Ihor Surkis: "We must be patient, not blame Rebrov for everything"

Dynamo Kyiv president Ihor Surkis is surprised by the barrage of criticism against Ukraine's head coach Serhiy Rebrov after two defeats in the Nations League (against Albania, 2:2, and the Czech Republic, 2:3).

- The Ukrainian national team played two matches in September and they were unsuccessful. I am convinced that neither the coaching staff nor the players have drawn any conclusions after Euro 2024. What is your position?

- I cannot say whether any conclusions have been drawn or not. I can say this: I waited, read all the criticism that the entire Ukrainian national team was subjected to after the defeats against Albania and the Czech Republic, and in many ways, I disagree. I'm not going to speculate whether the Ukrainian national team chose the right tactics or not. I am not a professional. Today we have armchair experts who evaluate the tactics of the Ukrainian national team, who played how.

First of all, to talk about this, you need to know the microclimate in the team. If there is a good microclimate in the team, as they say, "one for all and all for one," then results come. But I see that criticism has been directed at our head coach Serhiy Rebrov. I would like to emphasize that for almost two years the whole country wanted him to lead the national team and waited like manna for him to come and everything would happen at once: the national team would start winning and win the European Championship because we have the most talented young people and so on.

However, I have to go back to the roots, when Rebrov came to work as a young, unformed coach at Dynamo Kyiv. This is very important to emphasize. He immediately came to me and said that he wanted to create a structure so that the club would have one model of training players, from the youngest to the U-19 and U-21, which still existed at the time. That is, for everyone to develop according to one specific scheme. He managed to build this model, he invited foreign specialists to all age categories, to which I gave him my consent.

He succeeded completely, I want to tell you. And not because he won two Ukrainian championships in a row as a young coach, but because this structure that he created in those years is still working at Dynamo Kyiv today. I will briefly list the players who started to be brought up in this structure that Rebrov created. These are: Dubinchak, Bilovar, Dyachuk, Voloshyn, Vanat, Shaparenko, a young man who joined Dynamo at the age of 16, Brazhko, Mykolenko, who plays for Everton, Zabarny, who plays for Bournemouth, and many other guys who will forgive me for not listing them. And it worked. After that, Rebrov won gold medals and got into the Champions League with Ferencvaros, which could not even dream of getting into the Champions League. That is, now all the dogs have been unleashed on the head coach.

- But the coach is responsible for the result.

- He is responsible, but you can't criticize him just because they want to fire someone or make someone leave. I listened to the press conference yesterday and there was a question: "Are you going to leave or not?" It's ridiculous. Why? Because the president of the Ukrainian Football Association and Rebrov, who were elected only a year ago, said that they would build the national team vertical. So you have to be patient and wait.

Our "youth" team reached Euro 2025 ahead of schedule, the U-19 team under the leadership of Mykhaylenko got into the top four. These guys will replace our veterans in the future, and I am sure a strong team will be created. But we need to be patient and not blame Rebrov for everything. Today, our country is at war, and both Shakhtar and Dynamo players have no time to recover.

I am not going to be Rebrov's lawyer, but these talks about resignation... Then we will never achieve anything. Andriy Shevchenko was right when he said that the task was to get to the World Cup. Whether through the League of Nations or qualification, it doesn't matter. I also had a difficult relationship with Rebrov, but he is a professional. Just as he was a professional football player, he is a professional coach, just like Andriy Shevchenko. But the UAF president correctly said that unsuccessful results at the start of the Nations League will not change our strategy. There is a well-thought-out strategy, let's be patient and entrust this responsibility to professionals, and then ask them. Rebrov made it to the European Championship and everyone was ready to carry him in their arms. We lost to the Romanians, but was it only the head coach who lost to the Romanians? The team lost.

- Igor Mikhailovich, you have been in football for 50 years, you understand perfectly well how responsibility is shared between the coach and the players. Is that how much responsibility the players have in this whole story?

- The players of the Ukrainian national team go out on the field to play for their country, first and foremost, not for the coach. There should be a single mechanism. You and I do not understand what is happening in the national team. This is what experts should understand, not amateurs who are now criticizing and saying that Rebrov should go.

You understand perfectly well who should be invited to the national team today, who is the best coach who can lead the national team today? I emphasize that Rebrov is an experienced coach. Wherever he has been, he has achieved results, you can't disagree with that, can you? Yes, this is a new job for him - not to be constantly in the training process. I know Rebrov, he will make the right choice and in October our national team will play completely differently. I have no questions about the dedication of the players in the match against the Czech Republic, but there were a lot of mistakes. Can you tell me if Dynamo could have beaten Salzburg? But we didn't score, and they did and moved on. Could we have imagined that we would beat Partizan 9-2?

- Ihor Mykhailovych, I have some questions for the players.

- Here, there should be questions for the players. And every player who went out on the football field should not hide behind Shevchenko, Rebrov and other coaches, but should sit down, think and answer the question: "Why did I play like that?". They have to analyze the fact that Rebrov sets the tactics, and they don't execute them. Not just one coach is to blame here. The coach must ask the players why they did not fulfill the task.

- Do you, as the club president, feel any guilt? Did you say that all the players are superstars? This is a question for all team presidents.

- As the club president, I joked that Shaparenko is worth 300 million because someone from Shakhtar Donetsk said that Sudakov was worth 150 million. But neither of them is worth that kind of money. All intelligent people understand that I was joking, and the armchair journalists wrote that one is worth 300 million and the other 150 million. But I made a joke, perhaps inappropriately.

Yes, everyone has a certain price. As for Shaparenko, I can say that there was an offer from Besiktas. The president of Besiktas called me and asked if I was ready to sell Shaparenko. First of all, I asked Shaparenko and he told me that he did not want to go to Turkey. That was it, there were no more offers for Shaparenko. If Shaparenko sees himself in one of the top 5 championships, then he must progress and figure it out.

Does Yarmolenko need to figure himself out? He helps the young ones. I can see this from his work at Dynamo, how he sets up young guys. Now we have talented Pikhalonok and Rubchynskyi. Pikhalonok is a well-established footballer with character and skill. He helps our team a lot. The same Kabaev has revealed himself with renewed vigor. Voloshyn plays for the youth team and scores. And tomorrow he may be in the main national team. There are good guys.

My advice is that everyone needs to get together - the team presidents, Rebrov, and the national teams - and set them up. I have the impression that we have been qualifying for the European Championships and the World Cup every time. I'm not Rebrov's lawyer, but I want to emphasize that he is a professional who is dedicated to football. Rebrov was working in the UAE, he was offered a new contract, but he returned to the Ukrainian national team. This shows that he is a patriot and wants to do what he can for the Ukrainian national team to be in the lead. Be patient, let's wait.