On Sunday, 5 May, in the match of the 27th round of the Ukrainian championship Dynamo Kyiv defeated Kolos Kovalivka with the score 5:0. The meeting took place in Kyiv at the Dynamo stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy. Here is the post-match press conference of the teams' coaches.
Oleksandr SHOVKOVSKY, Dynamo head coach:
- First of all, I congratulate everyone on the bright Easter holiday. It is a great holiday of hope and faith. And all of us believe and hope that after our Victory there will come such a long-awaited peace in our country and that we will live a new life. I think we all realise well that there will be no such life as it used to be.
I also thank our defenders and defencewomen for what they do, for the fact that thanks to them we have the opportunity to celebrate this holiday and for the fact that we have the opportunity to play football.
I won't say anything else, I will just answer your questions.
- In some matches your team transforms after the break. How can you explain it?
- Firstly, we do not go out on the field alone, we go out to play against the opponent, who also has some tactical ideas, who is also preparing for the match. And how exactly the opposing team decided to build their game, we can understand only after the match starts. It is difficult to make corrections and remarks during the game, but there is time during the break.
Secondly, players, going on the field, do a certain amount of work and over time they get tired and start to make mistakes. This should also be taken into account.
We realised that Kolos would build their game very tightly. I specifically went to the match of youth teams, because I realised that today our opponent will play in a similar way. We took into account some points, and some had to make some adjustments at halftime.
But, one way or another, we realised that the first goal would make adjustments to the game. And so it happened. We scored the first goal, after which we realised other chances. However, we had some good chances in the first half, but unfortunately, we did not manage the ball well in those situations.
Oleksandr Shovkovskiy. Photo — A. Popov- It seemed that after the break you changed the functionality of Yarmolenko and some other players. Was it really so?
- We prepare players for the match, we give them information about how to act in this or that situation depending on the location of the opponent. In general, there are four factors that should influence the players' actions - the position in relation to the goal, the position in relation to the ball, the position in relation to the opponents' players and the position in relation to our players. I can't say which of these comes first and which comes last: you have to be very good at all four of these things and get the positions right.
I don't tie players to roles. If in the course of the game they have to change their positions and "sit" in the supporting zone or even in defence, they have to work in such situations until the end. Of course, something succeeds, something doesn't, but when there is a result, the guys realise to a greater extent that such changes are paying off.
Sometimes the game is given, but sometimes it happens that not everything goes according to our plan, but, I repeat, we play against the opposing team, which also builds its own tactical schemes, has its own objectives for the game.
I always tell the guys before the game to enjoy every game moment, every action. It doesn't matter - in defence or in attack. It doesn't matter to us who will score - for us it is important only that this last point was set. And who will do it - goalkeeper, striker, midfielder, defender, it doesn't matter. The success of the team is what matters.
After the previous match Nazar Voloshin said that he saw a free Vladimir Shepelev, so he decided to give him the ball. And he scored a goal. He got emotions not only from scoring, but from the goal. It should always be like that. Then we will be united by one desire, one goal.
Aleksandr Pozdeev, acting head coach of Kolos:
- A very good opponent. And not a bad first half in our performance. But we were out of energy. We didn't have time to reorganise, we continued to play in a high block, we tried to play like that, but we couldn't keep up with the pace. At all! Neither in the middle of the field, nor in defence. That's what happened.
- How do you explain the beginning of the second half, when your team conceded three times in four minutes?
- When you are well prepared physically, you get tired emotionally later, and you can stay focused longer - your head works better. And when you are not ready for the pace.... The guys tried very hard, but we are not ready for such a pace, we are not ready to shift in it, to squeeze the opponent, not to let him accelerate attacks.
Of course, we had an option to play a low block today and try to just fight back. But we decided to take a risk. Yes, it's a bad score, it's unpleasant to lose like this. Especially when the team has a good first half. After it, it was hard to imagine that we would lose with the score 0:5. At the beginning of the second half we lost concentration and our physical condition was affected. It is difficult to assess when exactly we ran out of energy. We conceded the first goal after a ricochet, and then everything fell apart....
Oleksandr POPOV from the Dynamo Stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy
