Mladen Bartulović: «Do you think they would have awarded such a penalty against Shakhtar?»

The head coach of Luhansk Zorya, Mladen Bartulović, commented on his team’s defeat to Donetsk Shakhtar (1:3) in yesterday’s match of the 13th round of the Ukrainian championship.

“Thank you to my team for their desire. We really wanted to earn points, but we lost the match. We understood that the opponent would start playing aggressively from the first half. We withstood that pressure.

However, at the beginning of the second half, we were unable to hold back Shakhtar. It was important to play carefully in the first 15 minutes. We couldn’t do it. We didn’t withstand the second half. Its beginning.

Plus, such a penalty…. If it had been given against their team, do you think they would have awarded that penalty?

As a result — our defeat. Shakhtar played better today than in the cup match against us. So it was harder for us today.

With the help of substitutions, we tried to strengthen the game. To bring in attacking players. Michina had a yellow card, so Voloshin came on. Gorbach was a bit out of gas, and we decided to bring in Kyryukhantsev. And then a second striker. We wanted to catch up. We watched Shakhtar’s recent meetings. They tend to slow down a bit in the last fifteen minutes due to a tight schedule. But we couldn’t score again,” — cites Bartulović’s words the official site of Zorya.