The former midfielder of “Shakhtar” Yevhen Konoplyanka shared that he had conflicting situations with the ex-coach of the “miners” Roberto De Zerbi.
“De Zerbi came and trusted the spot to another player. That’s normal. I came to him after injuries and said: ‘Let’s try, I want to compete’. But I still felt: it doesn’t matter if I play well or poorly, I will always be to blame. I remember coming on for 26 minutes against “Monaco”, we drew 2:2. I had a normal match, didn’t lose a single ball. But De Zerbi was telling me every second what I needed to do.
As a football player, I was competitively angry because I wasn’t playing, nobody even wanted to give me a chance. I was battling with him in training. He wanted to provoke me so I would say something sharp and leave the team. But I know all this, and I asked: ‘What do you want from me? Tell me to my face’. He was the kind of person who said everything to my face.
We spoke man to man, and I warned: ‘Just don’t get mad in front of everyone’. We had such confrontations on the field, which the guys witnessed… But in a professional context, they were confrontations. There wasn’t a moment when I asked him to shut up or anything. I did everything. If he went too far somewhere, I told him: ‘Let’s have a bit of respect’, but he wanted to provoke me somehow,” said Konoplyanka.