Serhiy Kovalets: "As Yarmolenko said, the EPL players would not be able to play 60 matches if they traveled for 12-15 hours"

Ukrainian coach Serhiy Kovalets commented on Dynamo's 0-3 defeat of Lazio in the Europa League match.

- What was the root of the problem? After all, the outcome of this match was already decided in the first half.

- It was the first match. The players and coaches themselves said that the result could have been better, but the team defense allowed Lazio to score three times in the first half.

Dynamo created chances. If they had scored before halftime, there could have been intrigue even with this score. But still, the Serie A club is stronger than Dynamo. As well as in terms of transfer value - it's like 190 million against 80, so in this regard, Lazio won deservedly. We need to analyze it, there is a lot of information for the coach. Starting with the game, ending with logistics and getting to the match.

- You mentioned the defenders' mistakes. It was noticeable that they simply did not have time to insure each other when someone played ahead. Or was it the inexperience of Seballos, Mykhavko and Bilovar?

- You are right that this is the experience of this level of matches and this opponent. You have to come to this, make mistakes. Everyone blames the young defense players. But I believe that in all the goals, the team actions were not at a good level. We didn't fight for the rebound, we lost a lot of fights. Whoever loses neutral balls loses the ball.

The coaching staff emphasized this. If you don't take the ball away, especially in the middle of the field, you will have problems.

- Who can you single out individually?

- I would say that everyone tried. You know, there is skill and class. Everyone wanted to win, it was obvious, but the level of intensity of the opponent was higher. The players and coaching staff need to analyze why this happened. Although Shovkovskyi and Baroni were just debutants in the Europa League group stage, there is a coaching confrontation here. Baroni is still experienced and has coached Italian clubs, while Shovkovskyi has only been with Dynamo for the first time.

- You touched upon the issue of logistics. Do you mean the fact that the club decided to play in Germany rather than Poland?

- We are at war and have problems with logistics. Even Seballos' injury is a moment of non-recovery, a muscle injury. When you spend a lot of time in a sitting position. But I had a question that we could have played the match with Rukh, for example, in Lviv. To make it easier to get there and recover in Lviv. This is a debatable point.

If we say that it takes us 19 hours to get there, then we need to work on it - to have fewer kilometers and less time. Now we need to go back to Kyiv again. But there is a war going on - and maybe we shouldn't talk about these nuances, but you can't fool physiology anyway.

It was noticeable that the players had no emotions and no excitement. One thing is that Lazio played very well, the other is that the players were tired. As Yarmolenko said, the players of the Premier League would not be able to play 60 matches if they traveled for 12-15 hours.

Oleksiy Aleksandrov