Dynamo U-19 head coach Ihor Kostiuk shared his emotions after the White and Blues youth team received the 2023/2024 season champions' awards at the Football House in Kyiv.
- How important are such emotions, which you experienced together with your players, in football life?
- As you can imagine, the emotions have calmed down a bit, the new championship has already started, and we have won our first victory. But, of course, there should be a reward for the team, because we deserved it last season and became champions. Medals, the cup - they caught up with us. Of course, the emotions were not the same as after the final game, when we realized that we had become champions, but the reward should always find its owner.
- Andriy Shevchenko, the UAF president, gave parting words to the players. Will they listen to Andriy Mykolayovych's words?
- We talk to them a lot. And what Andriy Mykolayovych said - that they should set goals and objectives for themselves every day, for the long term - is very correct. Only they understand and decide their own destiny, and the efforts they make will determine the results.
- Dynamo has already started the new season by demonstrating its character and defeating Oleksandriya 2-0 in a difficult match. How do you assess the readiness of your players?
- We had a good training camp and took part in a tournament in the Czech Republic, eventually winning it. But we went to Oleksandriia with only 14 players, as many key players were ill. We showed character, played for 90 minutes in difficult conditions, there were two alarms, it was raining, which made it impossible to pass the ball. But we managed to adjust and won, even though it was hard.
- The UEFA Youth League is ahead. Does the team still have room to improve?
- Of course, now we will get the game tone. Through games we will approach the UEFA Youth League. And we went to the Czech Republic for the tournament in order to compete with teams with European experience and authority, because this is a completely different level. Therefore, I believe that this tournament was useful for us in terms of preparing for the UEFA Youth League.