Dynamo Kyiv president Igor Surkis shared his impressions of yesterday\'s match against Donetsk Shakhtar (1:1) in the 11th round of the Ukrainian championship on the YouTube channel "ProFootball Digital".
Igor Surkis— 1:1 — this is not a victory. We were losing, but Karavaev came on very well and scored a good goal. In terms of play, we did not concede. Overall, all the battles are ahead. Any result of today’s match would not have decided anything. We need to play from the first to the last round.
— Before this match, Shakhtar lagged behind Dynamo by six points. Did you set a goal for yourself internally to at least maintain this distance?
— There was no task to play for a draw; the task was to win. And Shakhtar wanted to win too. Well, it turned out that it was a draw. That’s football.
— What were your thoughts before the red card for Shakhtar's player when the score was 0:1 on the scoreboard?
— Shakhtar had more chances in the first half. In the second half, they scored a rather illogical goal. It seems Shakhtar could have scored in the first half. Well, we could have scored too: Voloshin had to do it, to equalize the score.
Overall, the game was even. We are not to blame for the fact that a Shakhtar player was sent off. They can sort that out themselves.
— How do you feel about the refereeing in general?
— I believe the referee officiated as he should have. He showed yellow cards to both us and Shakhtar. The struggle between Dynamo and Shakhtar will always be like this, even if it's a friendly match.
— What do you think about the upper part of the championship table now?
— Oleksandriya is performing very well. Rotan has instilled a very good style in the team, and they are playing differently compared to last season. I like Oleksandriya, Kryvbas, and Polissya very much. Yes, the championship is now weaker than it was before. The war. The war will end, and I think everything will fall into place.
— I would like to return to the match with Roma. When did you find out that this would be the lineup for Dynamo for that game, that there would be such rotation?
— I hoped that we would have a more combat-ready lineup. But that’s the coach's decision and I trust him. He chose this lineup. All the players who are in our squad receive their salaries on time: they should be ready to go onto the field at any moment and prove that they are not just sitting “for appearances.” The guys who played against Roma came on, and I hope that this match gave them confidence. I have the impression that if Mykhailenko and Rubchynskyi had played today, they would not have spoiled the picture.
We had a tragedy with Shaparenko 4-5 hours before the match. He cut his shoulder with glass doors. He was opening the door, and the glass fell on him. That’s why he didn’t play today. With him, we would have been more creative in the midfield. But I liked the mood of the guys who took to the field today. They played as they should.
Only yesterday at two o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at our base after the match with Roma. And all this time the guys were recovering. So it's hard. But we should not complain; everyone is in such conditions now. I hope that in the midweek cup match against Vorskla the team will play the football we expect from it. Then we play on November 3, after which we have another away match in the Europa League. It will take us about 20 hours to get to Hamburg. These are the realities.
— What’s to be done with the goals in the Europa League?
— We need to concentrate. Among our opponents, there are teams that we should beat and accumulate points.
Text transcription — Dynamo.kiev.ua, mandatory hyperlink required when using the material!
