The head coach of “Alexandria” Ruslan Rotan summed up yesterday’s match of his team with Cherkasy LNZ (1:1) in the 17th round of the Ukrainian championship.
“First of all, I want to say that we were also worried about Kaplienko after that episode (the LNZ player collapsed on the field and lost consciousness at the beginning of the second half — editor's note). The main thing is that everything is alright in the end. Thank God it ended that way.
But for us, this episode was a turning point. After it, we became a completely different team. What is this connected with? At the end of the year, it often happens that someone has tickets for a bicycle, for a train. Everyone has luggage and thought the job was done.
Up until the moment with Kaplienko, the game was completely under our control. There wasn’t even anything to worry about. And what happened to us afterwards... I think only a men's discussion will clarify everything. In my opinion, it all comes down to the usual suitcase mood.
We lost two points, that’s for sure. We shouldn’t have lost them; we really needed them. When we gather after the break, we will have something to discuss with the team. Because just like today, games can turn around. Football always punishes you when you don’t want to finish the match,” — said Rotan on the YouTube channel “UPL TV”.