Former Shakhtar Donetsk defender Oleksandr Kucher has suggested why players score so often in their own net at Euro 2024, as well as his attitude to innovations at the tournament and why football stars did not shine in the group stage.
Oleksandr Kucher (photo: scdnipro1.com.ua)- Why are there so many auto-goals in the tournament? In the group stage, players sent the ball into their own net seven times. There are statistics that from Euro 1980 to Euro 2016 there were only nine such cases. Maybe the ball is different now?
- I don't know, I haven't seen the ball, to be honest. I didn't hold it with my hands, I didn't try it with my feet either, so I can't say (laughs). Everybody wants to play forward, they push, they play in the penalty area. There will always be some ricochets, slices, when there are blows, when they shoot hard. I didn't have time to take my foot away, the ball hit it and flew into the goal. This is a game in the penalty area, when it is in the penalty area, there will always be ricochets and auto-goals.
- Another interesting case is Lukaku's disallowed goals. He scored three, but none of them were counted. One of them was due to a hand that was detected by a special sensor in the ball. What do you think of such innovations, do they kill the beauty of football?
- I think so. Some ball, some sensor, has detected something. Does it detect where the player's hand is? (Laughs.) I'll say that when you watch a match, you want more goals scored, more chances at the goal, and you want open football, and this prevents that. But there is football without goals, when there is dynamics, compactness, and coaching schemes. You see how they play, how they block, close, how they come out of defense, how they work in transitional phases, whether they go from attack to defense or vice versa. There is dynamics, but no goals, so such matches are very interesting to watch.
- Also in the group stage, star players failed - Ronaldo, Kane, Bellingham, Griezmann. What prevented them from shining at the Euros?
- I think they will still play because they stayed at the Euros. Of course, others are preparing for them, know their weaknesses and strengths. When you play against such players, you prepare the team for them, tell them what they do, how they kick, how they play, where they run and where they open. The coaches also prepare, which makes it very difficult for them to play, they are always covered by two players, everyone is closing to prevent them from playing. Everyone understands that they are sharp, they can pass, they can shoot. That's why their realization is decreasing.
Andrii Pavlenko
