The head coach of Donetsk “Shakhtar”, Marino Pushich, commenting on his team’s strained victory over Luhansk “Zarya” (1:0) in yesterday’s match of the Round of 16 of the Ukrainian Cup, complained about the condition of the pitch at the “Arena Lviv”, where this match took place.
“I am not entirely satisfied with the game, because there were several moments where we could have performed better, especially in ball possession. But I also saw many good moments from the team and believe we created enough chances from those moments to finish the game earlier. It’s not that easy when the match is in the middle of the week, but this is a cup match, and you need to have very good organization.
It’s not really good practice to play two matches in a row on one pitch (the day before, another match of the Round of 16 of Ukraine took place at “Arena Lviv” between “Rukh” and “Karpaty”, – ed.). This is not standard. The condition of the pitch was unsatisfactory. I know, because we had conducted several training sessions on it before. This is not beneficial for the lawn. Usually, the quality of the pitch here is good, it has been for quite a while, but today I saw the opposite. I have never seen matches being held on the same pitch two days in a row in my career, and I have been working as a coach for quite a long time,” – Pushich’s words are cited by the official website of “Shakhtar”.