Andriy Polunin, former midfielder of Dnipro and the Ukraine national team, spoke about the match of the 2nd round of the main round of the Europa League Hoffenheim vs Dynamo.
Andrei Polunin- "Hoffenheim", before the match with Kyivians lost 4 matches in a row in the German Bundesliga. Could it affect his game with Dynamo?
- No. We all know that the Bundesliga is one of the strongest championships in Europe. This has been the case for many years. And we understand perfectly well what the level of the UPL is now. In the summer we saw the game and the result of Polesya and Kryvbas, now Shakhtar and Dynamo. At the moment, the level of the Ukrainian Premier League and the German Bundesliga is incommensurable. Yes, there were successful seasons in Ukrainian soccer - Shakhtar won the UEFA Cup. "Dnipro" played in the final of the Europa League, but we understand what then happened after 2014. However, the presidents of our leading clubs have no way to add up an objective price for their leaders - their play in international matches does not correspond to the voiced price tag.
- At Hoffenheim, Czech player Hlozek scored two goals, hitting Buschan's goal in each of the halves. Whose fault is that?
- In soccer, to score goals, you need to create chances. The German team was much better at it. And the vice-champion of Ukraine could not play reliably in defense. In the first goal, after a flank pass to the center of the penalty area, Mykhavko rushed forward, leaving Glozhek behind. It was an individual mistake of the young central defender of Kyiv, he had to play personally with Glozhek.
What is interesting, five minutes later Popov's back passed to the visitors' penalty area, and only Buschan's exit from the gate helped to save his goal from a sure goal. In the second goal Glozhek and Kramaric beat six Dynamo Kyiv players in two. In our team, as usual, no one meets anyone. Voloshin is running backwards in this episode. Glozhek dragged the ball to the other team's penalty area, played on his tall center-forward and calmly shot from 20 meters. And again - he calmly handles the ball, looks at the goal and executes a shot into the corner of the goal.
I think that there is a global error in Ukrainian soccer - everyone plays somewhere, but no one is responsible for anything. This is some new trend has come to Ukrainian soccer.
At all times Ukrainian soccer was famous for its defenders, we played skillfully in defense of our gates. Let's remember Dynamo Kyiv in 1975 and 1986. Now I see that we have no quality defenders at all. Someone can start the attack, promote the attack. But we have no players who can play personally. I like Oleksandr Svatok, he doesn`t play much for the Ukrainian national team, but he switched off Kane and Lukaku when our national team faced England and Belgium. As for the play of Bondar, Matvienko and Popov, they are tactically illiterate. Mikhavko has no experience yet. So, this is a huge problem, which can be seen in every match.
- In this match, Dynamo had only one shot at Baumann's goal - Brazhko made a powerful shot from outside the penalty box in the opening game. In this component, Shakhtar and Dynamo play equally badly in Europe...
- We need to play actively in attack, to play at high speed. We do not have all this. Instead, we start every attack with the defenders and supporting midfielders passing the ball back to the goalkeeper. What is that? The same Buschan in the first half, he rolled the ball forward to Mykhailenko, and he made a mistake on the line of his penalty - it was a miracle that the hosts didn`t score a goal. Why play on a young guy who got the jitters? Well, he would have passed to Dubinchak on the left, and what would it have done?
Here I would like to tell you about one more novelty - from several sources I have heard that there is an unspoken rule in our national team and leading clubs to make substitutions after 65 minutes of the game. In the match Hoffenheim vs Dynamo (Kyiv) the substitutions were asked to be made at halftime, but they were not. The first substitution was only in the 70th minute of the game. We lose 0:1, then 0:2, and we do not change anyone. Is everyone satisfied with everything? I do not understand why such innovations.
- Will we soon see a ray of light in a dark kingdom, we are talking about the performance of our grands in European cups?
- I think that nothing will change in the near future. "Shakhtar" will play in London with "Arsenal" at the end of October, and "Dynamo" will go to visit "Roma". I believe that it will be even more difficult. Of course, the war affects all spheres of our life. Because of the long moves, players can not fully recover, our best clubs can not invite quality foreigners.
But we remember what 15 years ago foreigners played in our championship. "Dnipro, Metalist, Shakhtar and Dynamo could afford to buy quality players from abroad. Now the level of UPL has fallen very low. I used to work in "Neftyanik" and knew all the players of the first league. Some of them are now playing in the UPL, although before, they would not have had a chance to play in the elite division. So draw conclusions.
