Well-known journalist Mykola Neseniuk shared his impressions of the return match of the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League between Scottish Rangers and Dynamo Kyiv (0:2), which took place yesterday in Glasgow.
"According to all the forecasts, Dynamo Kyiv was supposed to confidently pass Rangers Glasgow in the Champions League qualifiers. It actually happened, but what a nerve-wracking experience for Dynamo fans! Of course, now that everything has ended well, we can say that it was planned. But why deceive ourselves? So why did the expected victory come in such a difficult struggle?
In my opinion, the reason was in the Dynamo players themselves, who, unfortunately, do not have the constant practice of intense play that the Scottish team offered them. Instead of calmly getting out from under the rather primitive pressure of the Rangers, the Kyiv team tried to play as reliably as possible and thus provoked their own mistakes. And it's good that the class of the opponent did not allow him to take advantage of these mistakes.
Only a few times did Dynamo manage to quickly get out from under the pressure in the first half of the game, and each time there was a sharpness at the other's goal. Of course, we can refer to the removal of the opponent's player, which, as we say, "broke the game". In fact, for a really good team, the absence of one player is not a problem. Remember the long-ago away game against Manchester City in the Europa League in the spring of 2011. Then, after a 2-0 home win, Kyiv spent almost the entire game away from home in the majority after being sent off by the hosts, who didn't seem to notice, continuing to attack. It was only by a miracle that Dynamo conceded only once and moved on.
Today's Rangers are no Manchester City, so Dynamo's task was not to fuss and control the game, looking for an opportunity to score. And here we should pay tribute to the team, which did not succumb to emotions and calmly played their game, giving the hosts only one and a half chances to score. And in the end, everything worked out!
What is the conclusion? Each such game provides Dynamo with more than a dozen matches of domestic competitions, which sometimes look like another sport. Unfortunately, only in matches against European teams can you gain experience and grow.
I really wanted Dynamo to be trained in eight matches of the new Champions League format this season and learn how to show their level in a game against serious opponents. There is no doubt that the team has this level. The only thing left to do is to keep this level in every game, overcoming the debutants' uncertainty, which was evident in the matches against Rangers. The opportunity for this will be next week in the game against Salzburg. But before that, we still have to play against Karpaty, where we can test our capabilities once again and try to prove our superiority without any nerves," Neseniuk wrote on his Facebook page.