On Sunday, November 10, in the match of the 13th round of the Ukrainian championship, Kyiv’s “Dynamo” defeated Zhytomyr’s “Polesie” with a score of 2:1. The match took place in Kyiv at the Dynamo stadium named after Valery Lobanovskyi. We present to your attention the post-match press conference of the head coach of the capital team, Oleksandr Shovkovskiy.
Oleksandr Shovkovskiy. Photo — Yu. Yuriev— I congratulate the “Dynamo” fans on a very important victory. We understood very well that our opponent had a week to prepare for this match, while we played two days after a tough match in which we were in the minority for almost 75 minutes and expended a lot of energy. And we didn’t have time for complete recovery. We only returned to Kyiv yesterday.
That’s why we anticipated such a scenario in today’s match. We prepared the team for a very difficult game. The priorities were team discipline and organization of play. And in the final minutes of the match, we felt that we were running out of strength.
— Evaluate the performance of the two central defenders — Dyachuk and Popov.
— You know, I will always defend my players. Even when I am dissatisfied with their actions on the football field. But that does not negate the fact that the footballers need to play more calmly, more confidently, and more reliably, making better decisions.
— “Dynamo” faced problems with creativity particularly when the team had a numerical advantage. Can we say that your team has trouble playing as the dominant side?
— We have problems with recovery in such a tight schedule and with such difficult logistics.
— Comment on the yellow card that Popov received.
— Football is a contact sport. Footballers must act in a certain way, but of course, they should be more cautious, if I can put it that way. Perhaps it was affected by the fact that Popov had missed a lot of time due to injury.
Yarmolenko also had an injury. He always says, “everything is fine, everything is fine,” but today at some point I saw that he was already “gasping for breath.” That’s why we switched to a three-defender formation.
When there is fatigue, when there is a load, we will never reach the level of our expectations — we will always fall to the level of our readiness, to how exactly the team makes decisions. Yes, I am constantly explaining to the footballers how to make the right decisions, but to realize this, you need to be fresh and have a certain level of physical fitness.
I am not saying that our team lacks this fitness. But we must take into account that we are constantly playing every two days. Let’s count. We played against “Obolon,” then against “Roma,” then against “Shakhtar,” then against “Vorskla,” then against “Inhulets,” and then again headed for a European Cup match against “Ferencváros.” And all these matches are every two or three days. Yes, perhaps this is a normal schedule. But only when the team has proper logistical conditions. Not when the team spends 18-20 hours on the road. That is why rotation occurs so often, and that is why I change players frequently to keep them fresher for the next match.
— If there are such logistical problems, wouldn't it be easier to play international home matches not in Germany, but in nearby countries — in Poland or Romania?
— I wasn’t dealing with this issue. Of course, the current logistics do not give us advantages. This is definite.
Oleksandr POPOV
