going to call Lucescu to tell him that he was negotiating a defender from Besiktas, a Brazilian, and they had already agreed. He leaves and then comes back as if in shock. Lucescu told him: 'Cancel the negotiations, it's too much money for this player, we have our own centre-back'. I ask: who? He answers: Zabarnyi.
Surkis leans over to me and says: "Igor, maybe he's melting us down?" Then the Champions League qualifiers, we were playing AZ (2-0), someone got injured, Zabarnyi came on and played on.
This is the coach's feeling, in such a situation, when it is necessary to qualify for the Champions League, with huge money at stake, he refuses an experienced legionnaire and says he will play a young one," Tsyganik said on his YouTube channel.