— Looking at the league table, everyone understood the importance of this game for the Donetsk team. What was missing to win against Dynamo?
— I think everyone saw that we outplayed Dynamo. It was the same in the first half and at the beginning of the second. Of course, after Kryskiv’s sending off, everything changed. We needed to make some adjustments and maintain the score that was favorable for us. However, Dynamo has great players. Karavaev came on as a substitute and scored a goal. Moreover, it was a great goal. I’ll tell you, when he was coming on as a substitute, I had a thought that he could score against us.
— The first half of the match was not very eventful...
— Yes, there weren’t many bright moments. However, we conducted good attacks. I will mention Zubkov's long-range shot that hit the crossbar. Again, Sashko could have easily rolled the ball to me in the opponent's penalty area. We had our approaches.
— Who actually scored the goal for you — Bondarenko or Bondar?
— I didn’t really see. Whether the ball crossed the goal line after the first shot or only after the second shot.
— Was Kryskiv’s sending off justified?
— I watched the video of this episode already in the locker room — probably so. During the match, I had a different point of view; perhaps I thought it was quite a harsh decision by the referee. We have a VAR system, so it seems to me that they could have initially given him a yellow card and then reviewed the episode.
— This week both Shakhtar and Dynamo played their matches in the European Cups. Did these matches affect the quality of play in the main match of the first round of the UPL?
— We recovered well; we had enough time to prepare for the clasico. As for the Dynamo players, I do not know. They just returned to the capital of Ukraine yesterday.
— Is there a big disappointment in the locker room over the draw?
— Of course. It’s sad to concede a goal at the end of the match.
— What do the miners need to eliminate the six-point gap from Dynamo?
— Our team needs to win all the games, and the Dynamo players need to lose them all.
Yukhym Konoplya. Photo: shakhtar.com
